The SWAU Report, Issue 17 Monday, November 29, 2004

Introduction

SWAU — pronounced “swah-oo” — is the Southwest ANSYS Users (SWAU), an organization of ANSYS users and people interested in ANSYS, who are located in the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, and El Paso). The goal of the organization is to provide a sense of community for ANSYS users in the region, to serve as a means of communication about ANSYS, and to provide technical and peer resources to those interested in becoming ANSYS users.

News

ANSYS 9.0 Webcast Seminar at PADT

On December 8, please join us for an exciting webcast where you’ll learn how ANSYS 9.0 is DELIVERING:

This live event, which will be hosted by Phoenix Analysis & Design Technologies, will feature:

For more details, please see PADT’s Seminar Invitation.

ANSYS Inc. Unveils Technology for Integrated Product Development Environment

ANSYS 9.0, the first software release featuring electromagnetic, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and mesh creation technologies integrated within the ANSYS® Workbench™ product development environment, making simulation more powerful and more accessible to a broader range of users.

“At Eaton, for over the past 20 years we have relied on the ANSYS software to qualify our products,” said Thomas Chimner, chief engineer at Eaton Corporation. “Now, ANSYS has taken this capability to the next level by incorporating this powerful tool into the Workbench, and provided our development team the tools to succeed in today’s competitive market.”

A major upgrade for the CAE industry’s leading simulation software, ANSYS 9.0 is an important stride toward the continued evolution of Workbench as a more productive and collaborative engineering tool for simulation-driven, integrated product development. Workbench’s easy-to-use modern architecture allows companies to be more productive by eliminating manual file transfer, result translation, and re-analysis, saving time and money.

ANSYS Reaches New Heights in 32-Bit Computing

ANSYS Inc. has reached yet another engineering simulation milestone by solving a structural analysis model with more than 10 million degrees of freedom (10,501,650 DOF) within a 32-bit environment, making it possible for ANSYS customers to solve larger models on relatively low-cost hardware.

In May, ANSYS became the first engineering simulation company to solve a structural analysis model with more than 100 million DOF within a 64-bit environment, endowing the power to solve models of aircraft engines, automobiles, and other complete systems. Now, ANSYS has made solving models amazingly affordable with its latest achievement.

In a joint effort with Linux Networx, the 10 million DOF structural analysis problem was completed on an 11 processor Linux Networx Evolocity® cluster with Intel Xeon chips and the Linux operating system. DOF refers to the number of equations being solved in an analysis, giving an indication of a model’s size. Previously, only about 1.5 million DOF undistributed could be solved within a 32-bit environment.

“Our customers have shown an interest in solving moderate-sized problems on very cost-effective hardware,” said Mike Wheeler, Vice President and General Manager at ANSYS, Inc. “Our new distributed solution algorithm is much more memory efficient, which enabled us to solve such a large problem with a modestly sized 32-bit cluster.”

Featured Article: Design Modeler FAQ

For several releases now, ANSYS Inc. has offered a powerful solid modeling tool as part of their Workbench suite of products. Design Modeler, usually referred to as DM, is a unique solution in the marketplace and often generates a large number of questions about its features, integration, and positioning as a product. After a little discussion amongst sales and support people here at PADT, we have come up with the following Frequently Asked Questions:

  1. What is DM anyway?
    DM is a solid modeling tool that is integrated into ANSYS Inc.’s new Workbench product environment. It is aimed at providing modern geometry tools to people doing CAE simulation. Based on the Parasolid modeling kernel, it is a very robust tool that follows the “feature based” and “parametric” paradigm used in CAD packages like Pro/E, SolidEdge, and SolidWorks. It can be used to create geometry from scratch or to modify and defeature geometry created elsewhere.
  2. Is DM a CAD package?
    No. It does not have drafting or a true assembly environment. In addition, it allows you to create geometric definitions that most modern CAD tools would consider invalid. It is a solid modeling tool for analysts.
  3. Is DM the same as PREP7 modeling with a new GUI?
    No. DM is a totally different approach to solid modeling. PREP7 is based on bottom up and Boolean paradigms for constructive solid modeling. DM is feature based and variational. How you use it is different, and we have found it much more efficient. Also, DM is based on the industry standard Parasolid geometry kernel, while PREP7 uses two older and no longer supported geometry kernels.
  4. What does DM do that my CAD package can not?
    The primary difference between DM and a CAD package, besides missing detailing and assembly functions, is that it supports operations on your model that CAD packages do not allow. For instance, you can take two separate volumes and “glue” them together so that they share a single face between them. Useful for FE meshing, but a nightmare for manufacturing! Another example is that you can create patch faces on surfaces for loading. Further, you can create solids surrounding your structures and fill in voids in your structures to provide fluid geometry for CFD meshing. DM also has a subset of commands oriented towards modeling beams, shells, and points that are unique to the needs of analysts.
  5. Do I have to have DM to use Workbench Simulation?
    In most cases the answer is no. Many tasks are made easier by DM, but if you have a good CAD tool, you should be able to provide geometry to the FE pre/post processor in Workbench (Simulation).
  6. Why do I have to pay extra for DM? Shouldn’t my TECS payments cover this product? Why are the Bean Counters / Marketing Guys / Suits / [Insert_name_of_non-technical_group_here] trying to rip me off?
    Let’s be honest. This is the most asked question about DM. The truth is that this was not a decision made by a bunch of greedy ex-frat boys sitting around a table at the country club. Highly technical people who can drive an FE program quite well looked at the capabilities being offered, the need in the user community, and the cost of developing and maintaining this tool, and decided to make it a separately priced item. There are three primary reasons for this:
    1. DM is robust because it is built upon best-in-class software libraries like Parasolid and D-Cubed. These software libraries are not cheap and have a significant license fee attached to them.
    2. DM is not an enhancement of Prep7 solid modeling. It does a whole lot more and a totally different manner. Saying you should get it as an upgrade is like saying you should get CFD analysis for free if you have a mechanical license.
    3. Not all users want or need DM. If ANSYS Inc. included it with every seat, and raised the price of ANSYS products accordingly, then the majority of users would complain that they don’t want it and don’t need it.
  7. Is this product packaging strategy a trend at ANSYS Inc.?
    No. DM is unique because of the reasons mentioned above. It is not a strategy to take functions in ANSYS, break them off as separate modules under Workbench, and then ask for extra money to give users access.
  8. Can I script DM?
    Yes. DM supports scripting for both 2D profiles and creating the full 3D model. However, in most cases, you don’t need to write scripts like you do in ANSYS. Feature-based parametric solid modeling is inherently parametric and in essence write a script behind the scenes. In most cases you simply need to change parameters and regenerate.
  9. Can I do parametric studies with geometry from DM?
    Heck yeah! This is one of the most powerful features in DM, and Workbench in general. DM models are fully parametric and associative not only to Simulation, but also back to the original CAD system if you started the geometry there. Parameters flow up and down through applications.
  10. If I have a CAD model already, why do I need DM?
    You may not need DM. DM comes in handy to slice up the model, to defeature it, merge surfaces, or to glue volumes together.
  11. Can I use DM with ANSYS PREP7?
    Yes, DM outputs an ANSYS ANF file that reads right into PREP7.
  12. What file formats does DM read?
    ACIS (*.sat)
    CATIA V4 (*.model, *.dlv)
    CATIA V5 (*.CATPart, *.CATProduct)
    Inventor (*.ipt, *.iam)
    IGES (*.igs, *.iges)
    Mechanical Desktop (*.dwg)
    Parasolid (*.x_t)
    Pro/E (*.prt, *.asm)
    SolidEdge (*.par, *.asm, *.psm, *.pwd)
    SolidWorks (*.sldprt, *.sldasm)
    UG (*.prt)
  13. What file formats does DM write?
    Parasolid (*.x_t)
    DesignModeler (*.agdb)
    IGES (*.iges)
    ANSYS PREP7 (*.anf)
  14. Does DM support 2D?
    Yes. The 9.0 release fully supports 2D geometry. It just has to sit on the XY plane at Z=0.
  15. How does DM support assemblies?
    It depends on how you define “assemblies”. DM supports the assembly of multiple objects that may or may not share geometry where they touch. See the part/body question below.
  16. What is this part/body stuff?
    This is a concept unique to geometry used in FE meshing. You can have more than one volume connected to each other that share geometry at their interface. DM refers to a collection of geometry that shares geometry at the interface as a part and refers to each volume as a body.
  17. Where do I learn more?
    Contact your technical support provider and start asking questions. We love to talk about this stuff.
  18. How can I try DM out?
    Contact your sales person. They can get you a demo very easily. The truth is, you need to try it out to understand how useful this tool is.

— Eric Miller, PADT Inc.

Current Promotions

ANSYS Emag with Design Modeler

With release 9.0 of LF Emag in Workbench, an electromagnetics solution customer will need Design Modeler for enclosure and winding editor functionality. This promo provides LF Emag-capable product customers with a lower cost opportunity to purchase Design Modeler.

Any maintained ANSYS Multiphysics or ANSYS Emag customer can receive one seat of ANSYS Design Modeler for each maintained seat of the core ANSYS product for a 50% discount over the Design Modeler release 9.0 list price.

Offer is valid for any new or existing customer with maintained TECS (i.e. paid-up or lease). Eligible products are:

Not applicable to University/Education product customers

Free T-Shirts! – PADT Referral Program for ANSYS

PADT needs your help to grow the ANSYS user community in Arizona and New Mexico. Simply refer a friend or peer not currently using ANSYS to PADT, and receive a free, really cool, PADT/ANSYS T-shirt! We are looking for potential new users:

Questions?

For more information or questions about these promotions, please contact PADT Sales.

PADT Training

Courses Offered in December, January, and February

12/13 - 12/14 104 - ANSYS Workbench Simulation – Intro (in Tempe, AZ)
12/15 - 12/16 801 - ANSYS Customization with APDL (in Tempe, AZ)
12/16 - 12/17 604 - Introduction to CFX (in Tempe, AZ)
1/10 - 1/12 101 - Introduction to ANSYS, Part I (in Tempe, AZ)
1/20 - 1/21 801 - ANSYS Customization with APDL (in Tempe, AZ)
2/10 - 2/11 202 - Advanced Structural Nonlinearities (in Tempe, AZ)
2/14 - 2/16 104 - ANSYS Workbench Simulation – Intro (in Tempe, AZ)
2/17 - 2/18 301 - Heat Transfer (in Tempe, AZ)

SWAU Seminar Series

Seminars Offered in December, January, and February

12/8/2004 ANSYS 9.0 Update
1/19/2005 ANSYS 9.0 Technical Update
2/17/2005 CFX Overview

Other Offerings

Did You Know...

PADT offers Engineering Services?

PADT offers Rapid Manufacturing and Stratasys Dimension 3D printers?

PADT offers Systems R&D such as Fuel Cells?

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