Computer-aided development has become the standard practice in many industry sectors for a while now. Designing a new car or an aircraft without such tools is truly impossible given today’s high-performance requirements and fast-paced market.

The revolution started with the arrival of computer-aided design (CAD) tools in the 80s. Companies could now create and develop anything from houses to small products directly on the computer screen, cutting costs and times drastically. CAE eventually provided the means to enhance such products while CAM began to support the actual manufacturing.

Today, most computer-aided tools are integrated into all-in-one software solutions that are readily available on the market. Perhaps for this reason, few people know that CAE tools were actually developed before CAD was widely available.

CAE analysis is mostly based on a numerical problem-solving technique known as the finite element method (FEM). While it’s nearly impossible to date its invention, early usage is reported back in the 1940s with ballistic calculations for war purposes.

Moving forward to the 1960s, finite element analysis (FEA) was spreading fast, but back then, engineers were making all its complex calculations by hand. It was only a matter of time before this process became automated, which happened in 1970 with John Swanson founding what would become Ansys, a giant CAE software company.

The increased computational performance allowed CAE tools to further expand in both their capabilities and purpose. The cherry on top was definitely the integration with 3D CAD tools, which both streamlined and improved the design and simulation processes.

Today, CAE tools are relatively accessible, and while an engineering background is still required for setting up the analysis, the entire process is incomparably smoother than the laborious hand calculations performed in the past.

There are plenty of advantages of using CAE in a product development context:

• Reduce development costs and time: CAE tools allow engineers to flush out any potential problems at a very early stage of development, when design changes are less expensive. Moreover, fewer physical prototypes are required downstream in the development process, cutting down even more on costs and time.
• Help create better products: Computer simulations provide enough data for proper product optimization and refinement, allowing engineers to improve product performance and quality without necessarily raising the final shelf price.
• Make design choices based on performance: The effects of even the smallest design changes can be evaluated through CAE, enabling more cost-effective changes to be performed together with insights provided by other CAD and CAM tools.

A Few Shortcomings

Although incredibly useful in product development, CAE isn’t for everyone. For one, professional CAE software is very expensive, usually requiring powerful workstations to be able to run properly.

Furthermore, a specialized workforce with deep engineering knowledge is required to obtain the most accurate results. Most software packages also have a very steep learning curve, adding additional training time to the overall costs of implementation.

While CAE implementation requires a significant amount of investment, for several industries, it doesn’t take long to be worth the upfront costs.

Mechanical Engineering

Given the increased complexity of today’s mechanical assemblies for automotive, industrial goods, machinery, and others, CAE comes in very handy for analyzing complex interactions. This is by no means restricted to stress analysis, as we’ll see in the following example.

Real-World Example

The internal cooling performance of a vehicle engine is critical to both functionality and durability. While oil cooling effectiveness is usually evaluated by means of physical prototyping involving a huge array of sensors, the Drivetrain division of Toyota has made use of CAE simulations to estimate this performance at a much earlier stage. Oil flow patterns and heat transfer involve incredibly complex three-dimensional interactions, but the team could adequately model the problem and was eventually able to reduce the weight of components while also improving cooling capacity.

Architecture & Civil Engineering

The construction business has also largely benefitted from predictive simulation analysis. Due to the large-scale nature of its projects, physical prototyping must be overly simplified as real-size models are impractical to create.

Real-World Example

Architectural office AS+GG applied computational fluid dynamics software to test and validate early designs of a skyscraper in regards to environmental influences. For such buildings, the effects of winds are extremely important as it strongly relates to the building’s shape and orientation. With data provided by CAE software, the architects came up with a design that reduced the wind forces by 35% relative to their own initial designs.

Aerospace

Aircraft parts must be as reliable and lightweight as possible, and such attributes are a classic engineering compromise. CAE analysis helps engineers to maximize mass reductions in aerospace components while also guaranteeing their proper function in operation.

Real-World Example

Carbon Freight has developed a flexible pallet panel for cargo aircrafts that is 18% percent lighter than traditional pallets. The American startup employed structural analysis for testing and validating new materials, as its pallet design is produced from composite materials instead of aluminum. According to the company, CAE usage has cut development times in half and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in physical testing.

Although not as widespread as CAD or CAM software, there are plenty of CAE packages on the market. Some of the most well-known CAE developers include Ansys, Altair, and SimScale, while some other software companies like Autodesk and Dassault Systèmes also boast many simulation programs in their vast portfolios.

Following the recent trend of cloud-based applications, CAE developers (including the aforementioned) have followed suit. Cloud-based computing is especially useful for simulation as special (and expensive) hardware is often required for running multiple analyses locally.

If you’re eager to get started, let’s take a brief look at a few of your options:

1. Fusion 360: Until a couple of months ago, Fusion 360 provided access to their simulation environment on its free personal accounts. Although now restricted to educational, start-up, and paid licenses, Fusion 360 remains an accessible platform for CAE, including topology optimization and generative design, which essentially use FEM analysis at their core processes.
2. HyperWorks: On the more professional side, Altair’s HyperWorks is one of the market-leaders in CAE. Together with their Optistruct solver, this software suite covers the entire workflow from creating, exploring, and optimizing designs.
3. Abaqus: Dassault Systèmes’ Abaqus is also quite a popular CAE package since their CAD solutions (like SolidWorks and CATIA) are so widespread in industrial applications. It offers a unified platform for different types of FEM analysis and is claimed to be suitable for both new and experienced users.