The Fastest Way from SolidWorks to Flow & Thermal Solutions

CFdesign® software turns your SolidWorks workstation into a fully interactive flow bench, thermal test rig, and wind tunnel. Your 3D assemblies become associative, zero-cost prototypes revealing critical engineering information not available from physical tests. Make a design change in SolidWorks and see the change immediately in CFdesign. Go from SolidWorks to first pass results in minutes; review high fidelity solutions up to 20x faster with the new Accelerant™ Solver.

Ease of Use
Attend their two-day training class and you'll be ready to run simulations on product models at your desktop.

Step One
Build an assembly in SolidWorks and open it in CFdesign using controls within the SolidWorks interface. The flow volume is automatically generated for you.

Step Two
CFdesign automatically assigns volumetric boundary conditions and material properties then intelligently assigns optimal mesh sizes on the model and flow volume. All that remains is selecting flow and heat transfer analysis options.

Step Three
Press "GO." CFdesign automatically generates the optimal mesh and provides interactive access to first-pass simulation results within minutes.

Step Four
Conduct a 3D design review using CFdesign's powerful visualization tools and 3D publishing capabilities. Return to SolidWorks to implement design changes and begin a second associative simulation for comparison.

Cfdesign Solves Tough Problems
CFdesign allows you to analyze and optimize the design, placement, and performance of critical components and systems like hydraulics, pneumatics, valves, blowers, fans, pumps, compressors, heatsinks, heat exchangers, cooling fans, power supplies, manifolds, HVAC components, motors, turbomachinery, even entire electronics systems all while on the "digital drawing board".

CFdesign reliably simulates a broad range of fluid flow and heat transfer scenarios. Highly automated functionality and built-in intelligence guide the user, making CFdesign an ideal desktop tool for beginners and advanced users.

Associative Integration

CFdesign Upfront CFD software is a high-powered flow and thermal tool created for product development teams using SolidWorks.

The software features an associative relationship with component geometry and assemblies, and automatically applies the optimal mesh required for accurate simulations. Make a design change in SolidWorks and see the change immediately in CFdesign.

Ease of Use

No special skills or hardware are needed. After attending Blue Ridge Numerics' two day training class you'll be ready to start running simulations on product models at your desktop.

Applying flow regimes such as forced, natural and mixed convection to your product design is fast and simple. External and internal fans with axial or centrifugal configurations are available as standard object types. Setting up steady state or transient simulations just require a few mouse clicks. Full-featured heat transfer capabilities include conduction, convection, and radiation, as well as conjugate heat transfer.

In addition to migrating legacy 2D data to 3D as they need it, Starrett's tool designers are also creating more information in 3D now, thanks to Solid Edge's ease of use. "We can still work in 2D to maintain what we have, but we are doing more and more in 3D," explains Woessner. "It wasn't hard to learn.We got great training and continued support from our Solid Edge reseller, LMGi.

When Starrett installed Solid Edge at its Massachusetts facility, it also installed it at three other divisions that had been using SolidWorks. "This way, we can pass files back and forth, which we couldn't do before," said Jim Woessner, design/drafting supervisor at Starrett.

Welcoming, cost-saving heat

Superior Radiant Products (SRP) manufactures a full range of gasfired, high and low-intensity infrared space heating equipment for commercial, industrial, agricultural and residential markets. The company's products are sold throughout North America and Asia. A typical application for SRP's heaters is a restaurant patio where they create a warm and welcoming environment out of an area that might otherwise be too cold for outdoor dining. But they're also used in indoor settings where they can substantially reduce heating costs. A huge indoor riding arena, for example, decreased fuel costs by 39 percent with SRP heaters while increasing the total heated area.

SRP competes in a fairly crowded field of about a dozen other suppliers of this type of equipment in North America. The company ranks near the top but its engineering vice president, Pat Caruso, is always looking for ways to distinguish SRP and its products from the competition. Part of this involves design innovation, which SRP recently illustrated by winning the first place award for "Most Innovative HVAC Product" at Canada's Ciphex trade show. Another important factor is customer satisfaction, which is what led Caruso to upgrade the company's design environment from 2D AutoCAD to 2D/3D Solid Edge.

"When people called in with problems with our equipment, we could almost always trace the problem back to the installation," Caruso explains. "Yet it was hard to say to the contractors who did the installation, who are our customers, 'You didn't follow the manual.' So we decided to give them a better manual." In doing that, SRP also got a design environment that enhances its ability to innovate.

Comparing 3D options

Caruso wanted to create manuals that used less text and had nicer graphics than the line drawings or artist's conceptions in most manuals of this sort. He knew 3D CAD geometry could be used for this purpose and set out to purchase a mid-range solid modeling program. Photorealistic rendering functionality was high on his list of must-have features. Sheet metal modeling (with the ability to automatically unfold parts) was also important. Caruso thought he had made his selection after working with a trial version of SolidWorks for a while.

Then he had the opportunity to compare that program with Solid Edge, and the choice became clear. "I saw Solid Edge at a trade show and I'm glad I did," he says. "Its rendering capability is far superior to that of SolidWorks. Solid Edge also had better sheet metal modeling functionality." Caruso also realized that Solid Edge was more intuitive to use. "It knows what your next logical step is, so you're clicking your mouse a lot less. Solid Edge definitely does what we need and more," he adds.

Caruso also noted a difference in approaches the resellers of the two programs took. "For example, we were led to believe that SolidWorks owned the Parasolid modeling technology that Solid Edge uses.We later discovered the opposite to be true, that UGS, which develops Solid Edge, owns the technology SolidWorks uses," Caruso explains. "The Solid Edge reseller, Designfusion (Toronto), was very professional."

Straight to rendering

As soon as Caruso got Solid Edge, he had a chance to see what it could do for the manuals. Without any formal training (working from the built-in tutorials), he created a Solid Edge assembly model of a new product that had recently been developed in AutoCAD. Then he taught himself all there was to know about creating photorealistic images in Solid Edge. The results were stunning; some of the sales and marketing staff thought they were photos. They were incorporated into the manual for the new product, the EvenGLO™ patio heater.

Compared to the company's previous manuals and to those of the competition, this one is a contractor's dream. Not only does the quality of the rendered images bring a new level of clarity to the document, Caruso was able to easily position the Solid Edge assembly model to show the most advantageous angles for the installers. "As we get these manuals out for more and more of our products, I think it will elevate our company's image in the minds of the buyers and installers," Caruso adds.

The clarity of the rendered images has in-house benefits as well. "It's much faster and easier to communicate our ideas to the sales and marketing people with these images," Caruso says. The same is true for communications with overseas suppliers. "People understand these images easily and they overcome the language barrier," he adds.

Support for innovation

Today, all new products are being designed in Solid Edge. An unanticipated benefit of the software has been its support for innovation. "In the past, if we had an idea that was overly complicated to draw in 2D, it would have been put on the back burner or not attempted at all," says Caruso. "Because it's easier to design in Solid Edge, we can create more sophisticated and advanced products.We don't have to compromise our creativity because of limits of 2D."

In Caruso's opinion, the choice of Solid Edge sets his company apart in many ways, not least in its choice of the design software itself. "Solid Edge users do not just follow the path to the better-known SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor software," he says. "We did the work to evaluate which CAD system would do the best job for us. I didn't want to compromise what our company needed because SolidWorks was more popular.We now have a strong, technical and competitive advantage because I dared to compare."

Download the PDF: Superior Radiant Products

Challenges:

• Provide clearer documentation for customers and installers
• Improve communication in-house between engineering and sales/marketing
• Cross language barrier with overseas suppliers
• Stand out from the competition

Keys To Success:

• Honest, helpful CAD reseller
• Designing all new products as 3D assemblies in Solid Edge® software
• Creating photorealistic images from assembly models
• Using rendered images instead of drawings in manuals

Results:

• Manuals that stand out
• Realistic images in minutes vs. weeks for less informative 2D drawings
• More efficient sales and support efforts
• Fewer errors due to miscommunication with suppliers and customers

Industry:

• Machinery & Industrial
• Consumer Products

"We now have a strong, technical and competitive advantage because I dared to compare."

• Pat Caruso
• Vice President, Engineering
• Superior Radiant Products

Clients Primary Business:

Superior Radiant Products manufactures gas fired, high and low intensity infrared space heating equipment.

Business Initiatives:

• Value Chain Synchronization
• New Product Development

Solutions/Services:

• Solid Edge
• NX Design (CAD)

Please click on the links to the right for more information or contact Siemens PLM Software - Velocity Series today!

If you work with wood, then Alibre Design Workshop is the right addition to your workflow. With the market's fastest growing 3D CAD software, you can precisely craft and modify your woodworking projects in 3D; then produce 2D drawings. And, finally, export the exact parameters to our bundled nesting program, Sheet Layout, to take full advantage of your materials.

Buy Alibre Design Workshop

Workshop Overview:

The breadth of features in Alibre Design Workshop gives you a blank canvas to design whatever your project requires. You're not limited to case goods like CabinetVision or CabnetWare, or required to pay a high price like with SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor. Design any furntiture piece more efficiently and in less time than with burdensome paper and pencil.

Alibre Design Workshop comes with Productivity Software's Sheet Layout - Now anyone that uses sheet or lumber materials can improve efficiency and lower costs by optimizing the use of actual materials. Simply export a bill of materials (BOM) to Sheet Layout and print the cut pattern that uses the least amount of materials. Select crosscut and rip cut options and more. With Sheet Layout, you'll never have to waste time tediously calculating the best way to save money on materials again.

Which product is right for me?

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Alibre Design Workshop Features

Unique Features:

• Sheet Layout, where you can export a Bill of Materials and print the cut pattern using the least amount of materials – avoid waste, save money.
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3D Modeling Features:

• 3D parametric solid modeling, featuring: parts and assemblies, parametric sketching, interference detection, spread-sheet driven design.
• Refine your design with advanced modeling tools, including 3D sketch, design Booleans, lofts, sweeps, shelling, and more.
• Build and manage intricate assemblies with an unlimited number of unique parts.
• Associative 2D drafting – model updates automatically when changing precise inputs.
• Advanced drawing functions including associative Bill of Materials and standard and advanced view creation, including broken, section, detailed, partial, auxiliary, and more.
• Exchange data between systems in formats such as STEP, IGES, and SAT.
• Real-time Team Design to facilitate group work.
• Real-time online support for technical and design needs, as well as software maintenance.
• 3D PDF publishing capabilities.
• The easy-to-learn interface and customer support central to all Alibre Design software.
• Fast Views : save time with this new projection method specifically designed for large and complex assemblies. Get your models into a 2D format for detailing 4 to 10 times faster.
• For a full, detailed list of new features in v10 click here.

Training and Support

System Requirements

Please click on the links to the right for more information or buy your version of Alibre Design Workshop today!

IQS (a division of Degree Controls, Inc) Compliance Testing and Design

Contact: Charlie Nasser Tel: 508-460-1400 www.iqscorp.com

"What is compliance testing and how does it affect my product?" This is a question we hear from our clients every day. The answer in one word….depends. Am I purposely trying to confuse the matter? No, the various countries and agencies around the world do a much better job at that than I could ever do!

When one attempts to define compliance testing, the paramount question to answer is, "What am I trying to comply to?" Is it an internal design goal, a domestic regulatory requirement or the unknown importation laws of a country only a marketing executive has heard of? Of course, those requirements are not mutually exclusive and more often than not our clients are trying to comply with combinations of more than one requirement. As you will see, they are very much related and the process to comply with all of them requires a concerted effort which begins shortly after the product idea has been conceived.

When the product development team has formulated their design ideas, the compliance game has begun. From this new product initiation come a myriad of technical design and verification requirements the developmental team often doesn't have the experience or time to focus on. Be they thermal, mechanical, electrical, software, reliability, design verification or regulatory concerns, any one can lead to major issues of increased cost and longer time to market. Very few companies have the expertise or bandwidth to address these areas and are coming to DegreeC to outsource some or all items.

We can engage a client on a product at any time in their new product development cycle. Often we are brought in to educate our clients to the design and test requirements of the markets they are targeting. Our seminars and training classes address the issues the design team will need to consider prior to beginning the product development. When our clients get us involved at the early design phase, our engineers have provided them with thermal analysis and design guidance using Computational Fluid Dynamics tools (Flowtherm, IDEAS, etc.) and experimental prototyping to correlate the models with empirical data. We combine that thermal service with our mechanical engineers who provide 3D modeling (Solidworks, Pro/E, etc.) of some or the entire product for a complete thermal/mechanical packaging solution. In conjunction with those design efforts our engineers are performing the electrical and software development work as part of our clients engineering team to complete the product design. This design is also under the design scrutiny of our compliance engineers (EMI/EMC and product safety) to ensure a smooth path to worldwide certification.

When the product has completed the initial design phase and components have been selected, our engineers support the reliability and design verification testing requirements. These efforts include our performing Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Return Rate analyses, margin testing of power supply voltage and frequency over temperature extremes and Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) which includes the identification and mitigation of the weak points of a system. This data is analyzed to determine whether the product is robust enough to consider the design final and send it into production.

Once the product design has been finalized and a production like product has been manufactured, our compliance test engineers perform the necessary regulatory test suite for your markets of interest (EMI, EMC, Product Safety) at our independent and accredited (A2LA, Verizon ITL) division, IQS. We also provide our clients the ability to sell into world-wide markets with our in-country certification program (in conjunction with a partner organization). Our engineers will provide a program to support the continued reliability of the product utilizing Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) and Highly Accelerated Stress Auditing (HASA) profiles which can ensure that your end customers are receiving a robust product. Even later in the product lifecycle when change order management becomes prevalent, our engineers are involved in the review of these revisions and the ramifications therein.

The DegreeC team of industry experts provides a total solution to our customers design and test needs. We work within our client's engineering system to ensure seamless integration of tools and personnel. The end result of these efforts is a shorter development cycle allowing for a reliable product which is less expensive to produce and maintain while still having a quicker time to market.