msjoey
Materials
- Feb 20, 2007
- 23
Good day everyone.
First of all I'd like to note that the "what is the best FEA program" question has been discussed to death in eng-tips and yes I have read the older threads
But it would be great if those who answer my survey can include their experience working with different commercial FEA software
Anyway, the main question: in my working life so far I have used ABAQUS and HyperWorks mostly, briefly ANSYS and NX Nastran. I have never been in a position where I have to make the decision of which FEA software to buy and install for my department... until now. So here I am, given free rein by my manager and the technical director and I get to set the budget (but I don't want to go crazy with the shopping money). What I have done is
My next step is to make a list of all user requirements, categorizing each as "Essential" "Important" or "Desirable".
My list of user requirements so far reads like this:
Here is where I would like to gather input from experienced FEA users in this group (especially those who are also responsible for maintaining the FEA system in their company and / or interface with IT support). What would your user requirements be as a technical person who either uses FEA or expect analysis results from the FEA engineer? Please state if you are a design engineer, FE analyst, or engineering manager. You don't have to use formal sentences as per my examples. I just want to run a survey of what different groups of internal customers expect from an FEA system.
I am concurrently running a similar survey with my company's engineering design team. Background: we are a defense company and our FEA target is to run vehicle crash, blast and ballistic, occupant safety, thermal radiation analysis in the near future.
Thanks in advance,
Jo
First of all I'd like to note that the "what is the best FEA program" question has been discussed to death in eng-tips and yes I have read the older threads
But it would be great if those who answer my survey can include their experience working with different commercial FEA software
Anyway, the main question: in my working life so far I have used ABAQUS and HyperWorks mostly, briefly ANSYS and NX Nastran. I have never been in a position where I have to make the decision of which FEA software to buy and install for my department... until now. So here I am, given free rein by my manager and the technical director and I get to set the budget (but I don't want to go crazy with the shopping money). What I have done is
build a weighted decision matrix with all the software options,
contacted the licensed distributors with my team's requirements + received suggested configurations with price quotes,
prepared a spreadsheet detailing all FEA configurations capabilities costs.
contacted the licensed distributors with my team's requirements + received suggested configurations with price quotes,
prepared a spreadsheet detailing all FEA configurations capabilities costs.
My next step is to make a list of all user requirements, categorizing each as "Essential" "Important" or "Desirable".
My list of user requirements so far reads like this:
The FEA software shall interface with CAD models from Catia V5 - Essential
The FEA software shall interface with CAD models from suppliers (stp, iges) - Important
The FEA software shall solve linear analysis - Essential
The FEA software shall solve nonlinear analysis - Essential
... etc etc...
The FEA software shall interface with CAD models from suppliers (stp, iges) - Important
The FEA software shall solve linear analysis - Essential
The FEA software shall solve nonlinear analysis - Essential
... etc etc...
Here is where I would like to gather input from experienced FEA users in this group (especially those who are also responsible for maintaining the FEA system in their company and / or interface with IT support). What would your user requirements be as a technical person who either uses FEA or expect analysis results from the FEA engineer? Please state if you are a design engineer, FE analyst, or engineering manager. You don't have to use formal sentences as per my examples. I just want to run a survey of what different groups of internal customers expect from an FEA system.
I am concurrently running a similar survey with my company's engineering design team. Background: we are a defense company and our FEA target is to run vehicle crash, blast and ballistic, occupant safety, thermal radiation analysis in the near future.
Thanks in advance,
Jo