So I have been looking at Solidworks and see that there is a second party plug in that will do composites design although I do not know how that would would integrate into an FEA program. Obviously there are a lot of high end programs out there, but is there something available as a single seat that would handle design and analysis while being affordable for an individual or small business?
You might be able to pick up an older versions of software like Ansys. It’s been powerful enough to handle composites for a number of versions now.
Are you looking for a single program to do CAD and CAE or a package that does both?
What I would like is a package (whether that is a single program or multiple programs) That would allow me to design the part, easily set up the FEA and then allow me to go back and make alterations within the part and not have to completely start with a new FEA model. Obviously that type of interoperability is usually pretty pricey, but as long as they communicate with each other and are fairly easy to learn. I don’t want to have to bring in parts as IGES files, then rebuild them so that I can build a FEA model it just takes too much time.
Ansys integrates well into Solidworks but I don’t know if it will match your pricepoint.
It also seems that composites FEA are now possible in Cosmos Simulation. I’ve never tried this and I actually didn’t know much about it until I googled it right now but it might be worth looking into that as well.
The drivers of your choice should be:
- budget;
- type of structure/component that could be the standard of your analysis ( if you design plates only, the most of packages work, but if you have complicated geometries you must choose carefully the tool since the draping of layers is extremely difficult, if impossible, to do with low cost software);
- your knowledge of fem theory: high end tools offer a lot of elements ( in the fem sense…) that the user should understand very well for a correct analysis ( 2D plates, 2D shells layered or not, 3D elements…).
Solidworks is basically a cad software that is mate with cosmos package as fem and it belongs to those tool thought for design environments where only basic of structure analysis knowledge and quick forth and back between 3d model and fem model is the main requirement. Similar packages are:
Proe+Promechanica of PTC
Catia with its own fem package integrated (Elfini)
Autocad with Algor
…………
They all have their libraries for composite analysis, but, in their basic version, they have no tools for managing draping of layers; such tools are plug in , usually supplied apart .