COSMOS/Works vs. Ansys for SolidWorks

Has anyone had experience with both programs? Pros? Cons?

Is the ANSYS interface to SolidWorks complete? Why would you choose one over the other?

Thanks.

Richard Doyle Manitex, Inc.

Reply to
Richard Doyle
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Richard,

Here's what I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

We've been looking at FEA packages here and one of us spent quite a bit of time recently trying out demo versions. His take on CosmosWorks was that it was easy to use but doesn't have much capability, meaning that we would have to go to CosmosM and/or DesignStar, which weren't as easy to use. He was also unimpressed with the mesher and the technical help. Another downside is that SW is tied up while it solves.

He preferred NE/Nastran to Cosmos, as it seemed more stable and had good capability for a reasonable price. The mesher was better, but still had trouble on some of our "swoopy" parts. Technical help wasn't very good (although others in this group have commented on their good technical service).

His favorite was Ansys, primarily due to its stability, the robust mesher, and the excellent technical service. The Workbench interface is intuitive, easy to use, and reads SW files, but you have to use the Classic interface to do nonlinear materials, which is not so easy to use. It's more expensive than the others for the same capability.

After I wrote that, my colleague who was doing the comparisons got an email from the folks at NE/Nastran asking what problems we had with their technical support. He wrote back to say that, unlike what I wrote above, it wasn't that their technical support was bad, just that the technical support from the local Ansys VAR (JLR in the Seattle area) was incredibly good.

The Ansys interface to SW seems to be quite good (given that we only had a month of playing with it). As noted above, only certain types of analysis are included in the Workbench interface that has the SW link. If you want to run non-linear material analyses, for example, you have to transfer to the Classic interface, which is not nearly as friendly. They are adding more capability to the Workbench interface with each release, so this may not be a problem for too much longer. On the other hand, NE/Nastran is bringing out a SW link in the next 6 months or so. You might want to look at it as well.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems

Reply to
Jerry Steiger

Ansys is definitely the Cadillac of FEA, but comes at a Cadillac price. Cosmos is more like a good Chevy both in price and capability.

Reply to
ms

Cosmos is a Chevy all right?a 1973 Chevy Vega. I had one once and the engine fell out. NE/Nastran is a great product and the only weakness is the lack of an integrated CAD option. I understand that will change soon (check out

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If you compare price and performance you cannot beat NE/Nastran. Also has the same super fast PCGLSS solvers as does Cosmos. I agree that ANSYS is a nice package but it is difficult to use and is expensive to get and maintain. But I would put NE/Nastran up there with it for capability and performance.

Cosmos is a Chevy all right?a 1973 Chevy Vega. I had one once and the engine fell out. NE/Nastran is a great product and the only weakness is the lack of an integrated CAD option. I understand that will change soon (check out

formatting link
If you compare price and performance you cannot beat NE/Nastran. Also has the same super fast PCGLSS solvers as does Cosmos. I agree that ANSYS is a nice package but it is difficult to use and is expensive to get and maintain. But I would put NE/Nastran up there with it for capability and performance.

Reply to
Philip Aataro

You should take a peek at Pro/Mechanica (Runs in Idependent and Integrated (ie within Pro/E) modes). I use this with CATIA v4 and it works very well. Quick, easy interface, with an accomplished toolset, solver and optimisation tools.

Solidworks has the capability to export to Pro/E which works quite well with Pro/Mec for obvious reasons.

I would say that it is not as accomplished as an ANSYS as FEA tools go, but as a design tool it is excellent.

Cheers

Sq.

Reply to
Squarepusher

Does anyone have experince using the Electrial simulations with either package?

I need to analize some high power connectors.

thanks, SD

Reply to
SD

Thanks for the replies everyone. We'll be seeing a demo of the Ansys for SolidWorks product this week.

Richard

Reply to
Richard Doyle

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