Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Software Available Free to STEM Students

Hands-on modeFRONTIER CAE training for students through ESTECO Academy

A Response Surface Model Stepwise Regression.

A Response Surface Model Stepwise Regression.

ESTECO is offering their multidisciplinary and multivariable design optimization CAE software, modeFRONTIER, free to STEM students and professors around the world during the month of September.

By joining the ESTECO Academy, academics will be treated to this one year usage license, training, and more. The ESTECO Academy is an online source of training materials and events targeting the STEM academic community.

modeFRONTIER is CAE software able to control third party CAE software through  communication nodes. Users can perform automated design of experiments or design optimizations within modeFRONTIER to improve their designs. To limit computational resources, modeFRONTIER implements response surface models (RSM) to reduce the number of times a third party software is called. 

The ESTECO Academy gives university students a chance to learn how to perform these multidisciplinary numerical optimizations for product design. Additionally, the training material and live events will focus on solving real-world engineering problems.

“Along with simulation technology, design optimization nowadays is an essential engineering tool at all levels and across different industrial sectors,” said Carlo Polini, president of ESTECO. “We believe that opening doors to a new world of competencies by putting theory into practice is a key to shaping engineers of the future.”

Jaguar Land Rover's Optimization Targets vs. Baseline & Optimization using modeFRONTIER.

Jaguar Land Rover’s Optimization Targets vs. Baseline & Optimization using modeFRONTIER.

The ESTECO Academy will provide engineering students around the world with the knowledge and technology used by various industry members like Jaguar Land Rover and Ford (see examples: Jaguar Land Rover and Ford). Therefore, these students will have a leg up on other engineering students that are not trained in product design optimization software.

Additionally, modeFRONTIER will be made available to post graduates and researchers who will be able to use the CAE optimization software in their engineering projects.

It should be noted that offering free software is a significant trend in the CAE industry. Industry leaders such as ANSYS, Dassault Systèmes, Autodesk, CD-adapco and MSC Software, are offering academics their software in the hope that they will hook the next generation of engineers to their brand (see examples: ANSYS, Dassault Systemes, Autodesk, CD-adapco, and MSC Software).

The unusual thing about ESTECO’s announcement is that they are limiting their student licenses to one year, without mention of a renewal process. Additionally, the free offer is only available for one month. Other software developers, however, are offering free academic licenses and renewing them for as long as the software is being used by academics for non-commercial means. As a result, it would not be surprising to hear ESTECO offer academics a similar indefinite licenses and renew process within this year.

Would your school project or thesis improve with the use of optimization CAE software? Does your company use multidisciplinary and multivariable design optimization software? Comment below.

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.