CAD Tech News (#41)

▶ Indovance Predicts Global Growth in CAD Outsourcing

Sandesh Joshi believes that augmenting local teams with overseas design and engineering assistance can help businesses reach their goals — without threatening jobs.

By Cyrena Respini-Irwin

Sandesh Joshi, president and CEO of Indovance, is a strong advocate of outsourcing CAD and drafting work. That's no surprise, given that these are the services his company provides. But Indovance's growth indicates that many others are fans of outsourcing as well: the company's 2015 revenue was up 50% over 2014, and that rate is expected to hold steady or increase in 2016.

According to Joshi, the popularity of CAD outsourcing is due in part to the 2008 recession, which reshaped the surviving companies to be much leaner than they had been in rosier times. "It forced businesses to rethink how to do business," he explained. "The marketplace has changed — everybody wants to outsource."

Indovance, which provides architectural design, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering services, has its headquarters in North Carolina, and its design and drafting office in Pune, India. The outsourcing provider has seen consistent growth for the past five years, and unless any unexpected changes to the political and economic climate arise, Joshi expects that to continue. "The growth is very strong and clear," he said. "The business models have changed forever, and outsourcing is definitely here to stay."

Not a Replacement, but an Augment

To many people in the United States, "outsourcing" is a dirty word — usually because they lost their livelihoods when employers switched to a cheaper labor source in another country. Joshi stresses, however, that Indovance services don't replace existing workers. "Rarely have I seen or worked with companies that have laid off people," he reported. "[Outsourcing is] a complementary fit to the design and drafting team." Read more »

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Cyrena Respini-Irwin is Cadalyst's editor in chief.

▶ Femap Tips and Tricks: Model Bolt Preloads in Femap with a Solid Element Approach

With the help of NX Nastran, you can achieve a more detailed stress recovery in and around the bolt locations.

By Alastair Robertson

There have been methods of modeling bolt preloads in a finite element model for many years. Some methods involved the application of compression loads to beam elements that represent the bolts, or applying a thermal loading such that the beams contract to create the desired preloading effect. NX Nastran includes more direct methods that can apply the desired compression loading directly to beams or solid elements. In this tutorial, we'll take a look at the solid element approach, which allows for a more detailed stress recovery in and around the bolt locations.

We'll use a simple clamp model that consists of two parts, with a bolt connecting them together. We've already set up the boundary conditions and the requisite contact definitions between the parts. So all that remains is to define the bolt preloading, and that's done by creating a cross-section region with a preload load case.

Read more »

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Alastair Robertson is the product marketing manager for Siemens PLM Software Velocity Series CAE solutions, including Femap with NX Nastran and Solid Edge Simulation.

▶ IMAGINiT Tricks Tutorial: Export and Import Autodesk Fusion 360 Designs

Learn about the process for handing off a design and what options are available — without having to add them to your A360 project.

By Anthony Dull

In this tutorial, I'll explain how to export an Autodesk Fusion 360 design, creating an independent copy that can be imported by another user. I will also show the available file types within Fusion 360. (Please note that Fusion 360 is rapidly changing every day; this information is accurate as of build number 2.0.1957).

First things first — let's talk about the native file types in Fusion 360.

• F3D: Archive file for a single design. One file type for what we would traditionally call a part or assembly file.
• F3Z: Archive file for a distributed design (all xref designs included; multiple F3D files). This packaged file contains everything needed to open the design. If you rename this file to a ZIP file you can open and see all of the files. (The files probably won't make much sense, but trust me, they are there and functional.)

Read more »

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Anthony Dull is a manufacturing solutions consultant for IMAGINiT Technologies.

▶ WHAT’S NEW

Video Tip: Line Up Text in AutoCAD
If you've ever needed to align existing text strings to a specific point or distance, then you need to check out the TextAlign command! In this video from Cadalyst and Autodesk Evangelist Lynn Allen, you'll see how easy and fast it is to get your text in order. Watch the video »

In Third Generation, HP Trims Z1 Price While Preserving Performance
Like many of its competitors, HP sees vast potential in the entry segment of the workstation market, and is designing machines that meet budget constraints while exceeding PC capabilities. Read more »