Briefings: May 2005

By DE Editors

ALGOR and Kubotek Announce Direct CAD/CAE Exchange

ALGOR(Pittsburgh, PA) and Kubotek USA, Inc. (Marlborough, MA) announced a new technology partnership. ALGOR hasbeen named a Kubotek Solution Partner and ALGOR’s InCAD technology nowprovides direct CAD/CAE data exchange between KeyCreator and ALGOR.

This highly integrated design and analysis solution allows engineers tocreate solid models in KeyCreator and then directly capture that exactgeometry in ALGOR for analysis. Analysis options include static stressand Mechanical Event Simulation (MES) with linear and nonlinearmaterial models, linear dynamics, steady-state and transient heattransfer, steady and unsteady fluid flow, electrostatics, and fullmultiphysics.

“The partnership between ALGOR and Kubotek provides our joint customerswith a seamless, integrated process for design and analysis,” said JohnWright McCullough, Kubotek USA’s product manager.

“Providing KeyCreator users with convenient access to our wide range ofanalysis and simulation tools allows them to verify and improve theirproduct designs through virtual prototypes rather than costly physicalprototypes,” said Bob Williams, ALGOR Product Manager.

UGS NX Goes 2-0 to Start 2005 Racing Season

TwoIndy Cars developed with UGS NX software from UGS Corp. (Plano, TX) finished first and third forAndretti Green Racing at the Homestead-Miami Indy 300 in March. DanWheldon piloted the winning car and Tony Kanaan finished third. Thepodiums come after UGS technology played a role in the season-openingvictory in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series when Jeff Gordon won theDaytona 500 in February.

First place finisher Dan Wheldon drove the #26 Klein Tools/Jim Beammachine to a dominating victory at the 2005 season opening race,marking the fourth win of his Indy Racing League (IRL) career.

“Our success is based on our ability to work together effectively as ateam and UGS is an important member of our winning team,” said MichaelAndretti, CEO and leader of Andretti Green Racing. The team uses NXdigital product development software for all of the design anddevelopment work the company performs on a fleet of eight race cars.Although IRL rules limit the modifications a team can make to the carbody and engine, engineers still have quite a bit of leeway in otherareas such as the suspension. Fine-tuning these areas often meansdesigning and fabricating new parts.

Andretti Green driver Dan Wheldon won the Homestead-Indy 300 in a car developed using UGS NX product development software.

“NX is powerful enough to handle our most complex and challengingdesigns and its ease-of-use allows us to get the job done fast,” saidScott Graves, director of engineering at Andretti Green Racing.“There’s no time to waste between races and with NX we can design,modify, and manufacture a part overnight and have it on the car thenext morning.” For details, click here.

Bluebeam Software Launches Bluebeam Conversion Server

Bluebeam Software (Pasadena, CA) recently announced the launch of the BluebeamConversion Server, an enterprise-wide server solution that leveragesBluebeam’s patented CAD-to-PDF conversion technology. With its newserver solution, companies can use Bluebeam’s PDF technology in acentrally managed server environment to share and archive files.

Bluebeam Conversion Server gives users automated, high-speed conversionof an unlimited number of files to PDF (or 10 other file formatsincluding DWF, TIF, and JPG). The number of file conversions allowedand users accessing Conversion Server is unlimited. It converts bothnative files and postscript files, and Conversion Server works with allMCAD and Windows applications, such as MS Office, Inventor,Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks, and Unigraphics. It also integrates withmajor document management systems seamlessly.

Bluebeam Conversion Server offers administrators full access to its APIas well as .NET and Python scripting support, ensuring totalintegration and customizability.

Bluebeam Conversion Server costs $2,999, with an annual maintenance forthe first year after purchase. For complete details, click here.

CFdesign Helps OEMs Standardize Upfront CFD

BlueRidge Numerics (Charlottesville, VA) is forming the CFdesign Implementation Services (CIS)Group aimed at helping clients produce a rapid and sustainable ROI byfully leveraging CFdesign upfront in the product design process.

According to the company, the CIS Group will provide customers withservices supplied by experienced engineers with proven track records inMCAD/CAE usage, product development, design validation, and CFD.

Calling it an “exciting time for our company,” Ed Williams, presidentof Blue Ridge Numerics, said that as the upfront CFD market isexpanding, there’s a maturation among early adopter customers. “Theyare systematically expanding their implementation of CFdesign acrossmultiple divisions and product groups,” Williams said of these earlyusers. “Our new CIS Group will serve these companies with a number oftactical and strategic resources to ensure our customers realize theirvision.”
 

Services immediately available from the CIS Group include on-sitecustomized training of engineering teams while better equipping them toprepare and use customer geometry, and to use simulation techniquesthat are specific to customer applications. The group will also providetraining in advanced flow and thermal functionality that can be usedon-demand by mechanical engineers, and best-practice development toensure all members of the team have equally developed skills and accessto a standardized knowledge base.

The CIS Group addresses this concern by partnering with the customer todevelop and document customer-specific “best practices” and thentraining all members of the team to leverage this resource. Alldocumentation is developed in a “quick read” format that featuresclear, easy-to-follow, unambiguous communication.

The CIS Group will serve as a project resource to generate simulationresults for each candidate design variation, as a consulting servicefor product development, and as a short-term engineering placementservice when a customer loses a valuable team member or when the volumeof project work might exceed team capabilities.

“Customer success isthe ultimate objective of our business,” Williams explains, “and theCIS Group will help redefine success for major original equipmentmanufacturers around the world.”

Mathsoft and SolidWorks Form Strategic Alliance

Mathsoft (Cambridge, MA) and SolidWorks Corp. (Concord, MA) announced a strategic alliance andtechnology integration that is streamlining customers’ engineeringefforts, shortening their product development cycles, and reducingtheir risk of errors. The integration of SolidWorks 3D mechanicaldesign software and the Mathsoft engineering calculation tool, Mathcad,enables joint customers to harness Mathcad-generated values toautomatically drive parametric modeling in a SolidWorks design.Customers no longer need to spend time copying, pasting, andtranscribing between applications, and risk the related errors. Theintegration is available now to users of the recently announced Mathcad12 calculation software and SolidWorks 2005.

“SolidWorks software and Mathcad are a perfect fit, since engineeringcalculations and 3D solid modeling are part of the same process,“pointed out Brian Houle, partner program manager for SolidWorksCorp. “The integration advances our common mission of helpingengineers work faster and smarter.”

Mathcad is a comprehensive design environment that enables engineers tosimultaneously explore, calculate, and document all of theirmathematical formulas and calculations during the design phase ofproduct development. Engineers can combine formulas, text, andinteractive graphics in a single worksheet with an intuitive"whiteboard” interface.

64-bit MSC.Nastran Delivers 15% More Performance in VPD

MSC.Software Corp. (Santa Ana, CA) says thatMSC.Nastran for 32- and 64-bit AMD Opteron processor-based systemsshows a 15 percent performance improvement when compared to similarengineering simulations run on 32-bit architecture. MSC.Nastran isMSC.Software’s functional assessment program for virtual productdevelopment (VPD).

“Many of our customers use our software to solve extremely largeengineering problems and MSC.Nastran for AMD Opteron processor-basedsystems can help them solve these problems faster and even tackleextremely large problems they may have not been able to attemptbefore,” says Bill Weyand, chairman and chief executive officer ofMSC.Software.  “We look forward to continuing our work with AMDand our other partners so our customers can use the latest technologyand improved simulation-solving times to reduce product developmenttime and costs.”

The release offers production-quality 64-bit MSC.Nastran on AMD Opteronprocessor-based systems with Direct Connect Architecture, according toPat Patla, director of AMD’s server and workstation marketing for theMicroprocessor Business Unit. “AMD and MSC.Software share a commitmentto improving performance, productivity, and cost-effective solutionsfor analysis-driven organizations.”

The 64-bit MSC.Nastran for AMD Opteron processors currently runs on SuSE 9.0, SuSE 9.1, and RH 3.0 operating systems.

The company also announced MSC.Nastran support for 64-bit Intel Xeonprocessor-based platforms.  This system complements the support ofMSC.Nastran for 64-bit Intel Itanium 2 processor platforms.

This update includes advanced optimizations for Itanium 2-based platforms and builds on Intel’s 64-bit foundationdevelopment over the past five years. It extends the performancecustomers will see with high-end analysis, as 64-bit Intel Xeonprocessor-based workstations were designed with today’s demands onengineers in mind. With large cache size and Intel Hyper-ThreadingTechnology tailored for multitasking environments, Intel Xeonprocessor-based workstations provide the muscle needed formultithreaded applications.

For more information on MSC.Nastran, please click here.