CAE goes off-highway

A look at how manufacturers are saving time and improving quality by using computer simulation.

Computer-aided engineering (CAE) means many things to many people. The most general definition can include anything to do with a product that takes place on a computer, such as costing spreadsheets and 3- D design, but the more usual characterization is one that covers simulation of test or service loading.

In the early years of CAE, linear static finite-element analysis (FEA) was the primary focus of specialist analytical engineers. With the advent of graphical tools for model generation and more sophisticated solvers, design engineers are performing routine linear analyses, and the specialists have moved on to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and more challenging non-linear problems such as simulation of assembly processes.