Isogeometric Analysis to Run FEA Simulations Directly on Fully-Featured Geometry
Could you provide an overview of Coreform, and what software and/or services your company offers?
Coreform has been the fastest-growing CAE software company on the Inc. 5000 for most of the 2020s. We are developing next-generation FEA software to enable accurate answers to engineering questions in minutes, not months.
Our flagship product, Coreform Flex, is a new FEA solver that allows for highly accurate simulation on CAD with close to zero model defeaturing or manual meshing time. Coreform Flex enables engineers to perform linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic, structural and multiphysics analyses all within a single tool and unified workflow.
The second product is Coreform Cubit, the commercial version of Sandia National Laboratory’s Cubit meshing software. Coreform Cubit minimizes the time spent on model preparation for FEA and CFD while maximizing control over mesh quality, and is best known for its strong hex meshing tools and Python scriptability.
Your presentation at CDFAM NYC will discuss Coreform Flex, which is aimed at reducing the meshing burden in FEA. How does your software improve the meshing process, and what makes it different from other methods?
In traditional FEA, meshing the CAD model—in addition to being tedious and demanding—often introduces changes to the geometry that mean the simulation is not performed on an accurate representation of the model that will be manufactured.
Coreform Flex allows simulation directly on the CAD model, with no need for the analyst to do any defeaturing or manual meshing, for the most predictive results possible.
Unlike other approaches that introduce a similar workflow but offer a level of accuracy suitable mainly for early-stage design decisions, Coreform Flex uses the same highly accurate spline basis functions used in CAD, which offer superior accuracy for FEA than even traditional FEA software.
Coreform Flex also allows an unprecedented amount of analyst control over the tradeoffs between time spent on model preparation and calculation time. In Coreform Flex, the analyst can choose a completely automated meshing workflow, or can build a full body-fitted mesh for superior accuracy, or can opt to create a body-fit mesh for a crucial region and automate the meshing of the rest of the model, or any variation required by the problem.
How does your approach leverage FEA and computational geometry to achieve more accurate and robust simulation results? Can you provide some examples of the improvements it offers over traditional FEA?
Traditional FEA uses low-order linear basis functions as the foundation of simulation. In contrast, Coreform Flex uses high-order spline bases, which result in more accurate and robust simulation results. Smooth higher-order splines have been mathematically proven to be a superior basis for simulation than the linear functions used in traditional FEA methods through over 5000 published research papers.
Coreform Flex has enabled model setup for automotive, defense, and 3D printing customers in a fraction of the time that traditional model setup takes. Coreform Flex especially shines on complex geometric shapes such as those encountered in 3D printing.
How can an engineer determine when it’s the right time to use your method over the tools they’re already using?
The best way is to engage with us! Most engineers come to us when they either need faster simulation setup than their traditional FEA meshing workflows allow, or when they need more accuracy or a broader range of physics than designer-centric FEA tools give them.
What key insights do you hope the audience will take away from your presentation?
I hope the audience will walk away from the presentation excited about the future of FEA and the possibilities for their own work!
The Coreform Flex approach will reduce or eliminate some of the most frustrating and soul-crushing tasks in modern engineering.
It’s exciting for me to think about all the innovations and advancements engineers will be able to make when they are freed from the constraints of defeaturing and meshing and when they’re not constantly in conflict with designers. It’s not just about the time and money companies will save by using Coreform Flex, but about all the unforeseeable ways industries will change and grow in response to this improvement in product development.
I hope the audience will think big, and be as optimistic about the future as I am.
Finally, what are you looking forward to gaining from attending CDFAM NYC?
I am looking forward to meeting other innovators in simulation software and developing relationships that may grow into partnerships.
