Siemens PLM Software Announces Latest Release of Femap for Enhanced Simulation in Product Development

PLANO, Texas, October 5, 2011 - Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced the latest release of Femap™ software, the world’s leading pre- and post-processor for engineering finite element analysis (FEA) running on the Windows® operating system. Enhancements in Femap 10.3 make it easier and significantly faster for end users to work with complex geometry models, and a new user interface feature further extends support for advanced functionality in NX™ NASTRAN® software, the company’s comprehensive FEA application.

“The ability to accurately simulate in a virtual environment how a product will perform in the real world can have a profound impact on the cost, quality, safety and customer satisfaction associated with that product,” said Bill McClure, vice president of product development for Velocity Series, Siemens PLM Software. “With the enhancements in Femap 10.3, we are continuing to increase the effectiveness of that simulation with tools that enable engineers to perform a more thorough and complete analysis on even the most complex geometry.”

Comprehensive simulation produces better products

Femap is a cost-effective and powerful FEM application that is easy to use and works with virtually all leading CAD applications. Femap helps engineers produce a wide variety of products more efficiently, and with a high degree of confidence in their ability to perform as designed. Femap 10.3 expands on these characteristics with new functionality that improves the speed and usability of digital simulation, even in some of the world’s most challenging industries such as automotive and aerospace.

• A new automatic geometry preparation feature significantly reduces the time necessary to prepare complex geometry for FEM preprocessing (meshing), with an easy to use interface and the ability to automatically clean up and heal problematic geometry such as slivers and short edges. As a result, meshed models can often be created on the first pass without any manual intervention.
• An enhanced user interface feature now supports interactive model set-up for the aeroelastic analysis capability of NX Nastran. This seamless interface saves time in complex aeroelasticity modeling and analysis – such as that used to determine the effects of airflow on a structure like an airplane wing – while significantly reducing the chance for error in passing data from the FEM to the FEA application.
• The Femap Postprocessing Toolbox has been extended to include the Free Body Tool, improving the ease and speed with which users can create free body diagrams and review interface loads.

“The new automatic geometry preparation feature in Femap 10.3 takes complex geometry that would have been impossible to mesh in most commercial software and meshes it with just a few clicks,” said George Laird, Principal Mechanical Engineer and Owner, Predictive Engineering. “In fact, our average speed for meshing a typical casting model is nearly 50 times faster with this latest release. Femap 10.3 is a true game changer in the world of meshing complex solid models.”

Added Eric Martin, Project Engineer, ATA Engineering, Inc. “I’ve worked with several Nastran aeroelasticity pre-processors and based on my experience, FEMAP 10.3 is clearly the best.”

Femap 10.3 is expected to be available in November. For more information, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/femap.

About Siemens PLM Software

Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with 6.7 million licensed seats and more than 69,500 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM Software works collaboratively with companies to deliver open solutions that help them turn more ideas into successful products. For more information on Siemens PLM Software products and services, visit www.siemens.com/plm.

About the Siemens Industry Automation Division

The Siemens Industry Automation Division (Nuremberg, Germany) supports the entire value chain of its industrial customers – from product design to production and services – with an unmatched combination of automation technology, industrial control technology, and industrial software. With its software solutions, the Division can shorten the time-to-market of new products by up to 50 percent. Industry Automation comprises five Business Units: Industrial Automation Systems, Control Components and Systems Engineering, Sensors and Communications, Siemens PLM Software, and Water Technologies. For more information, visit www.siemens.com/industryautomation

Note: Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of Siemens AG. Femap and NX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. Windows is a trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. NASTRAN is a registered trademark of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective holders.