interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
(OP)
I am contimplating starting my own automobile company. I need advice regarding what computer programs I will need to design a car basically from scratch, and if trail versions are available for free. I know I will need a CFD program but I am not sure which would be the best for someone without a supercomputer. The same holds true for a FEA program.
All posts will be read and all posts will be greatly appreciated.
All posts will be read and all posts will be greatly appreciated.





RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
The bad news is that what they mean by an automobile company and what you mean are rather different.
Anyway here's some programs I've run across
drafting/solid modelling: Unigraphics or Catia or ProE.
FEA: NASTRAN ABAQUS ANSYS(?) LSDYNA
FEA pre/post processing: Hyperworks
ProE often have slightly limited free versions available, I am not aware of any way for normal people (as opposed to giant corporations) getting the others legally for free.
There are many other programs that can be used for other important parts of designing a car, but that's enough to start with.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Frankly, though, if you're at the level of asking for free versions of sofware, I don't see how you've got the resources to actually implement the hardware.
TTFN
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RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
rmw
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
You didn't suggest Solidworks which already has an integrated FEA solution--I'm not suggesting it's the best but it's certainly well consolidated. Solidworks has the trial period and I know that there is at least one (NEiWorks) Nastran plugin for it.
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Solidworks is not popular in the auto industry, while all of the software packages listed by Greg are.
Regards,
Cory
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RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
If you click on someones handle you can read their history before you question their qualification and embarrass yourself
Regards
Pat
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RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
- Steve
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
While I do admit I may have posted from ignorance with regards to CAD packages in the automotive industry, the comment to Greg was a joke, not a questioning of his qualification. I'm sorry you could not be as civil as Cory.
Cory,
Thanks, I was not aware--I don't know why it could not be used for a start up though. Are there limitations that are particular to the Solidworks CAD package for automotive applications?
Thanks.
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
But CAD software selection is among the least of your problems.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Cheers
Greg Locock
SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Try not to reinvent the wheel. Most features we see in cars were tried before 1950 so spend some time looking at history to see what did not work. http
Ed Danzer
www.danzcoinc.com
www.dehyds.com
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
- Steve
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
second EdDanzer, thanks for the link. I couldn't help but notice most of those companies became defunct early in the last century. The plan is not to re-invent the wheel, just make it more efficient.
third MiketheEngineer, yes it will be good
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Everyone else who took the time to make a usefull post, thank you and if you don't mind, keep the ideas coming.
Chow
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Cheers
Greg Locock
SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
- Steve
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
To date from the information supplied (or not supplied) I have concluded you are a wanna bee with almost no resources. I suspect many others have drawn the same conclusion. If you want useful help, you need to really define the situation.
The request for info on FREE software, has in the absence of other information, reasonably led people to conclude you have almost no resources.
Even a kit car manufacturer needs considerable resources.
The last thing a new car company that cannot afford a collection of multi seat software packages normally does is design and make their own motor
Regards
Pat
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RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
I plan on doing the valve design in SolidWorks because we have it, but will sub out the CFD as we cannot justify the initial cost and learning time for CFD on this project.
More information about your intents and goals would allow more information to be provided.
Ed Danzer
www.danzcoinc.com
www.dehyds.com
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Don't the big outfits use Catia?
The design part should be pretty easy. Its the tooling that is going to be the difficult part and costly.
Is it to be made of metal or fiberglass? How many units per day month or what ever? Are you going to do everything in house or outsource? The machinery costs are going to be a huge deterent. If you are looking at using many existing off the shelf parts for your vehicle, then why would you need to design an engine for it? Its much easier to take something off the shelf and do what ever modifications that are needed to accomplish what you are trying to do. Unless it is a completly different engine design.
I hope you do succeed in this, and I hope you can design something way better than all the rest, as they have all lost any ability to style a car.
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: interested in starting my own automobile company, need advice
There is also a version that is integrated into Catia, although I haven't tried that.
This isn't a cheap package though.
I regularly use Catia, Pro/Engineer and NX6.
I find Catia the "best" of the 3 but there is little really to choose between them, annoyingly whatever I'm trying to do on one of them always seems to be much more straighforward on one of the other 2. Pro/Engineer is the cheapest I think, and seems to be popular with powertrain rather than entire vehicles.
Any of these packages can be run on a non-super computer, indeed I run them alll successfully off a laptop that cost about £1000. A good graphics card is pretty important though.