Granta Design has released version 3.1 of its MI:Materials Gateway software, further enhancing access to vital materials data within computer aided design (Cad) and computer aided engineering (CAE). New features ensure that materials choices specified in Cad can be easily accessed in the CAE environment, enabling analysts to quickly identify the correct material models for simulation, ensuring consistency, and supporting collaboration between product design and simulation departments.
Designers and engineers need materials property data to inform decisions about which materials to specify in their products, and to enable performance analysis through simulation. But reliable, approved data is often difficult to obtain, slowing the process down and limiting accuracy. Even materials data that already exists within a company may not be easily available, resulting in wasted time and inconsistencies. Granta MI is claimed to be the leading system for materials information management in engineering enterprises, solving these problems by capturing all corporate materials data in one place and making it available, in a controlled manner, to the engineers that need it.
The product's interoperability is supported from leading Cad systems, including Catia, Creo, Autodesk Inventor, and NX, to CAE software such as Abaqus/CAE, Ansys Workbench, HyperMesh, and NX CAE. The new software was being demonstrated for the first time at the NAFEMS World Congress in San Diego, CA.
MI:Materials Gateway 3.1 further enhances the ability to share materials knowledge effectively between product development functions. Cad users who have identified materials in a Granta MI database and assigned them to parts in their design can now interchange these materials assignments with CAE users, who can immediately find applicable CAE materials models for use in simulation. Usability improvements, such as finding and applying models for multiple materials simultaneously, further speed up this process.
CAE analysts save time, because they can more quickly find and assign the right materials models. CAE validity is enhanced, giving confidence that the simulation will accurately represent the design intent. The package also ensures traceability—materials assigned in Cad and CAE retain links to the central database, so it is easy to audit what has been done, or to access Granta MI if further data about the material is required. This may include applicable processes, related substance restrictions or materials sourcing, and to enable updating of models whenever new property data becomes available.
"Version 3.1 continues the fast pace of development for MI:Materials Gateway, in close collaboration with our customers and leading vendors of Cad, CAE, and PLM," commented Dr Arthur Fairfull, director of strategic product initiatives at Granta. "Already in its third generation, this technology ensures a single view of company materials data across these systems. Now it's even easier to share the resulting knowledge and traceability."
