Case Study
Critical components require more than 2D
Equipos Nucleares S.A.
Solid Edge and Femap ensure the 100-percent accuracy required for nuclear power plant equipment
Equipment for nuclear power plants
Equipos Nucleares S.A. (ENSA) boasts more than 30 years of experience in the nuclear industry. It was created in 1973 as a company specializing in the design and manufacturing of components for nuclear plants, such as reactor pressure vessels, pressurizers, piping and steam generators. Since then, ENSA has reinforced its market position as one of the world leading suppliers of this type of equipment and now sells its products in the USA, China, South Africa and several European countries.
Changes in customer requirements over the years as well as strong competition in the industry prompted the company to modernize the way it was designing its products.
“Our customers expected an end product presented in 3D in order to implement it in their power stations,” explains Luís Demetrio Ugalde, design room & CAD CAM responsible at ENSA. “Our 2D approach was not able to meet these requirements.”
In choosing a 3D CAD solution, it was important for ENSA that the system they selected was sufficiently versatile to support its different design and manufacturing processes. “Our group consists of different business units, such as Special Services, Automation and Robotics, Tools, and Manufacturing Design. We needed a product capable of covering all these domains,” explains Demetrio.
After evaluating a number of 3D systems, ENSA found the functionality it needed in the Solid Edge CAD system from Siemens PLM Software. Solid Edge allows the company to create structures, cableways, manufacturing drawings and presentations. “Solid Edge solved the various problems we were facing,” says Demetrio. The software was first implemented in the technical department of the Services unit. Following the successful introduction there, it was installed in the Design and CAD/CAM department as well as in the Tools unit.
Benefits across the board
ENSA believes it implemented Solid Edge in record time. Part of this success was due to the company’s own efforts. Designers learned most of what they needed to know by working from the tutorial for a few months. But credit also goes to the consultancy firm, Pixel Sistemas. “Thanks to their assistance in solving questions and problems, we never came up against an insurmountable obstacle,” says Demetrio. ENSA believes in on-going training and provides courses on a continuous basis. “People submit their queries about new versions and we conduct specific courses in each domain,” Demetrio adds.
Most of ENSA’s projects use data provided by the customers. Not only is Solid Edge capable of working with this data, when ENSA is faced with the necessity of implementing a design change, Solid Edge allows this to happen quickly. “Solid Edge gives us a great deal of flexibility during project development,” points out Demetrio.
The main problem faced by the Design and CAD/CAM department when it worked in 2D was converting designs into manufacturing drawings. Some of the advantages offered by Solid Edge in this respect include its ability to produce views quickly, the fact that it documents the drawings, and its capacity to integrate with other programs such asWord and Excel. Through its use of Solid Edge, the Design and CAD/CAM department has managed to avoid problems in the assembly and manufacturing stages. It also uses the Solid Edge models in presentations made to customers and for marketing purposes.
The Services technical department has experienced a time savings of approximately 50 percent since implementing Solid Edge. “The challenges we face are always different and Solid Edge adapts to them,” says José Ramón Terán López, head of the department. As a result, it has been possible to present projects to customers in a minimum amount of time, while ensuring greater reliability. He adds that another advantage of Solid Edge is that it has solved a common design problem: when CAD specialist previously created a part in 2D, he had to carry out a mental exercise of converting a 3D concept into a 2D form. “It is so easy with Solid Edge,” Terán states: “You represent the part in the way you think of it. This saves time and makes changes easy to implement.”
The Tools unit, under the management of Rogelio Munilla Arce, is currently making its transition to Solid Edge, converting 2D machine representations into 3D models. According to Munilla, they can already report one significant advantage of working with Solid Edge. It has saved a great deal of time by allowing them to avoid interferences between parts.
Femap complements the process
To achieve even better designs, ENSA added the Femap® finite element analysis (FEA) pre and post-processing software. Terán says that Femap is excellent as a complementary design tool for components modeled with Solid Edge. Femap gives a quantitative evaluation of loads on weight-bearing components. Since adding Femap, ENSA has noticed significant time savings in the development process in addition to achieving greater accuracy in the product definitions.
“Because we have Solid Edge and Femap, along with good hardware and good technicians, we know that we can be among the best and that we can compete at the same level as other firms,” concludes Demetrio.
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Challenges:
- Competitive industry
- Customers’ expectations for faster cycle times
- Requirement for 3D deliverables
Keys To Success:
- Upgrade from 2D to Solid Edge® software
- Fast drawing production
- CAD integration with Word and Excel
- Finite element analysis
- Technical support from Pixel Sistemas
Results:
- Solid Edge is successfully implemented in all ENSA units
- Time savings of approximately 50 percent in one department
- Greater accuracy in critical parts
Industry:
- Machinery & Industrial
Client's Primary Business:
Equipos Nucleares S.A. (ENSA) designs and manufactures components and structures for nuclear power plants.
Business Initiatives:
- New Product Development
Solutions/Services:
- Femap
- Solid Edge
- Velocity Series
Client Location:
Maliaño, Cantabria
Spain
"When modeling with Solid Edge, it's as if the models are made of plasticine because you shape them easily."
Luís Demetrio Ugalde
Design Room & CAD CAM Responsible
Equipos Nucleares S.A.
"The challenges we face are always different and Solid Edge adapts to them."
José Ramón Terán López
Head, Technical Department, Services Unit
Equipos Nucleares S.A.