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There’s a lot of confusion around what the terms additive manufacturing and 3D printing mean.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a science that uses data structures to solve issues of fluid flow -- like velocity, density, and chemical compositions. 

IN THIS ARTICLE: 

• What is Finite Element Analysis
• Principles of FEA
• A General Process in FEA
• Type of Finite Element Method
• Application of FEA in CAD
• Why FEA is Useful
• The Bottom Line

Engineers have the unenviable position of being held entirely responsible for the integrity and safety of all the products and structures they design. Small mistakes in design often lead to imminent disasters (that frequently go to court and get litigated). 

This is why products and structures go through an array of stress testing and optimization before being deployed in the real world. But doing so over hundreds of iterations (and to scale) can be prohibitively expensive. So engineers often look to simulation modeling techniques (like Finite Element Analysis) to automate and simplify this testing.

This helps to reduce the use of materials for iterative prototyping, which would otherwise be used in actualization. 

Finite element analysis is one of the most common techniques used by engineers and CAD designers to simulate “stress” on their designs. 

To the uninitiated, 3D printing may seem a simple process — download your CAD file and hit print. But the world of additive manufacturing is more complex. A manufacturer will have to contend with a range of data formats of varying quality (especially if a manufacturer is having to deal with multiple subcontractors for an assembly). This data needs to be correctly translated, made watertight, and made manufacturable — all while retaining design intent. Then a manufacturer needs to combine as many parts as possible to minimize both print time as well as wasted material.

The construction industry has long taken advantage of prebuilt components, from prehung doors to prefabbed roof trusses. But the latest trend is to apply manufacturing workflows to larger standardized and custom components, with digital modeling empowering factory-built bespoke components.

 A major benefit of constructing a building virtually is the cost savings gained by identifying errors in the design before they are found on site. One of the more common errors that can be avoided is when two objects overlap in space or clash. For example a beam that should stop at a wall may have been wrongly dimensioned so that when placed on site, it passes through the wall. Right through or only partly through, either way it is very costly to fix if it is only identified as the wall is being built .

We often focus the success of new partners, showcasing how Spatial helped with bringing a new product to market. But that focus overlooks the importance of the benefits and results of a decades-long partnership. It is time to celebrate nearly 30 years of market leadership of one of our oldest customers and the partnership that helped build it.

Manufacturers rely on 3D computer-aided design (CAD) files provided to them by design and engineering teams. This could occur internally (within a company possessing both design and production capabilities) and across different companies.

Following the design and analysis phase, computer aided design (CAD) files are usually converted into polyhedra file formats for preparation and manufacturing in 3D printers. STL (STereoLithography or Standard Tessellation Language) is the most common polyhedra file format, having originally been developed to translate CAD files into a readable format for 3D printers in 1987.

Since launching in 1995, SolidWorks has emerged as a widely adopted computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided engineering (CAE) suite. In fact, as of March 2016 SolidWorks had captured 32% of the CAD market, making it the leading CAD suite in use.