Neil--
I think the companies selling the FEA modelers are trying real hard to
shorten the learning curve and make it easier for a busy engineer to put
their product into his working "toolbox". Like I mentioned in the last
email I sent you there may still be cheap "educational" packages available
from ANSYS, Cosmos, Algor and others. It's important to note that a big
difference between this and a "demo" disk is that the demo programs usually
won't let you print out actual problem solution results from your inputs. I
suppose you could use a screen capture program like Printkey (low cost
shareware) but that may not work real well.
If you're interested do a Google search, dig up the local sales offices of
the FEA software companies and talk to them. These local sales guys are
probably pretty hungry now for any kind of sales prospect. And you never
know when the prospect of involvement in a race car project may light
someone's fire. Also a little rummaging around a local university with an
engineering school might turn up an associate professor with some good ideas
or resources.
Ed Weldon
From: "Albaugh, Neil" <albaugh_neil@ti.com>
Subject: RE: CFD aka Computational Fluid Dynamics
Dave;
For the average dilettante (me), $2k is more than I'd want to spend;
something more like one in the price range of Microsoft Picture Publisher
would be OK.
I fooled around with Algor and COSMOS demo disks some years ago but it
looked like the learning curve for them was pretty steep. I haven't looked
at either one for quite a while; perhaps they are easier to use now.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
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