Pro/Mechanica 2001 vs ANSYS DesignSpace 7.0

[Israr]

I want comparison of Pro/Mechanica 2001 and ANSYS Design Space 7.0

I solved an assembly structural analysis on both of these but I observed there was more flexibility in DesignSpace than in Pro/Mechanica.

Any comments.





Israr

 

[Brian_Adkins]

We're using DesignSpace more and more due to the ease of use and the nice integration with Pro/E...



-Brian Adkins

 

[martyball]

DesignSpace works well for us as well. It also has a much more diverse upgrade path if options other than basic FEA are needed.

 

[Hacks]

While I have no experience with Mechanica, I must agree with Brian_Adkins and martyball.



We use both DesignSpace and Ansys Mechanical 7.0 in production (and have 7.1 in test with WF and 3.3) and

we are very happy with both of them - especially DesignSpace.



DesignSpace has one of, if not the most, user -friendly, intuitive GUI's I've seen I my almost 18 years in CAD and the ability to perform design studies is a big plus for us.



Brad Hacker

ME CAD Admin

Zebra Technologies Corp.

 

[JHardy]

Not wanting to disparage this Forum at all, but if you want some really good advice on comparing the capabilities of various FEA systems, etc, you might want to check out Dermot Monaghan's FEA Portal at:



www.DermotMonaghan.com



Post your query on the Your Questions link - the people who hang around there (including Dermot Monaghan himself) have a wealth of knowledge and experience of all sorts of FEA software.

 

[optomechanic]

I used Mechanica for 2 years; company switched to ANSYS Design Space 2 years ago. It's easier to use, faster, more reliable, makes more sense, and here's the strange part. Its integration with Pro/E seems to be much better than Mechanica's. I haven't tried DS 7.1 yet (and in fairness, I haven't used Mechanica in 2 years), but my current DS version doesn't recognize surface patches on a solid (Mechanica does), which sometimes makes it more difficult to apply loads. DS allows units swaps back and forth easily and shows you the units you are working with most of the time. DS's GUI is the least annoying I've ever seen. I found Mechanica to be very unreliable, with a buggy GUI, a units system that tricked new users into errors, and very slow solves.

 

[Luis Aguirre]

Hello everyone, I assume Israr original question was not to findout what code is easier to use but which solution was correct. Here are my two cents and I will try not to be bias since I have use MECHANICA, NASTRAN, COSMOS, ABAQUS but I will say unfortunately not ANSYS. The ease of use of new FEA package (including MECHANICA) does means that they accurately output results. THe FEA package is as good as the skill of the user and his ability to understand the problem in hand. All FEA programs basically when use properly should give answers withing 5-10% from each other.



Now to try answering your question Israr firstable how much is more flexible ? Was it 10%, 20%, 30% more than that ? If it was between 10% difference I will say you got the same solution. Now if it was more than did you make sure that both model had exactly the same stiffness and loads assign to them? What about connection between your parts? Doing assemblies is always trick in with any FEA code and can lead to inaccurate solutions. If you ANSYS model would have been stiffer I would say increase the mesh size but sice is the other way around I probably will concentrate in the material properties loads and conections.



Any ways, good look

 

[Israr]

Thanks Luis Aguirre,



You are right. I meant the same. Thanks for reply.



Israr