Recommended FEA package for excavator buckets

[mechanicalhead]

Hi

I am a recent machanical engineering graduate and currently working for an excavators bucket manufacturing company. We have had no experience of utilising any FEA packages so far, however we have been looking into getting a FEA software to validate our designs and optimise our products.

I have been asked to carry out a research on the available FEA packages in the market and propose a suitable one which can justify the investment as well as being suitable to our products.

We are currently using Solidworks 2012 CAD package and have been given a demonstration on Solidworks Simulation but I have been doing some online research and came across various other packages so now I've hit the brick wall as I have no in-depth eperience on using FEA softwares(apart from a brief usage of Solidworks Simulation for my university project which was on a very small scale backhoe bucket).

I would be grateful if anyone working in the same field could please recommend a suitable FEA package particularly for digging machine attachments.

 

[dwallace1971]

Any number of packages would probably suit your needs. You should probably start by hiring or contracting with an experienced analyst who can evaluate your needs in detail.

As you evaluate software, keep in mind that the software is only a tool, much like a wrench for a mechanic or a hammer for a carpenter. Just like those tools and knowing the fundamentals of their use don't a mechanic or carpenter make FEA software and being able to operate it doesn't make one an analyst.

Pairing a good analyst with almost any software out there will pay off in spades. Pairing a novice analyst with the best software available not only doesn't pay, it's dangerous.

Anyway, if you're serious about leveraging FEA, find yourself a good analyst then worry about the software.

 

[rb1957]

one question to you would be ... do you "only" want to analyze the structure ? or do you want to model the kinematics of your buckets as well ?

look at the hand calcs you do now; these are a baseline of what you'd like the FEA to do. what would you like to do to-day but don't 'cause it's too involved (but something FEA might be able to pick-up) ?

you might have in-house s/ware for some things, maybe a co-ordinated suite of s/ware would help make things work togeher ? mind you, then you become hostage to your s/ware supplier ...

 

[mechanicalhead]

dwallace1971,

I see your point, but I don't think our company is willing to hire a full time analysis with £40000 salary even though that would be the proper approach to this problem. We don't do any hand calcs whatsoever as our senior design engineer makes all the decisions based on his own in-field experience and that's why all our products are wey over engineered!

rb1957,

No we are not interested to analise the kinematics of our buckets, it's soley the structural analysis we are insterested in at this stage.


I appreciate both your comments but I still have not the answer I was hoping to get as I just wanted to know if anyone with the similar background in bucket manufacturing or mining equipment industry in genereal could reccomend a suitable package.

 

[rb1957]

i'd describe your buckets as over strength and under engineered , and that's not meant as a slight ... a guy who knows what he's doing is most often right.

i see your goal as ...
1) analyze the buckets, so we don't rely on someone's brain for engineering decisions/designs; and
2) improve the design, presumably saving weight (what's that worth to your customers ?) or maybe manufacturing costs; and
3) trying to stay ahead of (or up to) the competition (what'll happen if someone else starts producing better design buckets ?)

any CEO should see the value in 1) and 3), but the vlaue of 2) is debatable.

GL

 

[mechanicalhead]

rb1957,

I know that our buckets have NEVER faild in the field but they are always over engineered (I'm actually quoting our design manager on this) which is something that we need to address.

As for our goals, we would like to validate our designs earlier in the design process and not when the project is completed because our clients have started to request proper technical documents to prove how we can assure them that our buckets would perform well and what we have done to improve our design since 10 years ago.

I assume the weight reduction does play a major part in the performance outcome of our product as these buckets could be as heavy as 60 tonnes so a slight reduction in material thickness could result in significant weight reduction.

 

[rb1957]

ok, maybe someone in your field will pick up and tell you the code they use.

i think wallace's suggestion is a valid approach ... have an FE house prepare a model of a bucket that's been accepted; craft the contract in a way that the model can be "easily" resized ... this should be quite easy to do ... import a solid model from your CAD. possibly instead of an FE house, use a FE consultant, get someone in-house to have closer ties with your company.

there is a lot to learn about FE, more than just runnng a program.

one question, do you have any strain gauge data from previous designs ? any loads/reactions ?? again, no slight intended, but i suspect not ... this is going to make it harder to setup the FE, to "tune" it to known results.

 

[EngAddict]

Based on what you want to do SolidWorks Simulation would be perfect. Your analysis is pretty basic and SW Sim will handle that as well as any other package. It is much easier to use than other packages and since you are already using solidworks it will integrate seamlessly. Changes and optimisation will be very easy and quicker compared to other packages. Since you are learning FEA you will find it quicker to pick up to BUT just make sure you invest more time learning FEM than learning the new package or your results could be meaningless.

The solidworks training should teach you some FEM principles and how to validate your designs. You should probably still get someone in for a bit of training here and there, not full time in this case. Also read up in your own time if you want to be productive at work. Solidworks have some good companion guides for FEA and information on the knowledge base. Get a good book and also read on this forum and the solidworks simulation forum, solidworks also have a good forum too.

There is no substitute for hiring an experienced analyst but with the right approach I think you could probably still produce good results over time.

 

[EngAddict]

Just to add, similar to what others have said, if you don't have a design report from an old job get an experienced company to design one for you. You can learn off their design report how to adequately design and produce a report for the products you manufacture. Then for your first couple of designs hire a 3rd party to perform a design verification of your report. After that if the products you produce are quite similar you should have the building blocks to successfully use FEA to design your own products.

 

[ThisIsMe86]

Hi,

HYPERMESH (preprocessor), OPTISRTUCT (solver)

I am working for Altair (not as a sales person, but as a FE engineer) and I am pretty sure the above combination can suit your needs. Whats more, the solver can be used to optimize the structure (weight reduction of structure for given loading conditions). The licensing structure is also very flexible to meet many needs, its definitely worth giving a thought.

I am not talking just as a SALESPERSON because I am not, but I definitely think this product can do it.


-This is me