Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software help protect products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The terms computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) are also used.
Creo Parametric, formerly known, together with Creo Elements/Pro, as Pro/Engineer and Wildfire, is a solid modeling or CAD, CAM, CAE, and associative 3D modeling application, running on Microsoft Windows.
CalculiX is a free and open-source finite-element analysis application that uses an input format similar to Abaqus. It has an implicit and explicit solver (CCX) written by Guido Dhondt and a pre- and post-processor (CGX) written by Klaus Wittig. The original software was written for the Linux operating system. Convergent Mechanical has ported the application to the Windows operating system.
Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is the general usage of technology to aid in tasks related to engineering analysis. Any use of technology to solve or assist engineering issues falls under this umbrella.
In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes, and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprises.
ISO 10303 is an ISO standard for the computer-interpretable representation and exchange of product manufacturing information. It is an ASCII-based format. Its official title is: Automation systems and integration — Product data representation and exchange. It is known informally as "STEP", which stands for "Standard for the Exchange of Product model data". ISO 10303 can represent 3D objects in Computer-aided design (CAD) and related information.
NASTRAN is a finite element analysis (FEA) program that was originally developed for NASA in the late 1960s under United States government funding for the aerospace industry. The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation (MSC) was one of the principal and original developers of the publicly available NASTRAN code. NASTRAN source code is integrated in a number of different software packages, which are distributed by a range of companies.
In computer aided engineering (CAE) a preprocessor is a program which provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to define boundary conditions, materials, other physical properties and simulation control settings. This data is used by the subsequent computer simulation.
Femap is an engineering analysis program sold by Siemens Digital Industries Software that is used to build finite element models of complex engineering problems ("pre-processing") and view solution results ("post-processing"). It runs on Microsoft Windows and provides CAD import, modeling and meshing tools to create a finite element model, as well as postprocessing functionality that allows mechanical engineers to interpret analysis results. The finite element method allows engineers to virtually model components, assemblies, or systems to determine behavior under a given set of boundary conditions, and is typically used in the design process to reduce costly prototyping and testing, evaluate differing designs and materials, and for structural optimization to reduce weight.
Abaqus FEA is a software suite for finite element analysis and computer-aided engineering, originally released in 1978. The name and logo of this software are based on the abacus calculation tool. The Abaqus product suite consists of five core software products:
- Abaqus/CAE, or "Complete Abaqus Environment". It is a software application used for both the modeling and analysis of mechanical components and assemblies (pre-processing) and visualizing the finite element analysis result. A subset of Abaqus/CAE including only the post-processing module can be launched independently in the Abaqus/Viewer product.
- Abaqus/Standard, a general-purpose Finite-Element analyzer that employs implicit integration scheme (traditional).
- Abaqus/Explicit, a special-purpose Finite-Element analyzer that employs explicit integration scheme to solve highly nonlinear systems with many complex contacts under transient loads.
- Abaqus/CFD, a Computational Fluid Dynamics software application which provides advanced computational fluid dynamics capabilities with extensive support for preprocessing and postprocessing provided in Abaqus/CAE - discontinued in Abaqus 2017 and further releases.
- Abaqus/Electromagnetic, a Computational electromagnetics software application which solves advanced computational electromagnetic problems.
The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow, mass transport, and electromagnetic potential. Computers are usually used to perform the calculations required. With high-speed supercomputers, better solutions can be achieved, and are often required to solve the largest and most complex problems.
Z88 is a software package for the finite element method (FEM) and topology optimization. A team led by Frank Rieg at the University of Bayreuth started development in 1985 and now the software is used by several universities, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. Z88 is capable of calculating two and three dimensional element types with a linear approach. The software package contains several solvers and two post-processors and is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Unix/Linux computers in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Benchmark tests conducted in 2007 showed a performance on par with commercial software.
Synopsys Simpleware ScanIP is a 3D image processing and model generation software program developed by Synopsys Inc. to visualise, analyse, quantify, segment and export 3D image data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), microtomography and other modalities for computer-aided design (CAD), finite element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and 3D printing. The software is used in the life sciences, materials science, nondestructive testing, reverse engineering and petrophysics.
SimulationX is a CAE software application running on Microsoft Windows for the physical simulation of technical systems. It is developed and sold by ESI Group.
FEMtools is a multi-functional, cross-platform and solver-independent family of CAE software programs providing analysis and scripting solutions for many different types of engineering simulation applications. The program is developed, supported and licensed by Dynamic Design Solutions ("DDS") NV, located in Leuven, Belgium.
Optimus is a Process Integration and Design Optimization (PIDO) platform developed by Noesis Solutions. Noesis Solutions takes part in key research projects, such as PHAROS and MATRIX.
Simcenter Amesim is a commercial simulation software for the modeling and analysis of multi-domain systems. It is part of systems engineering domain and falls into the mechatronic engineering field.
ACTRAN is a finite element-based computer aided engineering software modeling the acoustic behavior of mechanical systems and parts. Actran is being developed by Free Field Technologies, a Belgian software company founded in 1998 by Jean-Pierre Coyette and Jean-Louis Migeot. Free Field Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of the MSC Software Corporation since 2011. Free Field Technologies and MSC Software are part of Hexagon AB since 2017.
FEATool Multiphysics is a physics, finite element analysis (FEA), and partial differential equation (PDE) simulation toolbox. FEATool Multiphysics features the ability to model fully coupled heat transfer, fluid dynamics, chemical engineering, structural mechanics, fluid-structure interaction (FSI), electromagnetics, as well as user-defined and custom PDE problems in 1D, 2D (axisymmetry), or 3D, all within a graphical user interface (GUI) or optionally as script files. FEATool has been employed and used in academic research, teaching, and industrial engineering simulation contexts.
