LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™
Interface PTC Creo Parametric™ with COMSOL Multiphysics® via LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™
The positioning and size of the structural components used in this three-cylinder reciprocating engine can be achieved using the associativity feature provided by PTC Creo Parametric™
Create and Associate COMSOL Multiphysics Models with PTC® Creo® Parametric™ Designs
LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ is an add-on to COMSOL Multiphysics that seamlessly links 3D designs in the PTC® Creo® Parametric™ CAD system to COMSOL Multiphysics model geometries for simulation. Creo Parametric is an industry standard for 3D CAD and includes a comprehensive set of tools for maximum flexibility and productivity. COMSOL Multiphysics with LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ enables you to benefit from the advanced capabilities in Creo Parametric to produce state-of-the-art designs and then integrate them into a COMSOL Multiphysics model for analysis and optimization.
LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ updates your design workflow to include multiphysics simulation capabilities that allow you to better understand how your product or design performs in the intended operating environment. Models in COMSOL Multiphysics can include essentially any relevant physical effects and their interactions to accurately simulate your design. LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ includes features to prepare CAD geometries for simulation and to update designs during the simulation process for use with automated parametric sweeps or optimization studies.
Update a Design and Preserve the Physics
LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ synchronizes your designs in Creo Parametric with your COMSOL Multiphysics models and automatically propagates design updates while running the programs concurrently. CAD models do not have to be manually exported or imported into COMSOL Multiphysics with each change. Parameters, including part dimensions or placement, defined in Creo Parametric can be iteratively accessed from COMSOL Multiphysics enabling simulations with parametric sweeps and optimization studies. Through direct synchronization, LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ retains the associated physics definitions on model domains and boundaries even when features are updated or added to a design.
Prepare CAD Designs for Simulation
LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™ includes the capability to automatically detect and repair geometric anomalies in a design and to perform defeaturing operations to prepare a CAD model for simulation. Predefined tolerances are used during the import of a CAD model to automatically identify problems and make sure that the imported solids or surfaces are correctly defined. Gap healing is also automatic during import to ensure that a solid is produced for meshing and simulation. Small, often insignificant, details or anomalies in a geometry create areas with very dense meshes making simulations less efficient. After a successful import, you can further defeature the geometry by identifying these fine details based on tolerance settings. You can then remove all, or selected, items that meet the specified criteria. Features that you can remove in this manner include slivers, small faces, or edges, and design elements such as fillets.
Virtual geometry operations in COMSOL Multiphysics provide an additional means to reduce the computational complexity in a simulation caused by dense meshes. A virtual geometry is created by selecting small features in a design that you want ignored by the meshing tools. While you are defeaturing a design you are removing small features, and the geometry algorithm covers the resulting holes by stretching or shrinking the surrounding faces or edges. This operation inevitably modifies the local curvature of the geometry object. By using virtual geometry operations you can preserve the curvature, since the surfaces and edges are not removed or modified, only hidden. The simulation mesh on a virtual geometry reduces the required computational resources and is still based on the original design, even in the slightest detail, for those simulation applications that demand this.
Import and Export of CAD Files
Instead of directly linking or synchronizing with a COMSOL Multiphysics model, CAD files can be imported and exported in a range of formats. Using LiveLink™ for PTC Creo Parametric™, you can import 3D CAD files in the Creo Parametric formats (.prt, .asm), as well as in one of the widely used Parasolid®, ACIS®, STEP, and IGES formats. In addition, you can import the native files of the Inventor®, and SOLIDWORKS® CAD systems. The optional File Import for CATIA® V5 provides support for importing the native file format for this system. Imported 3D CAD models are converted to Parasolid geometries that can be further modified in the COMSOL Multiphysics environment. Modifications to a Parasolid geometry in COMSOL Multiphysics can include Boolean geometry operations or the addition of fluid domains to a model that otherwise consists of solid parts. When making changes to imported geometry, or even creating your own additions to illustrate a concept, you can always be sure that you can share your work by exporting modified designs in the IGES, ACIS, Parasolid, or ACIS file formats for import into other tools.
PTC, Creo, and Creo Parametric are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and in other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For a list of such trademark owners, see http://www.comsol.com/tm. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.
Product Features
- A LiveLink™ interface that synchronizes between the PTC Creo Parametric™ 4.0-7.0 versions of the CAD software and COMSOL Multiphysics® when both are running simultaneously
- Synchronize 3D geometric objects (solids and surfaces) between PTC Creo Parametric™ geometries and COMSOL Multiphysics®
- The synchronized geometry is associative, i.e., the CAD model can be modified in PTC Creo Parametric™ without the need to re-apply model settings in COMSOL Multiphysics® after re-synchronization
- Synchronize parameters between the PTC Creo Parametric™ design and COMSOL Multiphysics® model to modify the COMSOL Multiphysics® geometry, either manually or as controlled by a parametric or optimization solver
- Synchronize material selections and other user-defined selections between the PTC Creo Parametric™ design and the COMSOL® model
- Synchronize the material properties of the CAD parts to make them available for the simulation.
- Connect to COMSOL Server™ from within PTC Creo Parametric™ to browse and run apps together with PTC Creo Parametric™, including those that use geometry synchronized with PTC Creo Parametric™
- File import of the most popular CAD file formats, see table below
- Encapsulate geometries to model phenomena in the surrounding domains
- Export geometry files to the IGES, STEP, Parasolid®, and ACIS® file formats
- Geometry repair through identification of geometric inconsistencies and knitting surfaces to create solids
- Defeaturing through the finding and deletion of fillets, through and blind holes, short edges, sliver faces, small faces, and spikes
- Manually deleting faces and healing the resulting gaps through filling (creating a new face) or patching (shrinking or expanding adjacent faces)
- Detaching faces from a solid object to create a new solid object
- Cap holes or empty spaces to fill the space and create modeling domains
- Patch gaps due to missing faces by generating surfaces from the surrounding edges and surfaces
Supported Formats for File Import
Note that not all file formats are supported on all operative systems, for details see System Requirements
| File Format | Extension | Version | Import | Export |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACIS® | .sat, .sab, .asat, .asab | up to 2022 1.0 (import), R4, R7, 2016 1.0 (export) |
||
| AutoCAD® | .dwg | 2.5–2023 | ||
| AutoCAD® DXF™ | .dxf | 2.5–2023 | ||
| IGES | .igs, .iges | up to 5.3 | ||
| Inventor® assemblies | .iam | 11, 2008–2023 | ||
| Inventor® parts | .ipt | 6–11, 2008–2023 | ||
| NX™ | .prt | up to 2206 | ||
| Parasolid® | .x_t, .xmt_txt, .x_b, .xmt_bin | up to 34.0 | ||
| PTC Creo Parametric™ | .prt, .asm | 1.0–9.0 | ||
| PTC Pro/ENGINEER® | .prt, .asm | 16 to Wildfire® 5.0 | ||
| SOLIDWORKS® | .sldprt, .sldasm | 98–2022 | ||
| STEP | .step | AP203, AP214, AP242 (import), AP203 (export) |
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Geometric Parameter Optimization of a Tuning Fork
This model computes the fundamental eigenfrequency and eigenmode for a tuning fork that is synchronized from Creo Parametric via the LiveLink interface. The length of the fork is then optimized so that the tuning fork sounds the note A, 440 Hz.
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