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Mechanica v’s Cosmos

mclearg

New member
Has any one carried out an indepthcomparison between Mechanica and Cosmos, we are thinking of changing from Mechanica to Cosmos and I was wondering if any one was aware of any benchmark tests available. The Cosmos package we are looking at is Cosmos Professional, the Mechanica package we haveis the Structural Simulation Option.


Thanks
Edited by: mclearg
 
The best alternate of Mechanica is ANSYS DesignSpace. Cosmos we tried but has the same problems. ANSYS DesignSpace has the added advantage of full integration with ProE I mean bilateral associativity.


Israr
 
I am a firm believer that you should use the right tool for the job on hand. In my opinion, all FEA packages have their advantages and disadvantages.However,I am curious to knowsome of thereasons whypeople decided to change to ANSYS or consider other FEA package besides MECHANICA? I have used in the past NASTRAN/FEMAP, ABAQUS, COSMOS, MECHANICA but unfortunately I never had the chance to use ANSYS.What functionality doesMECHANICA lacks in the linear FEA arena that other FEA package have?


Luis
 
Thanks for the input so far people.


To answer your question Luis, we changed our main CAD tool to Solidworks several years ago but have kept mechanica going as our FEA tool. Unfortunately due to various factors our knowledge base is diminishing and there is only myself and a colleague that can use it. Training costs and ease of use of Cosmos are pointing us in that direction.


Also I always have loads of hassle when trying to update Pro-E versions, the link to Mechanica invariably gets lost and our license server is a pig. I have never had any probs with SW.


I am interested in the Ansys Designspace (prob need Ansys Professional)option, does anyone have a ballpark cost for these packages?


Ta,


G.
 
As a user of both Cosmos and mechanica I can offer these observations (based on Solidworks 2004 and Mechanica wildfire:


Obviously, the integration between SWX & Cosmos is a big factor in favor of switching. You didn't mention if you would be using cosmosworks or cosmos/M, but here are some advantages that mechanica base package has over cosmos works


1. No mixed elements in Cosmosworks. All shells or all solids and don't even think about using beams (unless you're using Cosmos/m)


2. No large deformation capabilities, you need the non-linear package ($$) for that


3. No Optimization or sensitivity capabilities. Of course, if you are using solidworks and mechanica you can't do that either.


4. No 2-d formulations


5. Really bad shell meshing engine (in fact don't even try; do it manually)


Here are some advantages:


1. H or P method available ( although I never tried the P method in cosmosworks)


2. Better mesh control & refinement tools


I'd say both have about the same post processing capabilities.


My 2
 

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