LiveLink™ for Solid Edge®
Interface Solid Edge® with COMSOL Multiphysics® via LiveLink™ for Solid Edge®
Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) in the cast and mold of an aluminum extrusion process. The isosurfaces show the dynamic viscosity in the non-Newtonian aluminum flow.
Evaluate the Real-World Performance of Your Solid Edge® CAD Designs
LiveLink™ for Solid Edge® is part of a robust platform that enables you to integrate multiphysics simulation into your 3D product design workflow. Solid Edge® is a 3D design system that can enhance your designs and make the design process more efficient. Combining Solid Edge 3D designs with the simulation capabilities in COMSOL Multiphysics allows you to visualize and optimize both the physical design and how it performs in the actual operating environment. A COMSOL model created from your design can include any relevant physical effects and their interactions ensuring that simulations are accurate.
COMSOL Multiphysics with LiveLink™ for Solid Edge® maximizes productivity with tools and features that facilitate integration and expand the possibilities for design evaluation. Capabilities include optimization studies and automated parametric sweeps, techniques for geometry refinement, and concurrent updates to your designs during the simulation process.
Synchronized Geometry Updates Keep Physics Definitions Intact
COMSOL model geometries are directly synchronized with the corresponding CAD designs by using the functionality provided in LiveLink™ for Solid Edge®. The geometry synchronization is associative, which means that physics definitions are preserved on model domains and boundaries throughout the design update process. Bidirectional updates are automatic when both programs are open at the same time and you are solving an optimization study or running a parametric sweep. During this process the CAD model parameters defined within Solid Edge are repeatedly accessed and modified by COMSOL Multiphysics based on either the evaluations of the optimization criteria or the parameter values specified for the sweep. Optimization studies make it easy to verify design parameters such as the placement of critical features, a task that would otherwise require setting up many simulations based on tracking multiple CAD files.
File Import and Export
LiveLink™ for Solid Edge® also provides the file handling capabilities available in the CAD Import Module, including options for file import, and export. Both imported and synchronized CAD designs are handled in COMSOL Multiphysics using the Parasolid® geometry kernel that permits downstream modifications to the geometry, including Boolean geometry operations and partitioning to create additional domains for simulation, for example for fluid flow applications.
File import capabilities offer complementing functionality to the concurrent use of Solid Edge and COMSOL Multiphysics for geometry synchronization. COMSOL model geometries can be created by importing a CAD design from a range of platforms and file formats. 3D CAD file formats that are supported for import into COMSOL Multiphysics include the widely supported IGES, ACIS®, Parasolid®, and STEP, in addition to the Inventor®, SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo Parametric™, and PTC Pro/ENGINEER® formats. Support for the CATIA® V5 file format is also available as a separate add-on module. The LiveLink™ products provide support for file export in the IGES, STEP, ACIS, and Parasolid formats so you can readily share your updated designs with your colleagues.
Geometry Refinement for Precise and Efficient Simulations
When you first import a CAD file into COMSOL Multiphysics, any anomalies in the geometrical description of the design are automatically detected and corrected by the repair functionality. CAD designs also often contain many small geometrical features that are either part of the design or are inadvertently introduced during the design process. While small fillets are important for the fabrication of a part, they can ultimately make simulations less efficient and not necessarily contribute to the accuracy of the results. LiveLink™ for Solid Edge® includes tools to refine your COMSOL model geometry prior to simulation so that you can choose which details to include for simulation. Geometry defeaturing capabilities are provided with LiveLink™ for Solid Edge® that can automatically identify slivers, small edges, faces, or fillets. You can then decide whether to remove these features in Solid Edge or in COMSOL Multiphysics.
Another method you can use to prepare your CAD designs for simulation is to create a virtual geometry. Virtual geometry operations in COMSOL Multiphysics enable you to select specific features in a COMSOL model geometry that you do not want to include in your simulation studies. This technique does not modify the geometry, just hides the selected details before meshing, and it is an excellent way to exclude fine geometry details that typically require complex meshes and long computation times. An added benefit of this method is that the surface curvature of your design is preserved resulting in simulations with even greater precision when needed.
Solid Edge and Parasolid are registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States 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.
LiveLink™ for Solid Edge®
Product Features
- An interface that synchronizes between the Solid Edge® 2020 or 2021 versions of the CAD software and COMSOL Multiphysics® when both are running simultaneously
- Synchronize 3D geometric objects (solids, surfaces, and curves) between Solid Edge® geometries and COMSOL Multiphysics®
- The synchronized geometry is associative, i.e., the CAD model can be modified in Solid Edge® without the need to re-apply model settings in COMSOL Multiphysics® after re-synchronization
- Synchronize material selections and other user-defined selections between the Solid Edge® design and the COMSOL® model
- Synchronize the material properties of the CAD parts to make them available for the simulation
- For faster synchronization of large assemblies, the associativity feature for faces, edges, or vertices can be turned off, if not needed
- Synchronize parameters between the Solid Edge® design and COMSOL Multiphysics® model to modify the COMSOL Multiphysics® geometry, either manually or as controlled by a parametric or optimization solver
- Connect to COMSOL Server™ from within the Solid Edge® interface to browse and run apps together with Solid Edge®, including those that use geometry synchronized with Solid Edge®
- 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 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) |
Every business and every simulation need is different.
In order to fully evaluate whether or not the COMSOL Multiphysics® software will meet your requirements, you need to contact us. By talking to one of our sales representatives, you will get personalized recommendations and fully documented examples to help you get the most out of your evaluation and guide you to choose the best license option to suit your needs.
Just click on the "Contact COMSOL" button, fill in your contact details and any specific comments or questions, and submit. You will receive a response from a sales representative within one business day.
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