Finite Element Analysis
Modern products require efficient material utilization. Light weight, high toughness and the consideration of temperature influence, vibration and fatigue loading are only a few aspects of the complex environment that need to be considered for efficient development.
The reduction of development time by predicting the device performance, and the associated saving of prototypes and design iteration loops are of enormous importance, particularly in the Medical Device industry.
Besides the knowledge and experience of the FEA engineer regarding the various simulation methods and material properties, the capabilities of the utilized simulation software are critical. In order to capture the manifold properties such as contact, friction, nonlinear material behavior, kinking, buckling, temperature influence or vibration characteristics close to reality, we decided to utilize NE/Nastran as our main analysis tool in 1998.
NE/Nastran is a universal FEA code geared towards simulating structural, thermal and vibration problems. It's based on the popular Nastran code foundation that was developed by NASA. The further development by Noran engineering has resulted in one of the most accurate FEA codes in the industry. Through the pre- and post processor FEMAP we have a direct interface to virtually all CAD geometry formats and several other, more specialized FEA codes. For quick pilot simulations we also utilize NEiWorks and COSMOSWorks, the latter along with COSMOSMotion for kinematical analyses.