Ansys SpaceClaim vs. National Instruments LabVIEW

I will highly recommend Ansys SpaceClaim, or in fact any Ansys to my colleague because of its wide spread acceptability around the globe and around the different industries. Thus, the results provided by Ansys simulation tools, given the proper boundary conditions are properly simulated, are highly reliable. Also, learning to utilize Ansys tools in the engineering design activities also helps in career advancements.

Incentivized

Most of the time, I am using LabVIEW to develop automated controls for lab-scale and pilot-scale systems. LabVIEW is great for its graphical programming interface, which is easy to learn and understand. The program also has a lot of built-in VIs to perform different complicated I/O, data processing, controls, and graphing tasks which are extremely useful and convenient to use. My only problem with LabVIEW is how hard it is to clean up and debug the program, due to its being a graphical interface. It is hard to search for specific variables when debugging, and some of the online debugging features don't function well in real-time.

Incentivized

• It efficiently divide/split the surface into multiple fragments as per the user's requirements which helps in easy application of loads and boundary conditions.
• It helps in reducing the model complexity with it's efficient defeaturing options in order to reduce the model complexity.
• It also helps in making quick model changes as per the simulation results in order to improve the design and thus helps in quick FEA of the improvised design.

Incentivized

• real-time data visualization
• implementation of modern control strategies
• integration of languages such as python and c++, for various applications
• data acquisition through microcontroller cards

Incentivized

• With time, Ansys SpaceClaim has evolved so much in its functionality and Ansys has added so many useful and complex features into it, but most of the team member are not aware about those features.
• For the newly added features and improvement in legacy features, Ansys can try adding training videos to better aware the engineers about their evolving features.
• Apart from that, I don't find anything disadvantageous about SpaceClaim.

Incentivized

• Barrier to entry is large
• Install times are crazy
• Just in time help needs to be more apparent (most students do not know about the examples section)

As a Mechanical Design Engineer working in and designing heavy structures for battery packs and chargers, I use Ansys SpaceClaim, day in and day out regularly as whenever the design team forwards the CAD model to FEA team, FEA team optimizes the model in SpaceClaim only, and to do so, design team also helps them in Ansys SpaceClaim

Incentivized

For the FEA analysis, PTC Creo, which is a CAD modelling software has inbuilt FEA simulation tool called as Creo Simulate which we generally use a very quick FEA on smaller parts. But when the geometry is very complex and we need to simplify it before the simulation, then we use Ansys SpaceClaim to simplify the model and then use Ansys Mechanical for structural simulation.

Incentivized

We have used MatLab's data acquisition toolbox in the past which was not too bad either, especially if you prefer the text-based programming format. The only problem with that was that the library of compatible data acquisition hardware was somewhat limited and if your hardware is not from one of the more popular brands like NI there is a good possibility that you won't be able to use it with your MatLab script. LAstly, the amount of supporting material (tutorials, etc.) is very limited as it is not a very popular tool

Incentivized

• Ansys SpaceClaim helps in easy modelling different types of design and different iterations of design which in turns helps in designing a cost effective products thereby saving a lot of material and production cost.
• Because of the easiness in modelling, changing and modifying the design and then running the simulation over it, the design team is able to test and every concept, which I turn helps in producing an efficient and cost effective design.

Incentivized

• We are able to save money by writing our own programs instead of outsourcing.
• We recently bought a new force test stand and we are able to use LabVIEW to write a program that fits our needs exactly instead of making due with what came with the stand.
• When our customers ask us to do data acquisition, we know that we can always make a solution.

Incentivized