FEA Software/Comparison 3

[khonfahm]

Hi all,

This is my first post on this forum. I am located in Australia working as a mechanical engineer. Our Ansys License has expired (Technical support no longer available- Product purchased outright), and for some reason it doesn't allow the setting of 'large deflections' to be turned on (I'm quite sure this is because we have only the EMAG(electromagnetic) licence).

So it is for this reason I am currently investigating alternative FEA software to Ansys. Or I may renew our Ansys License, depending on what is the best solution.

I know there was a similar thread posted in 2002 about this,

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=37632

but I thought it was worth bringing the topic up again.

Here are my required criteria:

[ul]
[li]For doing a large deformation sort of analysis where non linear material effects come into play; stamping simulations[/li]
[/ul]

[ul]
[li]Simulating a large explosion in a pressurised enclosure to see when the shell fails[/li]
[/ul]


[ul]
[li]Simulating composite materials and their failure limit[/li]
[/ul]

From what I have searched LS Dyna Seems like the best solver for my needs. It also seems to work directly from Ansys Workbench, which definitely is nice too.

Are there any other alternatives that are as user friendly that are worth investigating?

Thank you all in advance.

 

[jrosvold]

I would suggest looking into Altair HyperWorks. Hypermesh is a very powerful preprocessor that can be used with dyna if you require. But the HyperWorks solver RADIOSS can certainly perform all that you are asking.

For stamping see:

http://www.altairhyperworks.com/Product,4,HyperForm.aspx

Explosion:

http://www.altairhyperworks.com/Solutions,2,82,Impact and Explosion Simulations .aspx

Composites:

http://www.altairhyperworks.com/Solutions,1,13,Composites.aspx

If your doing design then definitely look into their Optistruct offering...Optimization is something all the big boys have but I particularly like the approaches taken by altair.

About a year and a half ago I did an evaluation of Ansys, Abaqus, Hyperworks, Comsol, Femap/NEi and decided on Hyperworks for several reasons. One of the main driving points was the cost of a single hyperworks seat gets you access to all of their software and partner programs (google HWPA, partner program licensing is a little tricky but I'll let you as HW about that) unlike some of the big guys that make you purchase a module for every simulation you want to perform. More importantly, the RADIOSS solver covered all of the simulations that we required at the time and though there seems to always be a lot of debate, Hypermesh is undeniable one of the top pre-processors and Hyperview is a great post-processor.
After our purchase what we found out was that the support was incredible. Anytime we need support, training, or are having issues, the Application Engineers go above and beyond to ensure that our issue is resolved. I could go through many examples but I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed.

and no, I don't work for Altair, i'm just a very satisfied user.

 

[rb1957]

i'd suggest trying whatever product interests you ... get whatever salesman you can to give you a demo copy. my point is that it is a very personal choice ... all FEA function much the same, it's the interface that's different, and what works for someone else might not work for you. try them out with your own problems.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[khonfahm]

Thank you for the responses so far. I am definitely investigating Altair Hyperworks at the moment.

I really like the lay out of Ansys work bench. For a beginner it really is quite a great piece of software. Only problem is that they seem to charge a lot more than their competitors.

Getting a Demo Copy is a great idea. Thanks mate

 

[ThomasH]

Hi

It seems to me that you might be looking for an explicit solver. As far as I know LS-DYNA and ABAQUS/Explicit are the big guys in that area. But there are several competitors. I have had good experiences with NEiNastran but have not yet tested NEiExplicit. But I would definitely have a look at NEiExplicit and Femap. I believe the price is better than some of the competition.

But before you make any final decisions, test it.

Good Luck

Thomas

 

[IceBreakerSours]

My two cents:

It is a good idea to check which software is used heavily in your specific application area. Why? Because you are more likely to have answers (from support engineers or in online forums) to issues that you might encounter. In my experience, ABAQUS has a thriving online community of experts willing to help out others (on eng-tips and Yahoo group primarily), which has been great for me. However, if I were performing crash testing, I would give LS-DYNA a serious look because almost everyone who works in this area (from our perspective) uses LS-DYNA.

http://www.eng-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=376

http://www.eng-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=1083