Solid Edge vs. Simcenter STAR-CCM+

Well Suited for:

• Integrated designs performed by multiple designers simultaneously (designs requiring a Product Lifecycle Management system);
• Designs requiring a high degree of parameterisation;
• Large companies where specific standards and best practices are applied to all models and drawings created.

Not Well Suited for:

• Personal use in designing one-off models and drawings;
• Small business use where very few of the expensive features are actually used.

Incentivized

The applications that I have been using it with in terms of flow and energy and temperature distributions and coupled solvers, segregated solvers, these kind of areas if you need that, those kind of solvers, it's very good. It's very robust. Maybe on the combustion side, it could improve, especially if you have these kind of tabulated solvers that you want to use, not the detailed chemistry, then it becomes very difficult to get some results from it. And do you trust the results or not? That's always the question on that kind of application, something that I could think of really fast.

Incentivized

• It has very good user interface in classic or ordered environment.
• In 2D or drafting, you can give any Geometric tolerancing and symbols to any dimension. There is a wide range of options available.
• You can convert any files in step file (.stp) and can open it in other designing applications easily.
• After converting 3D drawings in 2D you can make changes in 2D drawing by converting it in the draft. You can also add details like cross-sections and detailed view.
• You can directly make threads without creating holes.

Incentivized

• If you get your knobs well in the case setup, It is reasonably accurate to compare with any test data.
• It is good for repetitive workflows where you can greatly benefit from automation in the code.
• Single Integrated Platform can save your ass to move back and forth between multiple codes.

Incentivized

• Being used to 2-key and 3-key commands from the keyboard, it would be nice if this was more robust in Solid Edge. The capability of programming keystroke commands exists in Solid Edge, but it would be more user friendly in that regard.
• Editing hatches can be a challenge.
• I'm not a fan of the ribbon bar, but that seems to be a feature across software platforms in Windows.

Incentivized

• Implementing physics like Cox-Voinov model
• Mesh related stability issues
• Chemical & plasma physics
• Integration with other products from Siemens (similar level as we have with Abacus)
• Speed up the lagrangian solver
• Improved guidence on uFluidics & evaporation models
• Interoperability (HEEDS, AMEsim, System Modelling Workbench but also with non siemens products and open source codes required for LBM, DSMC, PIC, DFT...

As mentioned previously, Siemens Solid Edge is not the most user-friendly of products at all. It requires intense training to make sure that the basics are understood, and after that, there are numerous other training interventions needed to be able to perform expert-level CAD functions. The GUI is not intuitive, as many other packages are, and the features built-in are not well defined. The process to use many of these features is counter-intuitive and requires a mind-shift.

Incentivized

Great single window GUI

Incentivized

I have been involved with support and training of Solid Edge for 24 years. Given that I based my business model on support, and have been successful for all these years, I know excellent support. Siemens support for Solid Edge, "GTAC", is the definition of support for a product in every aspect.

Our designated support engineers do a proper job. On the outdated Help file and training material there is a lot to gain

It is super easy when it comes to implementing it.

Incentivized

FreeCAD is often better than Solid Edge 2021 when converting files, but I hope this changes with 2023 NX is overall more powerful, but that is to be expected (and you cant add it above because it is too short for whatever reason).

Incentivized

• It took about 20 hours of use to get the basics of Synchronous Technology, and with just a basic competency I was able to make useful changes to the design. One of those changes was impossible to do our other CAD program.
• My use lately has mostly been on personal time and self-driven, so learning other aspects and features of Solid Edge has been slower. Creating a drawing for a part required a few hours to learn and do the first time, but luckily there were YouTube videos for examples. With practice, I would expect the time to reflect what it takes in SolidWorks (about 30 minutes).

Incentivized

• Time saved in creating a inhouse code, tens and tens of hours.
• Time saved in experimental setup, tens of hours.
• Does add some time in testing to confirm star is doing what you think it's doing, but an overall net gain in productivity.