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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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 www.neicad.com). 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 www.neicad.com). 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.

 

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.

 

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

I need to analize some high power connectors.

thanks,
SD

 

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

Richard