SmarTeam and CosmosWorks

[Stoker]

The company I work for is considering moving from Mechanical Desktop to SolidWorks. We are also looking for PDM software for document management and are trying to decide if the features that SmarTeam offers can justify its expense. We need an FEA package to do thermal (and possibly vibration) analysis of electronic enclosures and are considering CosmosWorks. Does anyone have experience with using these two SolidWorks add-ons?

 

[dsi]

We do not use the SmarTeam add-in.

If you are going to do your analyses with solid elements, Cosmos/Works may be the way to go. In addition to the attractive price, it is real easy to use. Everything is done with the same SolidWorks interface. Applying loads/restrains and meshing are a breeze.

Unfortunately, its shell modelling leaves a lot to be desired. I would not use it for even semi-complex parts. I use Cosmos/M for performing shell analyses. This package also allows me to perform axisymmetric analyses which validate the shell analysis results. The downside to this package is that you need to regenerate the model in the Geostar interface because importing the geometry is more tedious than creating the model a second time.