MSC Adds Structural Analysis to Its Computational Parts Platform

Latest Apex release couples Modeler & Structural analysis

The latest release of MSC Apex, dubbed Cheetah, will finally couple the company’s award-winning computational parts capabilities with structural FEA analysis. This third release will also feature improvements to the Apex Modeler which will assist in the meshing, and CAD clean-up of designs.

“Cheetah is a milestone release for MSC Apex, now delivering its first solver integrated solution for interactive and incremental structural analysis,” said Hugues Jeancolas, MSC Apex Product Manager.

The concept of computation parts lets users configure parts of a product’s design as a black-box. This allows users to send their part to customers and collaborators without risking the intellectual property. The black-box nature of the part is created by pre-calculating the stiffness, mass, and damping of each part before the analysis of the assembly.

The tool also allows for teams to work more in a ‘divide and conquer’ setup. This is because when updating the model, only the computational part – and all assemblies referencing it – will need to be updated, as opposed to updating the assemblies using traditional methods.

A geometry check tool has been added to the Modeler to help reduce the time needed to mesh a CAD model. This will extend the automatic capabilities of the software to clean up and stitch surfaces. The tool also features an updated GUI to de-feature the CAD design. Once the model is optimized for analysis, the software can automatically mesh the design while maintaining user-defined mesh criterial.

An interesting addition to Apex is the Analysis Readiness tool. Instead of users checking for convergence after simulation, the tool will validate the model before the analysis. The tool performs this task by assessing the element quality, section/material attribution, part connectivity, and constraints/load definitions. To ensure a model is solver complainant, the tool is integrated into the generative framework and updates automatically with the model.

“MSC Apex helps users to crush the amount of time that it normally takes to build and validate models, a task that does not add any value to the design process,” explained Jeancolas. “This frees our users to focus on delivering not just acceptable designs, but ones that are optimal – in an environment that is fun to use.”

Other improvements to MSC Apex Cheetah include:

  • Managing, analysing, assembling meshes of lone computational parts
  • Assign loads, boundary conditions, scenarios, post processes, for normal modes and linear static

Source MSC Software.

Written by

Shawn Wasserman

For over 10 years, Shawn Wasserman has informed, inspired and engaged the engineering community through online content. As a senior writer at WTWH media, he produces branded content to help engineers streamline their operations via new tools, technologies and software. While a senior editor at Engineering.com, Shawn wrote stories about CAE, simulation, PLM, CAD, IoT, AI and more. During his time as the blog manager at Ansys, Shawn produced content featuring stories, tips, tricks and interesting use cases for CAE technologies. Shawn holds a master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Guelph and an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.