This post is a continuation in a series about simulation on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and some of the roles you can find there. This week we are focusing on the Structural Engineer Role and how it provides design engineers with comprehensive linear structural analysis solutions to assess the performance of products during the product development process.

Overview

Structural Engineer equips the Design Engineer with all the tools needed to efficiently conduct structural linear static, frequency, buckling, steady-state thermal simulation and modal dynamic response of product designs within 3DEXPERIENCE.

It provides unique capabilities to collaborate, simulate, and impact product development processes throughout the extended enterprise using state-of-the-art Abaqus simulation technology, ensuring accuracy of the virtual testing.

Specifically targeting all Design Engineers looking for an intuitive, fast and efficient simulation solution, Structural Engineer role delivers proven world-class Abaqus Realistic Simulation technology in a seamless and intuitive user interface within 3DEXPERIENCE.

Empowered with the right combination of functionalities, speed of computation with linear approach and easy to use solution, Design Engineers can easily get all the benefits of virtual testing for informed technical decisions.

The Engineering process is made of multiple iterations, of ‘what ‘if’ scenario Design Engineers have in mind. The full associativity with CATIA and SOLIDWORKS enables users to run seamless design iterations based on simulation results, for higher productivity and better decisions.

Structural Engineer includes modal dynamic response simulation capability.  Vibration behavior can be simulated to avoid resonance problems by knowing natural frequencies and avoid critical flaws on product behavior.

Structural Engineer includes the Physics Results Explorer application for powerful post processing capabilities. It empowers users in understanding the simulation results easily, assess design change impact on product performance and communicate with product development stakeholders with Simulation assets.

Structural Engineer (SLL) includes embedded compute licensing allowing routine execution of one concurrent simulation job on up to 4 cores.  Embedded compute is inseparable from its associated role. Access to embedded compute follows the same Named User or Concurrent license model as the role it is associated with.

It offers both local and cloud compute up to 4 cores.

Key Capabilities

Structural Engineer delivers proven world class Abaqus technology in a seamless and powerful user interface on the
3DEXPERIENCE platform so that design engineers can get the benefits of virtual testing for informed technical decision-making. It offers:

• Linear simulation setup for structural and steady-state thermal analysis provides interactive access to common
  functionality in Abaqus
• Linear Static, Frequency, Buckling, Steady-state Thermal and Modal Dynamic analysis types
• Realistic behavior simulation under all common loading and boundary condition structural loading conditions
• Contact (surface pairs, detection) definition where parts within an assembly can be defined to be initially in contact
• High quality meshing directly on the design geometry, including rule-based meshing
• Efficient post-processing for the largest of simulation models using distributed HPC resources
• Leverages proven Abaqus technology with accurate structural and thermal simulations in an intuitive workflow
• Compare easily design alternative performance with intuitive results compare functionality
• Always-available embedded compute licensing (up to 4 cores) allows the user to run simulation on the local machine at anytime
• Easily scalable to add physics such as non linearity or explicit dynamic simulations with other structure roles (Structural Performance Engineer, Structural Mechanics Engineer…)

Benefits

Structural Engineer has been designed with the design engineer in mind so all Design Engineers can assess Product Performance easily during the design process.

Empowered by the 3DEXPERIENCE, Structural Engineer helps improve product engineering and foster collaboration with all the stakeholders of the Product development team in a collaborative and interactive environment.

• Provide efficient and intuitive tools needed to perform linear structural simulations using best-in-class Abaqus simulation technology
  • Structural Engineer role offers the value of virtual testing to all Design Engineers
  • The integration of Structural Engineer in the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform permits seamless design iteration based on simulation results

• Delivers access to sophisticated simulation technology within an intuitive interface
  • An intuitive assistant guides users in the simulation set up ensuring fast adoption and reducing learning curve
  • Provides fast access to simulation results, in the linear domain, fostering product innovation and engineering collaboration

• More time efficient looking for geometry, part or assembly information, fastener data, etc. thanks to the collaborative nature of 3D
  • Simulation is managed as a core value of the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform allowing simulation IP to become a true corporate asset, unlike existing standalone Specialist tools

• Offers linear structural scenarios for product performance and quality testing during the product design process
• Determine the strength of a product designed by reporting stress and deformations distribution
• Improve designs at risk for resonance and other dynamic effects
• Predict temperature distribution within a design due to steady-state thermal loading
• Enables high performance results visualization, particularly for very large models
  • Interrogation of realistic simulation results with speed, clarity, and control on the desktop for enhanced decision making
  • High performance visualization tools enable efficient post-processing of large-scale simulation data including an option to use remote machines for rendering and visualization computation

Highlights

• Fully integrated with 3DEXPERIENCE Design/Engineering and Simulation product suite for a productive workflow and a scalable portfolio for all manufacturing companies
  • By using the Designer’s familiar environment, training burdens are reduced and efficiency is increased
  • Works hand-in-hand with Structural Designer Role (SRD) by allowing the Product Engineers to directly open models built in Structural Designer
• Streamlined workflow with CATIA V5 and SOLIDWORKS Connected
  • Design Engineers can easily consume design data for product performance assessment
• 3D CAD Data import in 3DEXPERIENCE Platform for 3D Design simulation
  • 3D XML Files
  • SOLIDWORKS Files
  • CATIA Files (requires Design and Engineering role)
  • Neutral CAD format such as IGES or STP
  • Other CAD files by xCAD translator
• Linear simulation setup for structural and steady-state thermal analysis
  • Provides interactive access to common functionality in Abaqus
• Linear Static, Frequency, Buckling, Steady-state Thermal and Modal Dynamic analysis types
• Realistic behavior Simulation under structural loading conditions
  • All common loading and boundary condition types are available
• Contact (surface pairs, detection) definition
  • Powerful General Contact capability for fast contact set up in large assembly
  • Parts within an assembly can be defined to be initially in contact
• Deformable, intermittent contact between parts and assemblies
  • Parts within an assembly can move into and out of contact with each other according to the loading
• High quality meshing directly on the design geometry, including rule-based meshing
  • High quality solid and shell meshes can be created using meshing tools. Multiple mesh representations can be generated, managed, and used for various types of simulation.
  • Meshes are strongly associated with the geometry and can be easily updated following geometric modifications without the need for recreation of attributes
  • Mesh visualization and quality check tools are available
• Automatic mesh generation, including mesh export
  • Automatic mesh generation with tetrahedral elements is provided, including specification of element type
  • The generated mesh can be exported in Abaqus (.inp) or Nastran (.bdf) formats
• Local and cloud compute available for all, removing hardware barriers
• Efficient post processing tools to interpret and understand product behavior
  • Report Generator
  • Contour/Vector/IsoSurface Displays
  • XY Plotting
  • Animation/Cut Plane
• High-performance results post-processing
  • Efficient post-processing for the largest of simulation models using distributed HPC resources
• Leverages proven Abaqus technology
  • Accurate structural and thermal simulations in an intuitive workflow
• High performance on multi-core workstations
  • Modern simulation solution on multi-core distribute HPC clusters