| by Ralph Grabowski with Dan Williams |
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"Ganta has everything to do with materials that are put into products, whether theoretical like new composites, or practical materials like steel," Dan Williams of Granta tells me.
Ralph Grabowski: How did the company gets its start?
Dan Williams: We started by teaching materials to engineers, based on the books written by co-founder Mike Ashby. Granta still has an educational branch. (Seehttp://www.grantadesign.com/education.) Then we are started to see a shift in the industry; we used to go to companies that didn't think they needed materials information management. But now they realize that they do need an approved source of information about materials and their properties to reduce the risk of choosing the wrong thing. We call it "materials intelligence." (See figure 1.)
Figure 1Cost-weight trade-off in CES Selector to find optimal materials for water-resistant structural panels
Grabowski: How much of a composite [a material made of more than one material] are you able to define? Can your software define new ones, or does it use existing ones?
Williams: We have databases of existing materials, but for most customers the important thing is being able to enter their own data. Composites are a great example, because every composite is different. Our aerospace customers manage data from their composites R&D [research and development] and testing programs so that they have a traceable source of data for qualifying composites for use in their designs.
Grabowski: Do you have databases on prices?
Williams: We don't try to figure out exactly how much it costs, because there are too many variables. But we have an early design tool that determines theoretical pricing -- within about 10%. This lets designers trade off things, like performance, weight, and cost. Many of our customers put in their own costing data, perhaps by integrating with SAP, and pull out what they actually are paying for materials. The data guides the designers: "These are the preferred plastics we use, and the price we tend to pay."
Grabowski: What is your involvement with 3D printing?
Williams: So far, it tends to be bigger companies interested in the high-end additive metal manufacturing, such as laser sintering – rather than the polymer printers or consumer printers. It's an area that is hyped up, yet everyone is excited about the possibilities. If they can crack the problem of getting reliable, repeatable, high-volume production, then they can churn out parts no one ever thought of.
The result is that a huge amount of experimenting is going on to figure out the right build parameters to get the properties companies want. Our customers use our software for a template of what needs to be tracked and measured in doing 3D printing research. They may be a long way from production, but they are capturing data now so they are not left behind when the breakthrough occurs.
Grabowski: Another definition of "materials" is the textures applied to 3D models before rendering. Do you do any of this?
Williams: We are getting into rendering materials for industrial design, to ensure materials, colors, and surface treatments look consistent between design, prototyping, and manufacture.
Grabowski: One of the arguments against widespread use of FEA [finite element analysis] is that regular CAD users are neither qualified to prep the model nor interpret the results. Is this a concern when using materials? What kind of info do you want to put in front of large numbers of people?
Williams: Just a few people inside the organization are qualified to make the decision on which materials to use. The important thing is that if anyone does require materials data, they get it from a controlled source, like Granta. But many more people then need to understand the behavior of the materials that are chosen. We ensure they are using the correct information,
When using CAD you are making design decisions, even if you are not choosing materials. Making a part smaller or larger in an assembly affects the mass balance and the amount of material required.
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In some cases, it might even expose the designer to a regulation in the EU. So our software provides assistance with legislation. One of our modules is MI:Restricted Substances; we track legislation to see if substances or processes or coatings are permitted. This lets designers assign specifications while ensuring compliance. The EU continually adds substances to their REACH [registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals] list, for example, and companies have a short window to find them, get the exemption, or use another material.
Grabowski: Is your software integrated in CAD?
Williams: We are in all the high-end CAD, such as NX, Catia, Pro/E and Creo, and Inventor via the GRANTA MI plugin, which accesses our materials database. (See figure 2.) We are also in CAE [computer-aided engineering] software like Abaqus/CAE, ANSYS, and HyperMesh.
Figure 2
GRANTA MI:Materials Gateway for CAD running inside NX showing materials specifications assigned to a model
Then there are CAD companies that want to provide off-the-shelf materials capability to users. For example, we provided Eco Material Advisor to Inventor. It lets designers see how environmental properties (such as CO2 emissions) change with design changes; Autodesk includes it free. But the most common use by CAD is by companies trying to get a consistent view of materials in their organization.
Grabowski: What about PLM?
Williams: Integration with PLM becomes important so that queries can be made across all CAD models and associated data. We are in Teamcenter and Windchill.
Grabowski: Who are your competitors?
Williams: There are a few companies out there who provide parts of the story, such as property data or lab information management. But we are by far the biggest (150 employees) focused just on materials information management, and I don’t believe anyone else has the breadth of capability or experience that we do.
Five years ago, it was people trying to do it themselves. The info tended to be in the heads of experts and spreadsheets. There are all kinds of sources of data, like Wikipedia telling you a density for steel. But that won't fly with regulatory bodies such as the FAA [US Federal Aviation Authority], because they want an audit trail on the source of any design data.
Grabowski: You have standalone software, plug-ins, educational software, databases?
Williams: All of those.
- CES Selector is one software family, and it is available for any size of manufacturer or design firm.
- GRANTA MI is our enterprise software that comes with many modules, like MI:Restricted Substances and MI:Composites.
MI can run on the cloud, but people generally don't want that, because they want their materials data secure and so run it locally.
Grabowski: Do you do any stress analysis?
Williams: Not in the sense of detailed finite element analysis. But our software determines tradeoffs, such as between being as light as possible and as cheap as possible. Answering questions like: which materials are good for making good radio antennae, for resisting earthquakes, for making flywheels that don't disintegrate. These tools are based on the Ashby Charts developed by our founder.
Grabowski: Is it mostly MCAD you support, or do you have involvement in other areas, such as AEC?
Williams: We are primarily in mechanical and industrial design. We have done a small amount in the architectural area, like choosing types of insulation to optimize U-values. There are materials challenges in many fields that we could be looking at in the coming years.
https://www.grantadesign.com |
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Read the blog at WorldCAD Access as I write more about the CAD industry, and give tips on using hardware and software. You can also keep up with the blog through RSS feeds and email alerts.
I'm also on Twitter at @upfrontezine throughout the day with late-breaking CAD news and wry commentary, such as....
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Jan 25: In paying $970 million (5x revenues) worth of stock for CD-adapco, Siemens gets STAR-CCM+ software, 900 employees, and 3,200 customers. |
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Re: Inventor's Dilemma: Remarkable Life of Joseph Gerber
Cadkey would never have become a product without the foresight of former Gerber employee. Steve Mastrangelo envisioned the first PC-based 3D CAD product, and saw it through to fruition in the 3D products company that had been founded by Pete Smith and Livingston Davies as Micro Control Systems. In fact, Gerber headquarters were right across the highway from MCS when Steve joined.
Pete renamed the company as Cadkey once the product started to be recognized. It won PC Magazine's product of the year two years running. Cadkey's name, that Pete devised, was a variant of the term CAD-CAE.
- Jeff Hall, Cadkey employee #6
The editor replies: Thanks Jeff for the history; I never knew that! As I noted in my review, the book spends just a couple of paragraphs on CAD software, to my disappointment.
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Your article on Joseph Gerber was fascinating and interesting. It made me feel like an alumnus of a school of thought that goes unnoticed most of the time, but it so important and tends to go unrecognized.
I think most of us engineering types take pride in making some kind of widget that does something and maybe in some small way is important to others. I never created anything as clever as Mr. Gerber, but I can appreciate the hard work and struggle that is encountered as one strives to invent that which never has existed before.
Joseph Gerber is an inspirational figure, not only by his work but it would seem by the circumstances he overcame to achieve them. I appreciate you taking the time to comment on this individual life and my only caveat is that you stopped the article short and have left me wanting to discover the rest of his story.
- John Walker, Grob Systems
Ohio
Re: Lenovo Brain Surgery
I read about your problem with your Lenovo and OUCH for sure. I don’t often recommend computers on general principles or service contracts. However, I have been buying Dell computers and laptops lately for one reason: I buy their Pro Support, which gets me a direct number to techs that are right here in the US and they speak good English. I don’t know how it would be for Canada but maybe worth checking into?
For this computer I am replying on I purchased Pro Support for three years for about $169, which may seem high. But I ended up having the graphics card replaced, and then later the motherboard. They shipped the parts to a service company and their tech came to my house and installed them for me. All part of the Pro Support contract; no additional cost to me.
For myself I now only purchase Dell computers and only if I can purchase Pro Support as part of the overall package. Service contracts are not considered a good deal, but Dell support has been great. Just having a really good smart tech to talk to when I really have a problem is worth the price alone for me! Replacing parts is just icing on the cake.
- Jack Foster, 3D Design Services
Alaska
The editor replies: As you say, business PCs have their benefits of which everyday computer users are unaware. I got both my dad and my wife off-lease HP business computers, because they are better built than consumer models.
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Great read, the Gerber story was.
- Tom Fay, KETIV
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"It's rather as if a Soviet tractor factory requests applause for an internal reorganisation, when all the farmers want is tractors that don't break down."
- Andrew Orlowski, The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/08/microsoft_lumia_950_review_lumia_950xl_review |
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