on 4/13/04 2:29 PM, Larry Blodgett at email@hidden wrote:
> What are the commercial FEA packages that run on Linux?
>
> Larry
For starters, MSC Nastran, Patran, etc., Swanson Ansys, Fluent, LS/Dyna, and
probably COSMOS/M which started this thread. Just pick up the latest issue
of Mechanical Engineering magazine, and you'll see more. What fled the UNIX
workstation when the Pentium broke the 1 GHz barrier a few years back now
resides primarily on Linux platforms. In many offices, the Linux box does
the number crunching, while a nearby Windows machine handles the office
applications. Sometimes the Linux machines run a Windows-like shell that
permits the user to pretend that there is only one OS involved. Yes, Macs
could probably do it better, but they have to get in the door, first.
Joe Koski
>
>
> On Apr 13, 2004, at 1:18 PM, Joe Koski wrote:
>
>> Some short comments on the general subject. In this entire thread,
>> nobody
>> was able to cite a commercial finite-element application that is now
>> becoming available for the Mac.
>>
>> Engineers tend to buy the biggest performance bang for the buck. They
>> get
>> tired of running a single finite-element job for several days, and
>> start
>> looking for quicker, cheaper ways of getting the job done. A few years
>> ago
>> when the relatively inexpensive Linux/Intel machines showed up, many
>> engineering enterprises jumped on that solution. To get back into the
>> practical engineering world, Macs need to demonstrate an edge over
>> those now
>> entrenched Linux boxes. Perhaps when the rumored 3 GHz G5 shows up,
>> and the
>> 4 GB memory addressing limit is increased, then engineers will start
>> looking
>> at the Mac as the best for engineering solutions. When that happens,
>> the
>> demand for engineering software will bring a quick, positive response
>> from
>> all the commercial software vendors. I hope that this is already
>> starting to
>> happen.
>>
>> Joe Koski
>>
>> on 4/13/04 9:00 AM, Christopher Wright at email@hidden wrote:
>>
>>> (I was certain I sent out a summary of answers to my original post,
>>> but I
>>> haven't seen it, so I'll risk repeating myself.)
>>>
>>> I appreciate the responses to the original post. I hope there are some
>>> other Machead engineers on this list--I know a few others, and I'd
>>> hate
>>> to think we were the last.
>>>
>>>> I'm not using finite element analysis myself, but there is a fink
>>>> (http://fink.sourceforge.net) package called modulef
>>> I checked this out. Very interesting, although I note that it isn't
>>> compiled for the Mac as yet. Since I'm a practicing engineer I'm
>>> hoping I
>>> can find something that I don't need to do any development work on,
>>> but I
>>> confess the notion of somehow coming up with FEA software that's an
>>> actual killer app is very appealing. But it takes a lot of work.
>>> Doing a
>>> proper matrix assembly and inversion is only the beginning. I'd hoped
>>> someone had recompiled a large general purpose FEA program like
>>> NASTRAN
>>> or one of the SAPs for the G5 and would relate some of the pitfalls.
>>>
>>> Source code is available for some smaller mechanical and thermal FEA
>>> programs: Check
>>> <http://www.engr.usask.ca/~macphed/finite/fe_resources/
>>> fe_resources.html>
>>> I have some listings for shareware FEA, which I collected some years
>>> ago
>>> as part of a project for MacSciTech. I've run some of the shareware
>>> using
>>> OS 8 and they're surprisingly good, although a little small for most
>>> design office purposes. PlastFEM is one such
>>> <http://home.t-online.de/home/froehling/PlastFEM/PlastFEMe.html> and
>>> there are some interesting 2D kinematics programs. If you need
>>> something
>>> of the sort, I'm sure they's run in Classis, and can probably be
>>> re-compiled for OS 10.
>>>
>>> Besides COSMOS/M which is still being sold, although not supported,
>>> there
>>> are two other pretty good large scale packages available. MacNolian
>>> <http://www.softing.it/eng/homepage.html> and LapFEA. MacNolian is
>>> basically educational software, but it's pretty comprehensive. It
>>> doesn't
>>> accept text file input, which I consider a major disadvantage, but
>>> it's
>>> completely scriptable which may amount to the same thing.
>>>
>>> LapFEA <http://www.lapcad.com/sware_mfp.htm> began life as MSCpal,
>>> which
>>> was the first FEA program I ran on a Mac, back in 1987. I was able to
>>> get
>>> some pretty good mileage out of it. The original developer was
>>> MacNeal-Schwendler, who took over NASTRAN. LapFEA retains the NASTRAN
>>> connectivity, but it comes with a CAD-based modeller that looks pretty
>>> good. It runs on OS9 and Classic, but a straight OS 10 version is on
>>> the
>>> way.
>>>
>>> I've also run a fairly simple Mac CFD program called Quick'n Simple. I
>>> get a couple of hits from a Google search on Quick'n Simple,
>>> <http://www.me.pdx.edu/~gerry/QnS/>. It only handles laminar flows,
>>> and
>>> may not be ready for NASA, but it's fairly slick
>>>
>>> I've used COSMOS/M for 10 years. It's a general purpose FEA package
>>> with
>>> dynamics and non-linear capability. It's an ANSYS workalike and
>>> getting
>>> long in the tooth. SRAC hasn't done any development on it for years,
>>> but
>>> I still use it on a daily basis for slients who don't have their own
>>> FEA
>>> packages. And speaking of ANSYS, rumors exist that they're looking at
>>> doing a Mac port of ANSYS. If so I imagine it would be one of the UNIX
>>> work station versions, although putting a real Mac interface on it and
>>> getting rid of their wretched home-built 'GUI' would be something to
>>> see.
>>> For my money ANSYS is the best FEA software ever written.
>>>
>>>> We have just been through an exercise at work to get a FEM/CFD
>>>> package.
>>>> What happened highlights the problem in this area.
>>>> The mechanical team are all PC based, because there is no high end
>>>> CAD
>>>> system on the Mac (ProE, SolidWorks, AutoCad etc.).
>>> I'll quibble with this. Just from the demo disk alone, I think Ashlar
>>> Vellum is as good a CAD package as exists today. Check it out at
>>> <http://www.ashlar.com/> I don't do very much 'board design' these
>>> days,
>>> but if I did, Vellum would be the one I'd pick. Working with a couple
>>> of
>>> the demos made it seem like it knew what I wanted before I did. I
>>> have a
>>> low end CAD program called Deneba CAD, which gives me connectivity to
>>> AutoCAD for simple FEA models, if I need it, but it's nothing like
>>> Vellum. I understand Vectorworks is a very good piece of work, but I
>>> don't know how well it's suited for mechanical CAD.
>>>
>>>> Because of this there is no need to look at mac based FEM/CAD
>>>> systems.
>>> You might want to continue your search with the idea of finding FEA
>>> software or a mesher at least that can read an IGES or DXF file.
>>>
>>> FEA/CAD interactivity is vastly overrated. It used to be the holy
>>> grail
>>> of the CAD developers, but you don't hear so much about it these days.
>>> ANSYS and COSMOS/M do very well with IGES input, except for sloppy CAD
>>> usage, of which there's a great deal.
>>>
>>> My own opinion is that designers who can use CAD effectively are very
>>> intuitive, non-linear thinkers; FEA requires a thoroughly anal, detail
>>> oriented user to get decent results, and it's very rare to find a good
>>> designer who is also a good FEA user for this reason. Also the
>>> requirements of a physical model for calculating stress or temperature
>>> are much different than the requirements of an 'architectural' model.
>>> For
>>> example a CAD of a piping system includes all the warning placards and
>>> valve handles and such are irrelevant to stress or thermal analysis.
>>> Moreover the structural parts may be 3D representations of support
>>> beams
>>> and the pipe itself. Although possible, it's stupid to use 3D hex or
>>> tet
>>> elements to figure hoop and bending stress in pipe.
>>>
>>>
>>> Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
>>> email@hidden | this distance" (last words of Gen.
>>> ___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)
>>> http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw
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