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| The Independent Community for Dassault Systemes CATIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA & 3DVia Tools | ||||
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| The Independent Community for Dassault Systemes CATIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA & 3DVia Tools | ||||
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| COSMOSWorks: Your Analysis Solution
In our recent Analysis Roundup, we left out the COSMOS line of products. Those of you in the know were outraged – COSMOS is one of SolidWorks’ most critical tools. Those of you not familiar with these SolidWorks integrated capabilities need to know why you should be using it. For COSMOS takes its own path in analysis software; it is completely integrated into SolidWorks software, it has powerful analysis capabilities – even such complex non-linear functions as drop test – and yet it is designed to be very user friendly, hiding the complexities behind the scenes. So, you don’t need to have a PhD to perform analysis – and you can give up those pesky hand calculations. A Little History COSMOS was developed by Structural Research and Analysis Corporation (SRAC) 21 years ago. SRAC was one of the first companies to put analysis on the PC platform. The company initially developed COSMOSM software as a standalone product. In the mid-90s, it was well known for its speed of solving. As CAD software came to prominence later in the ‘90s, the company developed CAD-associated products. Before PTC bought Mechanica, Pro/ENGINEER integrated a COSMOS module. So did Autodesk. Meanwhile, back in 1993, SolidWorks Corporation emerged. SRAC was its first Gold Partner, with an integrated analysis module named COSMOSWorks. SRAC also developed a standalone product, COSMOSDesignSTAR, which is still used with Solid Edge, Autodesk Inventor and Pro/ENGINEER, among others. In 2000, Dassault Systèmes bought SRAC, and COSMOS software became part of SolidWorks. The COSMOS product suite of analysis products includes everything from stress analysis and design optimization to flow simulation, motion simulation and electromagnetics. The Current Picture Today, COSMOS is a true success. More than 13,000 companies are using it, which makes COSMOS one of the most widely used analysis software products. But even now, in the world of automation, many CAD designers do not use any analysis tools and rely on hand calculations (you guys doing hand calculations aren’t using slide rules, right?). In their research, the COSMOS team has found that many engineers and designers have a fear of using analysis tools. The COSMOS team is making inroads among the fearful by showing 3D customers how beneficial analysis is – and how easy to use. The company’s thrust comes from the top: two years ago, SolidWorks CEO John McEleney, decided to provide COSMOSWorks, COSMOSMotion and COSMOSFloWorks to every engineering school that uses SolidWorks software at no extra cost. Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, USC, and other four-year colleges use it in their coursework. Now the company is seeing a trend in MCAD education departments to teach analysis. This should help as engineers get out of college and move into the workplace. No longer is it enough for MCAD engineers just to design; the emphasis is now on being well-rounded. For example, in the automotive world, the “Big Three” are large enough to have entire departments dedicated to analysis. But as tier one, two, and three vendors compete harder to make the best product the fastest, analysis becomes a necessary cost of doing business. Cost savings found in the course of design – like eliminating unnecessary material – make software like COSMOSWorks an immediate positive ROI. Companies in other industries recognize the analysis trend. In the next one to two years, many are expected to adopt analysis software. Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico is one of the biggest users of COSMOSWorks. The beauty of the software is that it can be used for different purposes – not only a quick structural check, but also very high end computations. A Different Animal So what is the COSMOS approach? Ease of use and transparent functionality. This year, the company added drop test capabilities as part of the standard COSMOSWorks. In some high end analysis software, drop test is sold as a separate module and can cost thousands of dollars. Another example of the powerful yet easy-to-use features in COSMOSWorks is the “pin connector.” To simulate a pin connection between two parts in traditional software can easily take five to six hours, even for a trained expert. In COSMOSWorks, a pin connection can be defined and solved within minutes. So what else does COSMOSWorks do? With its three add-on applications (FloWorks, Motion, and EMS), COSMOS offers full linear structural stress, nonlinear structural, steady state thermal, transient thermal, frequency, dynamic, electromagnetic, computational fluid dynamics, motion simulation, and multiphysics – almost all the same analyses that the higher end software can do. File size is not a problem; there are no hard limitations (other than Windows memory limits). COSMOSWorks comes with a library of around 150 commonly used materials, and users can add others to its library. And, like much more expensive software, it can analyze most non-linear materials, including rubber, elastomers, and plastics. For specialty high-end problems like composites analysis, there is a seamless upgrade path to COSMOSM. (Click on the "Open image window" link at above left to see illustrations of the latest features of COSMOSWorks, FloWorks, and Motion.) But rather than talk about numbers of solvers or elements, like other analysis software, COSMOS leaves it transparent. Worrying about solvers and elements is why many people are scared of FEA. In the company’s experience, users need to focus on their jobs – engineering and designing high quality products - not on how analysis software works. The goal at COSMOS is to add high-end functionality in response to customer needs. If you’re a high end user looking for a particular function, talk to the company. If you’re a beginner needing more transparency, talk to the company. SolidWorks has a commitment to make its customers comfortable with the software. COSMOSWorks Designer, with linear statics, costs $3,500; COSMOSWorks Professional is $6,995 (adds frequency, buckling, drop test, and thermal); and COSMOSWorks Advanced Professional (adds nonlinear and advanced dynamics capabilities), including some of the features of COSMOSM, is $11,995. (FloWorks, Motion, and EMS are additional, as is a Utility Pack with a 30,000-part materials library.) The company’s mission is simple, says Suchit Jain, vice president of marketing. “We want to provide analysis to everyone. We don’t want to talk about elements, instead we ask, ‘Do you perform hand calculations? How can we optimize that process? Make the process better?’ We ask what the customer needs and try to get rid of their fear of analysis.”
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