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Low Cost/Free Engineering Tools 5

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flash3780

flash3780

Mechanical
Dec 11, 2009
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I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with low cost or open source engineering tools. I've been kicking around some design ideas that I'd like to get a little bit more serious about developing in my spare time. I use Linux at home, but I'd be willing to install Windows if it were necessary to get work done.

There are a few types of software that I'm looking for, especially CAD and FEA software.

Obviously Pro/E, UG, CATIA, and even Solidworks are pretty major investments. Nonetheless, I'd like to find some inexpensive software that can create parametric solid bodies, technical drawings, and mechanical assemblies. I've been using QCad thus far, which is fine for 2D, but a 3D CAD tool would make my life much easier. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with FreeCAD, VeriCAD, OpenCASCADE, or Alibre. Of course, I'm open to other solutions as well. If it could generate IGES files and ParaSolids for analyses, that would be a bonus. Any experience or suggestions?

Additionally, I'd like to have some FEA ability. I don't even know if "cheap" FEA exists, but I'm aware of some free codes. The most promising that I've seen is CAELinux, which can run the Calculix solver, but I'm not sure how well it actually works. It seems as though they can handle assemblies and contact. If there were some low-cost FEA out there, I'd be interested in that as well. Most companies don't post prices unless you contact them... usually if you have to ask, it's too expensive in my experience. Anyhow, any war stories or suggestions are welcome.

A free 1D flow network solver would be great (pipe flow, etc.); any ideas?

Other than that, I've had great luck running Octave with the QtOctave front end for general problem solving. It crunches through numbers almost as well as MATLAB. The only thing missing are a few of the fancy functions and tools that MATLAB has, but I don't intend to do any heavy-duty controls work.

Thanks in advance for your help. There's quite a bit available out there, especially in the realm of CAD, but I don't want to waste time trying out something only to find that it's insufficient or just plain doesn't work. I'd definitely be interested in hearing about both good and bad experiences with inexpensive software (the bad ones let me know what to look out for).
 
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flash3780
I use Alibre, You can download it free, but it turns into a gutted out program Called "Alibre express" in 30 days if you do not purchase it. That program is still useful you just have to work around items, things that you can do in one keystroke in other programs take 3 or 4 in express. The professional version that I use, will generate sheet metal parts, and read IGES files from other programs like Solid Works, or pro/E.
B.E.
 
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Greg... I've been using Bricscad for about 6 months... it almost works like 3D Autocad (only a few features missing), and costs half the price of LT... Got it because my new laptop (old?) did not run my edition of LT well with Win7... Not been disappointed. It has no difficulty loading and editing an 8 meg 3D file created in Autocad... only notable thing is that when it is re-loaded into AutoCAD, the program notes that the drawing was not created using AutoCAD... but, loads it flawlessly...

In 6 months, I've had it lock up twice and it gracefully recovered the files... Had more problem with my LT2002...

I don't regret having purchased it, it's a very good.

Dik
 
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Thanks for the advice. That's great news about Calculix; I'd seen some examples on Youtube, but they looked pretty rudimentary. Nonetheless, it apparently takes ABAQUS input files. If it has most of the features of ABAQUS, I'm sure that it's very good indeed.

OpenFOAM sounds like it's better than I expected it to be, as well. CAELinux looks promising; I think that I may try it.

I'll look into IntelliCAD. It's good to know that someone is using it for actual engineering work. It seems like there are some reasonable CAD alternatives to the big names brands. I'm wondering if anyone out there has done any sort of comparison of features?

I've read similar things about BRL-CAD being unusable. Another one that seems pretty out there is VARKON, and perhaps PythonCAD.

Haha, FreeCAD isn't a CAD program, eh? That's funny. Looking at their demos, they didn't seem to mention any drawings. Maybe it's more of a solid-modelling tool.
 
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That's great news about BricsCAD. It looks to be on par with VariCAD and IntelliCAD for price. Actually, BricsCAD is a bit cheaper than VariCAD considering they don't charge you extra for a year of upgrades. I wonder how the features compare...
 
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Gah! Looks like CAD options are limited in Linux. IntelliCAD is only available for Windoze, and the Linux version of Bricscad seems to be fairly limited in its capabilities.

It's not that I refuse to use Windoze if the tools that I'm looking for are available there, I just prefer Linux (I find that it uses fewer system resources). Nonetheless, if quality tools aren't available for Linux, Windoze it is.
 
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Draftsight seems to be working ok in Wine/Fedora14.
It's only claimed to be 2D, but it seems to have some 3D functionality too.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
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Look more at the Code aster that comes with CAE linux. It is written by the French nuclear power utility. It is not your typical open source software.
 
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I mentioned VariCAD in an earlier post. Has anyone tried it? It seems to be a full-featured design tool.
Here's what I'm thinking for a full complement of (inexpensive) design software:
- CAD Software: VariCAD seems good for Linux. Allibre, IntelliCAD and Bricscad seem to be good options for Windows.
- FEA/CFD Software: CAELinux w/Calculix and OpenFOAM might just get me by for complex analyses
- Spreadsheet Software: MS Excel is great, but the commercial license for Office is surprisingly pricey (MSRP $499). OpenOffice is a great alternative.
- Engineering Analysis: Octave/QtOctave is really really good alternative to MATLAB. I've also read that Scilab and Freemat are good.
- Electrical Circuit Simulation: SPICE seems good - and free.
- Flow Network Analysis: I'm sure there's something out there. FlowMaster is pricey. I suppose that I could write my own, but who wants that hassle? I'm thinking that I should go into business selling pipe flow software for what they charge for a seemingly simple program. Suggestions?

Let me know if you have any suggestions that I could add to my list.
 
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HDS said:
Look more at the Code aster that comes with CAE linux. It is written by the French nuclear power utility. It is not your typical open source software.
Click to expand...
Sounds promising. I was worried about documentation (in English) being available for Code Aster, but if it's good software, perhaps it's worth muddling my way through.
 
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I wasted huge amounts of time with CAELinux 2007 and 2009, and couldn't come up with a combination of hardware that would cleanly run all the modules from the live CD/DVD.

Installing to a hard drive turned into a disaster, twice, as PCLinuxOS slowly updated itself into nonfunctionality, and Ubuntu did the same thing, drive itself into update hell, only much faster.

I kept beating on CAELinux in hope of coming to understand it well enough to use it on real parts, because the demos worked pretty nicely and produced some impressive graphics. Note that the docs that come with 2009 mostly reflect 2007, and there are substantial differences. I found better docs for 2007, but they're mostly in French, which eludes me.


Maybe CAELinux 2010 will do better, but it absolutely requires a 64 bit computer to even start, and I don't have one.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
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I have been using Alibre and like it a lot. Very good value.

The CalculiX solver is also great, but you have to be aware of its limitations. The pre/post processor is fairly crude though so for basic models I have been using Excel to manually generate meshes and build decks. I am going to look into Roshaz though since it will work with Calculix. Salome is another pre/post but I have not looked into that yet.

Brian
 
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Ok, so from the sound of it CAELinux has issues. Nonetheless, I believe that it comes with Salome and OpenFOAM; I was thinking Salome could be used as a pre/post for CalculiX, and OpenFOAM apparently is reasonably good CFD software.
Perhaps it would be easier to install each program separately, based on the issues that Mike mentioned.
 
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