Mumbai University > mechanical engineering > Sem 7 > CAD/CAM/CAE

Marks: 5 Marks

Year: May 2016

• Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is the process of solving engineering problems through the use of sophisticated, interactive graphical software.
• CAE is one of the leading software employed by manufacturing organizations to mass produce products in a factory-based environment.
• It allows for more computations than is possible by hand, especially when it is coupled with optimization systems.
• A CAE program is a mathematical model written in a programming language using a set of algorithms that define the manufacturing processes.
• The process starts by first defining the analysis of the mathematical phenomenon. Next, the equations have to be defined.
• Finally, a model of physical configuration is created. This model may consist of 2-D or 3-D figures/shapes/curves/surfaces. This model is than applied to an actual production mechanism to design and develop the product.
• Computer aided engineering is complemented by computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing.

• CAE areas covered include:

  a) Stress analysis on components and assemblies using Finite Element Analysis (FEA);

  b) Thermal and fluid flow analysis Computational fluid dynamics (CFD);

  c) Multi-body dynamics (MBD) and Kinematics;

  d) Analysis tools for process simulation for operations such as casting, molding, and die press forming.

  e) Optimization of the product or process.

• In general, there are three phases in any computer-aided engineering task:

  1. Pre-processing – defining the model and environmental factors to be applied to it. (typically a finite element model, but facet, voxel and thin sheet methods are also used)

  2. Analysis solver (usually performed on high powered computers)

  3. Post-processing of results (using visualization tools)