CAE Engineering Systems - Computer-Aided Engineering

Computer-Aided Engineering systems are software designed to calculate, analyze and simulate physical processes in solving engineering problems. These systems are in demand in aircraft engineering, rocket engineering, mechanical engineering, power, the industry of new materials, the construction of large infrastructure facilities, etc. They allow using calculation methods to simulate the "behavior" of industrial products in real operating conditions.

History

CAEs are inextricably linked CAD to and. CAM The development of these software products went in parallel. In the early 80s of the XX century, the first//CAE CADCAM users used graphics terminals that were components of mainframe IBM and Control Data to work. The main hardware and//CAE vendors software CADCAM were Applicon, Auto-Trol Technology, Calma, Computervision and Intergraph. Since the mainframes of that time were imperfect, there were certain difficulties. The interactive mode of operation was practically unavailable due to the heavy load on the central one. processor The cost of one//CAE CADCAM system was about $90,000. With the development of progress, hardware platforms//CAE CADCAM systems have switched from mainframe to personal computers. This was due to the lower cost and higher performance of the PC compared to mainframes. The price of//CAE naturally decreased to CADCAM$20,000. PC-based workstations were created for that CAD supported the IBM PC or Motorola architecture. In the mid-80s, microprocessor architectures with a reduced instruction set (Reduced RISC Instruction Set Computing) appeared. Based on them, more productive workstations were developed, based on the operating system. Since the mid-90s, Unix RISCUnix technology developed by the company based on Intel operating systems and has been competing with systems/. Currently MS Windows NT , MS Windows 2000 the cost//CAE of systems CADCAM has decreased to no more than $10,000.

Classification

• Full engineering analysis systems with powerful tools, large type stores for finite element grids, as well as all kinds of physical processes. They have their own geometry modeling tools. In addition, it is possible to import through the industrial standards of Parasolid, ACIS. Fully functional CAE systems are not associated with CAD. Therefore, if you need to change geometry during the counting process, you will have to re-import the geometry and enter data for the calculation. The most famous similar systems are ANSYS/Multiphysics, AI * NASTRAN and MSC.NASTRAN.
• Engineering systems embedded in heavy CAD have significantly less powerful analysis tools, but they are associated with geometry, so they track model changes. The design data is structured and integrated into the overall heavy CAD design system. These include Pro/MECHANICA for Pro/ENGINEER, Unigraphics NX CAE for Unigraphics NX, Extended Digital Validation (CAE) for I-deas, Catia CAE for CATIA;
• Mid-level engineering systems do not have powerful design capabilities and store data in their own formats. Some of them include an embedded interface in CAD systems, others read geometry from CAD. The former include COSMOS/Works, COSMOS/Motion, COSMOS/FloWorks for SolidWorks 3D Design Environment, and the latter include visualNastran, Procision.

Capabilities of CAE

With the help of CAE, you can carry out:

• Strength analysis of components and nodes based on the finite element method;
• Thermal and hydrodynamic analysis;
• Kinematic studies;
• Modeling of processes such as injection molding;
• Optimizing products or processes.

Stages of operation with CAE

• Pre-processing - determining the characteristics of the model and environmental factors that will affect it;
• Analysis and decision-making;
• Processing results.

Applications

The most popular CAEs are in the following industries: mechanical engineering and machine tools, defense and aerospace industries, power, shipbuilding, semiconductor production, telecommunications, chemical, pharmaceutical and medical industries, construction, production of heating, air conditioning, ventilation systems.

Experience in the use of CAE in the automotive industry

The advantage of CAE systems is that automakers can conduct computer testing of models being developed. This allows you to focus maximum attention on improving the safety, comfort and durability of cars without spending financial resources. Passenger safety in collisions can be assessed using software such as RADIOSS, LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH.

The main directions in the development of CAE

During the development of CAE, developers strive to increase their capabilities and expand their implementation areas. The following goals are pursued:

• Improvement of methods for solving interdisciplinary modeling problems;
• Development of new platforms for integration of various CAE systems, as well as for integration of CAE systems into PLM solutions;
• Increase interoperability of CAE and CAD systems;
• Improvement of methods for construction of design grids, description of boundary conditions, parallel calculations, etc.;
• Improving the characteristics of models that are used to describe the properties of materials;
• Optimization of CAE systems for computer platforms with 64-bit and multi-core processors, and thereby improving the conditions for modeling complex structures with a large number of degrees of freedom.

Global market

According to the forecast of TechNavio (spring 2013), the CAE market in the next five years will grow annually by 11.18% and by 2016 will reach $3.4 billion. This growth is due to a number of factors, the main of which is the need to accelerate the release of products to the market. And the main brake, as in the case of CAD, is the growing popularity of open source systems due to the high cost of licenses for commercial CAE systems.

Of the geographical regions, North America became the largest in terms of CAE demand in 2012, and in terms of growth rates, the first place was taken by the Asia-Pacific region, in which industry is actively developing.

CAE systems are most widespread in automotive and aircraft engineering, electrical engineering and electronics, heavy engineering and the defense industry. The highest growth in demand for CAE is expected in the automotive industry, and the smallest in heavy engineering.

The leading positions in the CAE market are occupied by Ansys, MSC Software, Dassault Systemes, CD-adapco Group and LMS International. In addition to them, many smaller companies work in this area, but the number of firms focused only on CAEs is decreasing, as they are bought by larger players for the sake of their technologies.

In their commentary, analysts at TechNavio noted that some major global CAE and PLM providers have begun promoting 'globalized' licenses that allow customers who have bought them to use CAE systems anywhere in the world and seek support from a provider's office in any country. This allows vendors to eliminate the difference in the cost of their products in different countries and sell them at the same price around the world. Analysts expect that this approach will be applied by more and more CAE and PLM suppliers, and then there will be significant changes in the market in terms of pricing policy of vendors.

CAE Solution Providers

ADINA R&D, Inc.

ALGOR, Inc.

Altair Engineering

Ansoft

ANSYS, Inc.

Blue Ridge Numerics, Inc.

CD-adapco

COMSOL, Inc.

Dassault Systemes

ESI Group

EXA

Flomerics

LMS International

Livermore Software Technology Corporation

Moldflow

MSC Software Corporation

Numerica

Optics

PTC

UGS

Links

• CAE Vendors
• Computer Engineering Technocenter
• CAD and Graphics Journal