MSC Software Corporation, today announced the release of the company's next-generation complete Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) platform, MSC Apex™. MSC Apex is the world's first computational parts™ based CAE system that will serve as the platform for a broad range of physics and applications that MSC Software will introduce over time. MSC Apex transforms the way engineers perform simulation by reducing critical CAE modeling and process time from days to hours. The platform delivers innovative technology that enables predictive product development in the earlier stages of design where it is critical in saving time and money.
"The patterns that were developed 30+ years ago for simulation have simply not evolved to keep pace with the tremendous challenges that industry faces today," said Dominic Gallello, President & CEO of MSC Software. "We rethought the process, and have found many opportunities to deliver dramatic productivity improvements to engineers and analysts. Our team rearranged the way in which the components of geometry modeling, solving, and post processing relate to each other, moving away from a serial process to an interactively connected process based on a new parts and assembly paradigm."
"MSC Apex addresses key pain points of its big analysis customers and, with the same broad stroke, opens the door for MSC Software to meet the broader needs of smaller firms, who have not been part of MSC's core customer base. The concept of computational parts makes it feasible for firms to push exploratory analysis into the hands of those without deep expertise in analysis. This has the potential to dramatically reshape engineering workflows. MSC Apex could be transformational for MSC," said Brad Holtz, President and CEO, Cyon Research.
Highlights of the MSC Apex platform include:
- MSC Apex™ is a built-from-the-ground up fully integrated and generative simulation environment
- With a paradigm shift away from traditional pre-solve-post point solutions, users can leverage the same user experience to carry out end-to-end simulation workflows with full associativity between geometric and analysis data, including fully generative behavior to ensure that all aspects of the model are consistent and up-to-date following design changes.
- MSC Apex™ is powered by a CAE specific direct modeling and meshing engine that accelerates the CAD to Mesh process by a factor of up to 50x
- CAD geometry is not suitable for analysis and geometry repair/improve and meshing operations are tedious, error prone, and take too long. MSC Apex™ features a complete set of direct modeling tools to make geometry clean-up and idealization steps fast and easy. These features provide dramatic productivity improvements for engineers.
"MSC Apex takes what used to be time consuming and frustrating geometry tasks using traditional programs and turns them instead into efficient and satisfying tasks," said Robert Lind, Director of Engineering at TLG Aerospace. "The ability to create mid-planes on the fly and to quickly simplify geometry for meshing purposes is unmatched. With the dynamic meshing process, the results of changes to geometry and mesh parameters are immediately apparent. This allows the user to achieve a high quality mesh in significantly less time when compared to traditional meshing applications."
"Using MSC Apex, the time required to prepare the model and mesh was reduced from 8 hours to 1 hour," said Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems / RSG@Takasago.
- MSC Apex™ is enabled with integrated solver methods which allow the user to interactively validate parts and sub-subsystem models, yielding up to 10x productivity gains in model preparation
- The traditional process for validating a Finite Element (FE) model is iterative and time consuming involving repeatedly submitting jobs and interpreting solver cryptic warning/error messages. The generative behavior of MSC Apex™ is fully leveraged to incrementally validate the evolving model and remove the many time consuming iterations inherent in the old pre-solve-post paradigm.
- MSC Apex™ is the world's first Computational Parts™ based CAE system, allowing:
- Individual users to incrementally run analysis of complex assemblies, enabling rapid trade studies
- Groups of users to exchange mathematical models in/through the supply chain without compromising Intellectual Property (IP)
- MSC Apex™ is a Parts & Assemblies Model Representation centric solution allowing supply chains to share a unique product structure while independently managing instances of parts, sub-systems, full assemblies, and their corresponding multi-fidelity behavioral representations. This enables each person in the overall product development workflow to finally have the right data.
- MSC Apex™ offers a unique, fun and easy-to-use experience making it possible for non-CAE experts to learn the software in a single day. This new user interface approach allows for a 10x reduction in tools. Built-in video tutorials, workflow instructions and at-mouse guidance make it easy for engineers to quickly learn and become productive at simulation.
"MSC Apex is so easy to use and yet so enjoyable. I complete the same amount of work in a half day rather than 3-4 days," said Kaban Makina.
- MSC Apex™ is complementary to Patran and MSC Nastran
- With robust support for industry standard .bdf file import and export, MSC Apex™ makes for easy migration of data and smooths the integration of the product into existing tool chains such as those incorporating Patran and MSC Nastran.
