Mechanical design is the first step in mechanical production and the most important factor in determining mechanical performance. In order to meet the high requirements of mechanical product performance, computer technology is widely used in mechanical design for auxiliary design and system analysis. The following are 10 popular mechanical engineering design software in the world.
1. Autodesk Moldflow
As part of Autodesk’s digital prototype solution, Autodesk Moldflow Adviser provides customers with an easy-to-use tool that enables them to simulate and evaluate design schemes and optimize them before manufacturing. Reduce potential design errors, shorten product development cycles, and reduce development costs.
In the product design and manufacturing process, Moldflow provides two major simulation analysis software:
AMA (Moldflow Plastic Parts Consultant) and AMI (Moldflow Advanced Molding Analysis Expert).
AMA is easy to use and can quickly respond to the designer’s analysis and changes. Therefore, it is mainly aimed at injection product design engineers, project engineers and mold design engineers to quickly verify the feasibility of the product in the early stage of product development. AMA can quickly give answers to basic manufacturing feasibility questions, such as “Can the product be filled?” Through this unique design mode, whether you are an experienced expert or a novice, AMA will let you feel To the reliability and practicality of injection molding simulation.
Moldflow’s overall solution. With the vigorous development of the plastics industry and plastic-related industries, the competition in the plastics industry has become increasingly fierce. On the one hand, the price of raw materials and labor costs continue to rise, on the other hand, the sales price of products continues to fall, and the quality and functions of the products The requirements are continuously improved and the delivery cycle is shorter.
2. AutoCAD
AutoCAD software is an automatic computer-aided design software produced by the United States Autodesk. It can be used for drawing, two-dimensional drawing, and basic three-dimensional design. It can be used for automatic drawing without knowing programming, so it Widely used in the world, it can be used in civil construction, decoration, industrial drawing, engineering drawing, electronics industry, clothing processing and many other fields.
Although AutoCAD has powerful graphics functions, the table processing function is relatively weak. In actual work, it is often necessary to make various tables in AutoCAD, such as engineering quantity tables. How to make tables efficiently is a very practical problem. AutoCAD can create basic graphic objects such as lines, circles, ellipses, polygons, and splines in many ways. Drawing aids. AutoCAD provides drawing aids such as orthogonal, object capture, polar tracking, and capture tracking. Orthogonal function allows users to draw horizontal and vertical straight lines easily, object capture can help pick up special points on geometric objects, and tracking function makes it easier to draw diagonal lines and locate points in different directions.
Starting from AutoCAD2000, the system has added many powerful functions, such as AutoCAD Design Center (ADC), Multi-Document Design Environment (MDE), Internet driver, new object capture function, enhanced annotation function, and partial opening and partial loading features.
3. Pro/Engineer
Pro/Engineer operating software is an integrated CAD/CAM/CAE 3D software under the US PTC Corporation. Pro/Engineer software is known for its parameterization and is the earliest application of parameterization technology, and it occupies an important position in the current 3D modeling software field. Pro/Engineer is recognized and promoted by the industry as a new standard in the field of mechanical CAD/CAE/CAM in the world today. It is one of the mainstream CAD/CAM/CAE softwares, especially in the field of product design.
Pro/Engineer is built on a unified base database, unlike some traditional CAD/CAM systems built on multiple databases. The so-called single database means that all the materials in the project come from one database, so that each independent user is working on a product model, no matter which department he belongs to. In other words, any changes made in any part of the entire design process can also be reflected back and forth in the relevant links of the entire design process.
In the Pro/Engineer software version, in addition to using major versions like proe2001, Wildfire, WildFire2.0, WildFire3.0, WildFire4.0 and WildFire5.0, there is a minor version difference of date code in each major version. The date codes represent the order of the release date of the major version.
4. SolidWorks
SolidWorks is an original 3D design software based on Windows system. With its easy-to-use and friendly interface, SolidWorks can fully automatically capture design intent and guide design changes during the entire product design work. In the assembly design of SolidWorks, you can directly refer to the existing parts to generate new parts. Regardless of whether the design uses a “top-down” method or a “bottom-up” method for assembly design, SolidWorks will greatly improve design efficiency with its easy-to-use operations.
Users not only use SolidWorks software to solve general part design problems, more and more users begin to use SolidWorks software to handle system-level large-scale assembly design, and the speed of uploading large-scale assemblies is also getting higher and higher. Facing the needs of users, the R&D department of SolidWorks has managed to improve the upload speed of large assemblies from different perspectives, including distributed data processing and the use of graphics compression technology, which has improved the performance of large assemblies by several ten times.
5. Unigraphics NX
UG (UnigraphicsNX) is a product engineering solution produced by Siemens PLMSoftware, which provides users with digital modeling and verification methods for product design and processing.
UnigraphicsNX provides a proven solution for users’ virtual product design and process design needs. UG is also an abbreviation for userguide and Universal Grammer; it is also called Spectre in DOTA.
The development of UG began in 1969, and it was developed and implemented based on the C language. UGNX is a flexible numerical software tool for solving partial differential equations developed using adaptive multigrid methods on two- and three-dimensional unstructured grids.
UG is an interactive CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing) system. It has powerful functions and can easily realize the construction of various complex entities and shapes. At the beginning of its birth, it was mainly based on workstations, but with the development of PC hardware and the rapid growth of individual users, the application on PC has achieved rapid growth, and it has become a mainstream application of 3D design in the mold industry.
Using NX modeling, industrial designers can quickly create and improve complex product shapes, and use advanced rendering and visualization tools to maximize the aesthetic requirements of the design concept.
6. Cimatron
Cimatron is a product of Cimatron, a well-known software company in Israel. Cimatron’s subsidiary in China is Simetron (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., and now Cimatron is owned by 3D Systems in the United States. Over the years, Cimatron’s CAD/CAM solutions have been successfully used as an indispensable tool in enterprise equipment from small mold manufacturing plants to large companies’ manufacturing departments worldwide.
Since Cimatron was founded in 1982, its innovative technology and strategic direction have made Cimatron a recognized leader in the CAD/CAM field. As a leader of CAD/CAM integrated solutions for manufacturing, we promise to provide comprehensive and cost-effective software solutions for molds, tools and other manufacturers to streamline the manufacturing cycle and strengthen the relationship between manufacturers and external vendors. Collaborate to greatly shorten product delivery time.
Whether you are designing for manufacturing or generating safe, efficient and high-quality NC tool paths for 2.5~5 axis milling. Cimatron’s manufacturing-oriented CAD/CAM solutions provide customers with the ability to handle complex parts and complex manufacturing cycles. Cimatron guarantees that every product manufactured is the product you designed.
Cimatron E10.0 launched by Cimatron company, its CAD/CAM software solution includes a set of tools that are easy to 3D design, allowing users to conveniently process the acquired data model or carry out product conceptual design. Version 10.0 has made very obvious improvements in design and data interface.
Today, more than 4,000 customers worldwide are using Cimatron’s CAD/CAM solutions to manufacture products for various industries. These industries include: automotive, aerospace, computer, electronics, consumer goods, medicine, military, optical instruments, communications and toys industries.
7. Mastercam
Mastercam is a CAD/CAM software based on the PC platform developed by CNC Software Inc. in the United States. It integrates multiple functions such as two-dimensional drawing, three-dimensional solid modeling, surface design, voxel stitching, numerical control programming, tool path simulation and realistic simulation. It has convenient and intuitive geometric modeling. Mastercam provides an ideal environment for designing the shape of parts. Its powerful and stable modeling function can design complex curved and curved parts. Version 9.0 and above of Mastercam also supports the Chinese environment, and the price is moderate. It is an ideal choice for the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises. It is a cost-effective and all-round software system. It is a CAD/CAM system widely used in industry and schools.
Mastercam not only has powerful and stable modeling functions, it can design complex curves and surface parts, but also has powerful surface roughing and flexible surface finishing functions. Its reliable tool path validation function enables Mastercam to simulate the entire process of part processing. In the simulation, it can not only display the tool and fixture, but also check the interference and collision between the tool and fixture and the processed part, which truly reflects the actual situation in the processing process. , Deserves to be an excellent CAD/CAM software. At the same time, Mastercam has relatively low requirements on the operating environment of the system, so that users can obtain the best results no matter in processing operations such as modeling design, CNC milling machine, CNC lathe or CNC wire cutting.
Mastercam has powerful surface roughing and flexible surface finishing functions. Mastercam provides a variety of advanced roughing technologies to improve the efficiency and quality of parts processing. Mastercam also has a wealth of surface finishing functions, from which you can choose the best method to process the most complex parts. The multi-axis machining function of Mastercam provides more flexibility for parts processing.
Mastercam’s strength lies in CNC machining, which is easy to use, and the generated NC programs are simple and efficient. The main competitors are UGNX, Edgecam, WorkNC, Cimtron, Delcam (Powermill), Space-e, PTC (Pro/NC), CAMWORKS, HyperMILL, etc. Compared with these software, it has an overwhelming advantage in 2D processing; in terms of surface , Has an advantage in simple rules; in terms of multi-axis surface, the third-party 5-axis multi-surface machining is introduced in X3, making it still the king in general CNC machining.
Mastercam software has been widely used in the design and NC processing of general machinery, aviation, shipbuilding, military industry and other industries. Since the end of the 1980s, my country has introduced this famous CAD/CAM software, which has quickly contributed to my country’s manufacturing industry. The rise has made a huge contribution.
8. CATIA
CATIA is the flagship solution for product development of France Dassault. As an important part of the PLM collaborative solution, it can help manufacturers design their future products and support the entire industrial design process from the pre-project phase, specific design, analysis, simulation, assembly to maintenance. Since 1999, its digital prototype process has been widely adopted in the market, making it the most commonly used product development system in the world.
Modular CATIA series products provide product style and appearance design, mechanical design, equipment and system engineering, management digital prototype, mechanical processing, analysis and simulation. CATIA products are based on an open and scalable V5 architecture. Whether it is solid modeling or surface modeling, because CATIA provides an intelligent tree structure, users can easily and quickly make repeated modifications to the product, even if major modifications are required in the final stage of the design, or the original solution Upgrading is very easy for CATIA.
CATIA provides complete design capabilities: from the conceptual design of the product to the formation of the final product, it provides a complete 2D, 3D, parametric hybrid modeling and data management means with its precise and reliable solutions, from the design of a single part to The final electronic prototype is established; at the same time, as a fully integrated software system, CATIA organically combines mechanical design, engineering analysis and simulation, CNC machining and CATweb network application solutions to provide users with a strict paperless working environment , Especially the special modules in CATIA for the automobile and motorcycle industries.
CATIA provides convenient solutions to meet the needs of large, medium and small enterprises in all industrial fields. Including: from large Boeing 747 aircraft, rocket engines to cosmetic packaging boxes, almost covering all manufacturing products. CATIA series products provide 3D design and simulation solutions in eight areas: automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, plant design, construction, power and electronics, consumer goods and general machinery manufacturing.
9. Delcam
Delcam is the world’s leading professional CAD/CAM software company. DelcamPlc is headquartered in Birmingham, a famous city in the UK, and is a listed company on the London Stock Exchange. The research and development of Delcam software originated from Cambridge University, a world-renowned university. After more than 40 years of development, the Delcam software series spans product design, mold design, product processing, mold processing, reverse engineering, art design and engraving processing, quality inspection and collaboration Cooperative management and other application areas. Delcam’s latest software research and development are carried out simultaneously in the United Kingdom and the United States, with more than 40,000 customers in more than 80 countries and regions around the world.
As a CAD/CAM software company with more than 40 years of history that integrates design, manufacturing, measurement and management, and focuses on research, development and technical services, Delcam knows that everything for the sake of users is the key to Delcam’s success. To this end, Delcam not only provides users with leading software solutions, but also provides users with the highest level of technical support through more than 350 technical support branches in more than 80 countries and regions around the world, ensuring that Delcam is the fastest Responsive speed solves any problems of users.
Delcam is the only CAD/CAM software company with a large CNC machining workshop in the world today. All Delcam software products have been rigorously tested in the actual production environment. This enables Delcam to best understand the problems and needs of users and provide a complete set of products from design, manufacturing, testing to management.
DelcamCAD/CAM series software is widely used in aerospace, automobiles, ships, household appliances, light industrial products and mold manufacturing industries. Airbus, Boeing/McDonnell Douglas, Hafei, XAC, Chengfei, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, MercedesBenz, Pratt&Whitney, Siemens, Mitsubishi, Canon, LG, Nike, Clarks, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor Group, Zhuhai Gree, etc. Well-known companies are all Delcam users.
10. Edgecam
Edgecam is an automated CNC programming software developed by Planit, UK. Edgecam can be integrated with today’s mainstream CAD software data and realize barrier-free data transmission. Give full play to the relationship between the entity and the tool path, such as the entity’s geometric features (such as: height, depth, diameter) is modified in the 3D software, only need to update the tool path, without the need to re-edit. Edgecam provides a complete solution for machining methods such as milling, turning, turning and milling.
EdgeCAM is a powerful, versatile, easy-to-learn and easy-to-use intelligent CNC programming system, and adopts a modular design to meet the needs of different users. Users can choose modules with different functions to form a CAM solution for CNC machining programming according to their own programming needs. The R&D and promotion of EdgeCAM products have always been based on meeting the needs of global processing and manufacturing users, and provide global users with the latest CNC programming functions at the fastest speed to meet the different needs of different users. In the process of product development and application for more than 20 years, EdgeCAM has more than 40,000 authorized users worldwide.
In response to the special requirements of the mold industry, Edgecam provides a variety of different processing methods to cope with the processing requirements in different situations, including product processing, mold manufacturing, turning processing, compound processing and high-speed processing and other different machining procedures optimization processing.