For CAE companies, designing better software to simulate a product's
performance under stress would seem to be the overriding goal in software
development. And it is. But when it comes to approach, CAE development trends
point to providing users with a deeper understanding and fewer usability
headaches.
Barry Christenson
Manager of Product Marketing, ANSYS
Design News:
You're involved with new products that ANSYS develops for the
CAE industry. What do you see as a trend in CAE software?
Christenson: Companies want greater design insight.
They need to understand design more and they need to make more innovative design
decisions faster. We're finding that customers have a number of different
challenges in trying to implement this design insight, whether it be in the form
of automation, ease of use, overall presentation, etc.
Q:
Why is this need for greater design insight
a trend now?
A: It's been a trend for a while, and it's still
evolving. But more simulation is being used by less technical experts now.
Q: Is probabilistic analysis a trend in the industry?
A: It is. Probabilistics is an extension of better
design understanding. Users of probabilistic analysis are considering what
happens when a design changes unintentionally. You never have the same
conditions every time. There's always variation. So probabilistics help users
evaluate that unintentional variation in the design process. It's complementary
to gaining the most design understanding possible.(To read a
Design News article on how ANSYS and other CAE companies are incorporating
probabilistic analysis into their FEA software, go to www.designnews.com/article/CA375701.)
Q:
Any other trends?
A: Multiphysics analysis. With ANSYS, we've taken
away the task of having users understand every physics problem separately.
Instead we've come up with an automation tool that does the grunt work and
brings together these physics problems for multi-users.
Q:
What are the
challenges that CAE companies are facing right now?
A: We deal everyday with the challenge of trying to
provide more features in less time. Customers are demanding more tools in their
products.
Q: What should NDES attendees look for at the ANSYS
booth?
A: In the ANSYS booth
(Booth #4315), we'll be showcasing the ParaMesh mesh morphing tool, which lets
users take existing CAE mesh and change it without geometry. It's particularly
useful for the automotive and aerospace industries.
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