SRAC Redesigns COSMOSDesignSTAR for 2006

By DE Editors

Structural Research and Analysis Corp.(SRAC; Santa Monica, CA) has announced the release of COSMOSDesignSTAR2006 software, a completely redesigned version of the standalone designanalysis program that works with virtually all CAD programs. Inaddition to a new graphical user interface (GUI), COSMOSDesignSTAR 2006offers several new tutorial features and a variety of new analysiscapabilities that include virtual connectors for assemblies, droptests, and fatigue life. Despite these changes, COSMOSDesignSTAR 2006is fully compatible with COSMOSDesignSTAR 4.5.

To help design engineers analyze the effects of impact on theirdesigns, COSMOSDesignSTAR 2006 now also enables drop test simulationfor both parts and assemblies. Greater ease-of-use comes from anupdated GUI, and a number of tools to help novices and infrequent usersuse the software. These include such features as a Quick Tips guidethat walks users through both the GUI and functions. A What’s Wrongutility helps users analyze errors and learn whether such inputs asloads, restraints, and mesh are valid. In addition, a wizard calledAnalysis Advisor takes beginners or casual users through the analysisset-up and post processing stages, and answers such questions as whatstudy type to use, what to do if a mesh fails, and how to interpretresults.

The new release has also added mixed meshing, making it possible forengineers to simulate thick and thin components with a combination ofsolid elements for thick bodies and shell elements for thin parts. Theaddition of h-adaptive meshing enables the program to convergeautomatically to a correct solution by automatically refining the meshin critical areas until the solution converges.
COSMOSDesignSTAR 2006 also offers fatigue life analysis for the firsttime. This new analysis tool gives users the ability to perform fatiguestudies on assemblies that contain different material properties, andalso to be more accurate in predicting a product’s lifespan by usingactual loading conditions in the fatigue simulation. Fatigue lifeanalysis tools include Rainflow charts to help users determine theeffects of small stress cycles in their loading history, and possibleeffects over life.

COSMOSDesignSTAR now supports Solid Edge version 18, Autodesk Inventorversion 10, SolidWorks 2006,  Pro/Engineer Wildfire version 2, andCATIA V4 and V5.  COSMOSDesignSTAR also supports Parasolid, ACIS,and other CAD formats via STEP and IGES. For more information, visit cosmosm.com.