FEA PACKAGE FOR very SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES

VITTAL_S_S

I AM FROM A SMALL SCALE INDUSTRY DESIGN TEAM AND I WOULD like to EXTEND MY DESIGN procedure to more accurate FEM analysis so i have been going through many comparisons and search for FEM software package which is easy to use as well as serves simple static structural and vibration analysis.
I found MECWAY in this process and this software seems to be very helpful and meets the need of DESIGN AND ANALYSIS at my company.
but as 350$ of investment is not a small amount for my company i am looking forward for different other software too. but i found LISA FEA and MECWAY both very interesting and intuitive to use.

I AM LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE USED MECWAY AS WELL AS LISA TO SHARE THEIR REVIEW ABOUT THE PACKAGES.


THANKYOU

Sergio

Hi, I'm in the same situation, as independient consultor comercial first line FEA packages like ANSYS, Abaqus or Nastran are well behind my budget (they cost about u$s 18.000 or more, plus 10-20% anual fee). Second line software? You think in FEMAP or midas NFX, starting again $8.000...plus anual fee)

There are several open sources tools like Calculix, OpenFOAM, Code Aster, Aurora Z88, I have investigated and tested several of them, and for everyday work...they all lack of a standard productive GUI, and support that's the problem!

There is another point, that almost 80% of analysis are simple lineal, or worst case material plasticity, so dealing with ANSYS, Abaqus or Nastran is like trying to kill a fly with a cannon, is not necesary such a big program/investment for simple problems

Guess that $350 is very cheap if you take in count all the professional work that you can make with the software, even for development countries like my Argentina :-)

Believe me, there is no better option in the price range. You should learn several tools in case of using open source software (Netgen and Salome for meshing, then you could write your input files by hand, solve in Calculix and postprocess in CGX... how many softwares you have used in the process for one simple analysis?)

Best Regards, and we keep in touch.

Victor

Hello VITTAL_S_S. Those are all good points by Sergio. For a comparison to LISA, see this other thread http://mecway.com/forum/discussion/71/mecway-or-lisa#latest but be aware it's a bit dated so there are now more new features besides those mentioned there.

VMH

VITTAL_S_S, I also have used both Mecway and LISA. I agree with Segio comments. For $350, it's very well worth it compared to using other open source that the learning curves are steep. You can read other topics in this forum to see comments from others. Others have done many tests and comparisons including myself to understand the validity of Mecway results and they are spot on.

barrti

I would second these comments. I have used several very expensive FEA products and prefer Mecway especially for FEA work with fewer numbers of parts.

Most of our work is linear structural with glued joints. So far, the results match closely.

Mecway is simple to use and way more understandable than the others.

The added bonus is that it can write files as input to Calculix which has the non linear and contact capability if needed.

saco

I agree with the above. I haven been using Ansys, Femap, Cosmos, aso. professionaly and bought Lisa and Mecway for my one man company. And earned money with it.

DaveStupple

I started out with LISA, and now use Mecway. I had some good results out of LISA and learned a lot, but Mecway is more stable and more user friendly. The support is excellent (as you can see by looking round this forum).