The NX design and analysis environment has already been proven to dramatically reduce the amount of time engineers spend validating product performance as the design evolves. The latest release of NX delivers the largest number of enhancements ever made to its CAE functionality. These enhancements redefine CAE productivity by further improving integration with product design, extending NX CAE leadership in multi-physics solutions and launching new offerings that correlate digital simulation models with measured test data. As a result, engineers can make better decisions in less time to create superior products.

• Integrated design and CAE productivity is further enhanced in NX 7 with new model preparation workflows that assist users working with complex geometry, meshing thin-walled parts, enhancing beam and bolt modeling, and much more. Many enhancements streamline the flow of data between design and analysis including significant improvements to laminate composite analysis workflows. Through its intuitive approach to the finite element modeling of assemblies, NX simplifies the way analysts work with large complex models and allows engineers to work with systems models that update as design fidelity increases.
• NX CAE expands its outstanding integration with the broadest set of solver technologies by adding new integrated multi-physics solutions that include durability and motion analysis with flexible bodies, as well as more solutions for structural, thermal and flow analyses. Analyzing part flexibility in mechanisms is important because it can affect the geometry and lead to serious design issues. With NX 7, engineers can validate designs using higher fidelity models that combine elastic deformation and rigid body motion to evaluate the effect of component flexibility on mechanism performance and durability.
• NX 7 introduces two new CAE products, NX Finite Element (FE) Model Correlation and NX FE Model Updating. These new offerings represent an analysis-oriented system, with an intuitive user interface that is tailored to the needs of the CAE analyst. They provide a complete, integrated system for modal analysis, pre-test planning, test-analysis correlation and model updating.

“When analysis results demand design changes, we can apply these efficiently using synchronous technology,” said Jerry Baffa, Project Engineer, Research Department, Damen Shipyards. “Re-meshing is effortless and results in very short design cycles.”

Redefining part manufacturing productivity

The combination of the integrated CAM and CMM capabilities in NX represent one of the world’s most sophisticated software solutions for part manufacturing. NX 7 further redefines part manufacturing productivity with the introduction of two new applications that put the user in the context of a specific programming task, dramatically reducing the time needed to program complex turbo-machinery components, and maximizing the efficiency of offline coordinate measuring machine (CMM) programming.

• NX Turbomachinery Milling accelerates the NC programming process for complex 5-axis multi-bladed rotational parts. This integrated NX CAM application for blisk and impeller machining offers a set of automated, context-specific functions that greatly simplify the task of creating the smart tool paths necessary for these complex parts. The new capability is supported by a wide range of existing functions in NX CAM such as machining simulation that is driven directly from the post processor output, helping to validate NC programming decisions. NX Turbomachinery Milling can help produce higher-quality results in half the time of ordinary milling software.
• NX CMM Inspection Programming works in the context of a 3D solid model environment that includes the coordinate measuring machine and the part. Driven by automation, inspection features and probing paths are generated directly and automatically from the PMI (product and manufacturing information) data attached to the 3D design model, producing potential reductions in inspection programming time as high as 80 percent. This integrated application is complete with simulation and collision avoidance to help validate CMM programming decisions, and machine and probe library content to significantly improve CMM programming efficiency.

“NX Turbomachinery Milling offers a significant productivity advantage for the NC programmer with an application designed especially for blisk and impeller programming, while the highly automated NX CMM functionality makes inspection programming an integral part of the PLM process,” said Dr. Charles Clarke, noted CAD/CAM consultant and writer. “This latest release of NX takes Siemens PLM Software into a new level of part manufacturing productivity.”

Siemens PLM Software is providing an overview of NX 7 today at EXPO 2010 in Shanghai and again next month at the Siemens PLM Connection Americas User Conference in Dallas, Texas. For more information on NX 7, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/nx7.

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 63,000 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 .