Pick of the Week June 21 2006 - ANSYS

By Anthony J. Lockwood

    June 21, 2006Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:I love user conferences. Most recently, I attended the ANSYS usersconference. It had been a few years, and it was terrific. Tell yourboss that you have to go next time. The technical sessions are toovaluable to pass up. Quite the show.ANSYS is a class outfit. You can see it in how their product roadmapsevolve, how they collaborate with you, and how they develop and nurturestrategic partnerships. A great example of the latter is the recentlyannounced ANSYS Workbench and MatWeb material library integration.This simple, elegant expansion of the capabilities of ANSYS Workbenchwill result in countless hours of regained productivity, which,frankly, is a big part of Workbench anyway. But, the real wow of thisintegration is that it will completely change the way you do things soquickly that you cannot believe you worked without it.So, what is it? ANSYS Workbench and MatWeb integration means that youcan begin exploring material behaviors way upfront in your designcycle, dispensing with wasting money on endless physical prototypesthat do not cut it. And, this will break your heart, you don’t have tohunt through manuals looking up properties just so you can incorrectlytype-in values once you find them. It’s all digital and automatic.So, go to our write-up or ANSYS itself from the links below. At the endof the write-up, you’ll find a link to free, no registration-required,and really cool online demos of ANSYS products doing all sorts ofthings. If ANSYS Workbench is a part of your life, you really need tocheck this out. If it is not, maybe the time has come to learn more.Thanks, Pal.—LockwoodANSYS Workbench MatWeb Integration Speeds Design Cycle Partnership brings in material property data for early simulations. ANSYS, Inc. (Canonsburg, PA) has partnered with MatWeb (Blacksburg, VA)to provide access to MatWeb’s wealth of material property data fromwithin ANSYS Workbench. ANSYS Workbench is the simulation platform that integrates the advancedphysics capabilities that ANSYS offers. It handles bidirectionalassociativity with such MCAD applications as CATIA, Inventor, Pro/E,SolidWorks, and Unigraphics. In addition to providing for automaticmeshing, ANSY Workbench offers access to model parameters and tofunctionality available in within the ANSYS Mechanical products,including DesignModeler, Fatigue Module, CFX, and ICEM. ANSYS Workbenchis designed to be intuitive to use, according to the company, and itcan compress time out of your CAE process by eliminating manual filetransfers, result translations, and re-analysis runs. The increased material property data available from the ANSYS-MatWebcollaboration enables ANSYS users to simulate more material behaviorsmore accurately earlier in their design process. Ultimately, thisshould translate in reduced expenditures on materials use for physicalprototypes. This new partnership lets ANSYS users import material properties fromMatWeb’s collection of more than 55,000 material data sheets. The depthof MatWeb’s database property information spans ceramics, metals, andthermoplastic and thermoset polymers as well as semiconductors, fibers,and other engineering materials. MatWeb data sheets are said to provideprecise descriptions of material properties, the majority of whichoriginate from testing by the manufacturers. The partnership enables you to create and export libraries of 20materials at a time in ANSYS library format (XML) from MatWeb’scollection. The appropriate property values in the correct units areadded to theANSYS library XML file automatically. To locate materials of interest,yousearch the MatWeb database using one of its three search methods:Quantitative, such as physical properties or alloy composition;Categorized, for example, material type, metal UNS number, ormanufacturer; or a keyword text search. Additionally, MatWeb providesonline material tools such as a unit converter, weight and inertiacalculator, and a hardness converter to help you along in your designs. For more information on MatWeb, a division of Automation Creations,Inc., click here. For a rundown of features and functionality of ANSYSWorkbench, click here. To view online, registration-free demos of ANSYSproducts in action, click here.