DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Hello Al-

Here in SoCal, USA, it is difficult to get companies to pay for Simulation, at least my customers anyway. The software is very expensive and requires extensive($)training .

Devon Sowell
http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

Hi Al,

The hard thing with FEA is that it is like CAD.  There are many different levels. So, depending on the perspective, we’ll get answers all over the place on cost, who should be doing it, where it should be done, etc.

If the problem is complex or highly critical, I’d agree you definitely want the highly trained analyst doing the work with the top of the line tools.

However, there are many common FEA problems that can easily be done by most of the brighter CAD people with little training or with an analyst guiding the work.  If you have to pass the work off to an analyst every time, there is a lag.  Its easy to see why being able to add a few loads and constraints and see the stress in just a few minutes would be attractive for either speeding up the design process or doing new validation you couldn’t do before.

I don’t think cost is as big of an issue.  Yes, FEA costs but there are a range of tools out there to fit different needs at different costs.  I also don’t think ease of use is a problem (Al, did you try Solid Edge Simulation? Don’t even read the manual - just go do it.  I bet you have no more problem than creating and dimensioning a block). Or go try CFDDesign.  I don’t do CFD but certainly don’t have any problem running their software.

I do agree with Devon on the training. I think we are getting to the point where the software is so easy to use that a designer can get himself into problems by not properly interpreting the results.  If I think there is a challenge for CAD/FEA vendors and customers, its making sure the designer has the right resources to understand the analysis results he/she is looking at.
Mark

P.S. Al knows this but for everyone else, I work for Siemens PLM with Solid Edge Simulation.

Al, my wife hates this topic… I can bore a dinner party to tears talking about it for hours.

I spent a decade at CFdesign promoting design-level, “upfront CAE.” We primarily sought out engineers who wanted to do CAE and could also CAD up their car on the weekend for fun. More recently, my time at SpaceClaim has been focused more on PhD analyst types driving high-end Buck Rogers codes.

So, with a good view of both, I can say that there barriers to adoption (or profit) for both. The barriers are totally different for each group, though.

And… I really don’t see price or ease-of-use as a major barrier for either.

On the upfront side, many companies fail to do some basic things… like “Add an FEA milestone somewhere on the far left side of the project GANTT chart.” Unless you happen to find a young buck with a self-driven fascination with CAE on the team, anything not required on the GANTT chart will lose out when crunch time hits.

On the expert side, individual adoption isn’t a problem at all. These guys define themselves as CAE Analysts. They jump in the shower and say, “Today is the day! Fluent 25.2.5 is getting released!” Corporate adoption in terms of paying good attention to the results of this CAE is often lacking. The problem here comes when the analysts are relegated to the tail end of a development process (after all CAD models have been fully detailed and tooling has been cut). Enough go-rounds like that, and no one in the company pays much attention to what those “far out scientist guys” are doing.

Rant over.
Jeff

PS: I work for SpaceClaim, but I’ve collected a lot more ideas for overcoming typical CAE adoption barriers here:
http://lifeupfront.com

Hello Al,

definitely good topic. Demand and utilize of results from analysis of stress, kinematics, dynamics etc. depends on R&D process in company and will be different in aerospace or e.g. EHT.
This also reminds me end of 90’s when I created two heads demo in I-DEAS Master(for better understanding of concurrent engineering) for simple 4 bar linkage mechanism with complete analysis ending with shape optimization (in FEM) on follower link. For audience the effect was always amazing but the reality after implementation at customer was different and mostly sad. Thereby I want to underscore the fact mentioned here by Jeff and I agree that barrier is not the price or easy of use.

- Vladimir

I agree with Mark’s last paragraph.  Users can get VERY wrong results if they do not understand the basic concepts of FEA and other analysis.  My college FEA professor taught us that we should already know the outcome BEFORE we do the analysis.  The analysis only serves to confirm and deepen your estimate.

So while I like to see CAD compaines producing these easy to adopt simulation packages they also need to provide ways to prevent users from making DUMB and possibly costly (and dangerous?) mistakes.

I agree with Al’s point above.  Although price is probably a barrier to some, I believe the biggest barrier is a lack of education and training.

CAD and CAE are design and engineering tools. In the United States, I believe most Mechanical Engineering programs are excellent at teaching design and engineering theory, but they are terribly deficient at teaching future Mechanical Engineers how to apply the theory through the use of these tools (I experienced this first hand with the Mechanical Engineers I worked with and whom I supported on the phone). Most of these Mechanical Engineering programs require one basic design class where the students are introduced to 2D and 3D CAD. They are then expected to apply their very limited modeling/drafting knowledge in many other classes. (In my experience, it usually takes a person one to two years of extensive training and practice to gain the skill to be able to create almost any type of model). Therefore, many U.S. mechanical engineering students don’t even gain a very solid foundation in modeling. On top of that, many colleges and universities provide FEA analysis classes, but these classes are usually not required for graduation. So, with few exceptions, many United States BSME graduates are sent into the work force with very little modeling knowledge and usually no analysis knowledge. The only exception I have seen to this in the U.S. is in the Mechanical Engineering Technology programs. These students don’t receive as much theory education, but are required to complete a number of CAD classes and usually at least one FEA analysis class.

Most of the MEs I have encountered would have no problem using the modern analysis software. They already know the theory, they just need the training.

Someone wrote, “If I think there is a challenge for CAD/FEA vendors and customers, its making sure the designer has the right resources to understand the analysis results he/she is looking at…” 

That resource is called a mechanical engineering degree, and it is not the business of the software vendor to ensure that you have one.  If you cannot define the von Mises stress, or know when it is an appropriate failure criterion (often not for plastics), you have no business doing FEA.  Period. 

“A gut feeling tells me that in Europe, the awareness and background of designers and engineers gives them a better start at using these tools”...

Interchange America with Europe in that statement and ask yourself if it now sounds elitist.  The original statement certainly does on this side of the pond.  :0

(Craig) I am on the U.S. side of the pond as well.  I don’t think Al’s statement is elitist.  I think it is probably very accurate.  I can’t speak for the European Mechanical Engineering programs.  However, when I provided SolidWorks VAR tech support for a number of years, I worked with many U.S. trained mechanical engineers.  I also considered becoming an ME and explored many of the University/College programs (I ultimately decided I was only interested in about 10% of the ME jobs and decided to study computer science and engineering technology).  What I discovered is the following:

1)  Most U.S. Mechanical Engineering programs beat the theory to death, but they don’t really teach the students to use the computer tools to implement the theory (They give them a cursory introduction).  So, Al is correct.  If they take the time to teach them the computer tools in European University, then they definitely have a leg up.
2)  An ME degree may give you the knowledge behind CAE/analysis, but it does not ensure you can apply it with computer tools.  I encountered many MEs that were/are computer and software challenged (No amount of training would help).  They were unable to apply their knowledge.
3)  I also encountered a number people who were not mechanical engineers who were intelligent enough to learn the analysis theory and were able to accurately apply it using the software tools.
4)  I think the METs (Mechanical Engineering Technologists/Applied Mechanical Engineers) are, in many ways, better prepared to conduct CAE than the MEs because they are not only taught enough theory, but they are better trained in the CAD/CAE tools (except maybe CFD).

I believe it is more elitist to think you need an ME degree to do any kind of analysis.  This may be true for CFD and some of the more complex FEA analyses, but in my experience, that is just not true for most other CAE/analysis.

It wasn’t meant as an elitist statement - its just a gut feeling I’ve developed over the last ten plus years of talking to those using CAD on both sides of the pond. As MC’s statement above reflects, there’s a difference in the education strategies between Europe and the US - one that lends itself to use of these tools is more prevalent in Europe, rather than the US. That’s all I stated.

I’d also agree with MC that you don’t need a mechanical engineering degree to operate these tools - what you do need is the ability to translate between your knowledge of your product, its performance and limitations as the language used in your CAE system.