Mecway/CalculiX vs Abaqus

Sergio

Hi, this is a set of comparative analysis done on Mecway/CalculiX and Abaqus, made in order to show to some of my customers to gain confidence in this tools. Still is in Spanish, but guess that is easy to understand.

I have focused on industrial aplications and not sintetic/theorical models, because that is what real customers want to see. I have covered the main kind of analysis:

• Lineal
• No Lineal Material (using an assembly)
• Modal (using shell elements)

• Thermal steady state
• Contact and hyperelastic material (using hexa elements)

In short, there are very few differences between both solvers, end even more, Mecway is not only several orders of magnitud cheaper but also easier to learn and use.

Regards 

Andrea

I'm italian and I understand (quite) spanish. Good Job!
I know that the initial mistrust of opensource or cheap FEA softwares involves above all new users or who has a reduced knoledge of FEA. Other aspect is that the on many Universities (at least in Italy) there isn't a culture of opensource and "minor" software. They spend million euros for licenses for exploiting a 5% of the software capacity. Students start from basic skills.

Sergio

Well, we can speak a lot on the matter. Guess that university try to teach the best they can... And we must recognize that Abaqus, is one of the best tools on the market. On the other side, students will like to invest his time and effort in learn the tools that will be usefull in his future professional work...Again they will aim the best tool on the market...Abaqus!. Now let see the industries... There will be big companies that will like or need to use the best tool on the market... Abaqus, there are lots of universities and people learning Abaqus, so is easy to them to get people to make it work. Big companies will have the funds to pay for Abaqus, but what left for small companies? What left for individuals or consultants who need to made FEA?

Guess that this is the market for Mecway, Calculus and other players.