In case you haven’t heard, Dassault Systèmes announced a really exciting acquisition today. The SIMULIA brand is expanding with the addition of FE-DESIGN to the growing 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This will extend SIMULIA market leading solutions for design optimization. Check out the News Release for the official statement.

If you’re unfamiliar with FE-DESIGN products, you’ve been missing out! Headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, FE-DESIGN developed TOSCA Structure and TOSCA Fluid, two leading optimization technologies for both FEA and CFD simulations. These tools provide exceptional advantages to the simulation analyst, helping to create innovative and more easily manufactured design early in the product development process to deliver better products to the market faster.

• TOSCA Structure is the market leading technology for structural optimization, leveraging a variety of FEA packages. It allows for rapid and reliable design of lightweight, rigid and durable components and systems. Using topology optimization with TOSCA Structure technologies can help determine optimal design proposals during the design concept phase. Further detail improvements through shape and bead optimization make these designs ready for production and manufacture.
• TOSCA Fluid is so far the only available system for topology optimization of channel flow problems. Starting from an initial design space, an optimized design of a flow channel is determined automatically by TOSCA Fluid. With only one CFD solver run an optimized structure is derived (e.g. structural redesign with significantly reduced pressure drop). This unique technology allows an economic topology optimization of industrial large scale flow applications.

Imagine the possibilities for increased efficiency and creative design when using these technologies with in association with current SIMULIA products like Isight, our process automation and design optimization solution. Such a combination will provide a comprehensive suite of applications to support decisions ranging from the shape of a product to entire business processes.

You can learn more about design optimization from this SIMULIA webinar replay.

Last but not least, join us at the SIMULIA Customer Conference, May 21-24^th, 2013 in Vienna, Austria to learn more about design optimization, TOSCA technologies and how they can improve your simulation & design efficiency. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Mark MONAGHAN is a Senior member of the SIMULIA User Advocacy team

Following our previous blog post on IF WE Challenge third winner Andjelic Zoran, the turn is now to our second prize winner Ismael Cendejas. Ismael is coming from Mexico, but has recently studied in University of Victoria, BC, Canada. His winning IF WE Dream was: “IF WE design more exoskeletons we can help more people with different capacity”.

As a matter of fact, Ismael is working on two projects in this domain:

I have two projects about Exoskeletons. The first is about the Design of an Exoskeleton for training people with Parkinson’s Disease, which is part of a thesis of a bachelor. The second one is a Design and Matlab simulation of a portable exoskeleton for hand rehabilitation. [...] The most critical engineering discipline in these projects I think is Systems Engineering because all the diseases and patients are different, in that way they need to be treated personally, implying the necessity to develop a program for each one.

Ismael was kind enough to share the following pictures with us

Ismael has been using CATIA and SIMULIA for his project. As a winner of the second prize, we’re happy to provide Ismael with a high performance laptop (shown above) coming with 3DS software, thus adding our small contribution to this project with a great social impact potential.

Keep up the good work, Ismael! 

Throughout the year, Dassault Systèmes is involved in a lot of worldwide events promoting engineering education.

From October 15^th to 18^th was held the first World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This event brought together the biggest and most important international organizations devoted to engineering education like The MathWorks, HP or Microsoft. The objective was to think and find solutions about sustainable development and social inclusion through engineering education.

As a premium sponsor, Dassault Systèmes played a major role during this event:

Our 3DS booth gathered the Academia team from 3DS HQ, the 3DS Latin America team and Teckdes, our local academic reseller. They met with students, deans and educators, but also hosted several meetings, including a workshop highlighting academic projects authored by Argentinean students.

Our 3DS booth gathered the Academia team from the HQ, the LATAM Marketing team and Teckdes, our local academic reseller. They met with students, deans and educators, but also hosted several meetings, including a workshop highlighting academic projects authored by Argentinean students.

Invited on stage, students from the National University of La Plata and Universidad Tecnologica Nacional presented their projects made with CATIA, SIMULIA, SolidWorks and other 3DS software. Have a look at the projects:

Modelization and analysis of the operational capacity of La Plata airport in order to modernize and improve its capacity.
Made with: CATIA V6, SolidWorks, ENOVIA V6 and 3DVIA Composer

Innovation product design: The Smart Doormat has been designed to clean shoes and to prevent the floors from rotting. Indeed, our houses, hospital and all indoor places in general are   polluted with germs, dirt, bacteria and so on because people don’t take off their shoes.
Made with: CATIA V5 and 3DVIA Composer

An alternative solution for recycling automotive tires: the use of tires as water conducts. The objective of this project was to develop a machine to manufacture a duct for/to drain stacked water.
Made with: CATIA V5 and SIMULIA

Design of a Three Wheel Electric Vehicle:  The vehicle is powered with 19,5 kw/hs Lithium Batteries and has Brushless Type Electric motor.  Its maximum speed is 60 km/h with a range of 300 km.
Made with: CATIA V5 and SIMULIA

You can find on our Facebook page more pictures from the WEEF 2012 event as well as more details about the student’s projects. Hope you’ll enjoy!