November 15, 2012

New software provides designers and engineers much-needed direct access within existing CAD and CAE systems to critical material and process information

Cambridge, UK—November 15, 2012 Granta Design, the materials information technology experts, today announced a new Foundation Software and Technology Partnership with Siemens PLM Software. The partnership is providing tight integrations between Granta’s materials information management system (GRANTA MI™) and NX™ software, Siemens PLM Software’s fully integrated computer-aided design, manufacturing, and engineering analysis (CAD/CAM/CAE) solution. This enables validated materials property data and models to be quickly and consistently accessed and applied from within NX, providing fully-traceable inputs for designs and simulations. The first product from the partnership, GRANTA:MI Materials Gateway™ for NX, is now available.

Engineers and designers need quick, reliable access to a wide range of complex materials, process, and environmental information for their designs, calculations, and simulations.  Working with some of the world’s top engineering enterprises, Granta has developed a powerful system for capturing, analyzing, and managing all of a company’s materials data—for example, from testing, R&D, or previous design experience. This is complemented by Granta’s own unrivalled catalog of materials property reference data, which covers metals, plastics, ceramics, composite materials, and more. GRANTA MI:Materials Gateway enables this entire invaluable resource to be accessed and applied by authorized engineers throughout the enterprise, within their routine workflows.

GRANTA MI:Materials Gateway for NX was well received when presented at the Siemens PLM Connection event. It enables NX users to browse their corporate materials database (and Granta-supplied reference information), choose applicable materials, and assign those materials to parts within their NX model. This ensures that parts have the correct density for mass property calculations and weight roll-up, and that analysts can be confident of using approved models in their CAE simulations. All of these tasks are performed quickly, interactively, and with no risk of error due to data transfer.

Designers are being asked to consider an increasingly diverse range of criteria, including cost and sustainability, alongside engineering performance. So MI:Materials Gateway also embeds intuitive new dashboard and reporting tools to guide the associated materials selection.

“Our customers are looking to use materials that not only provide fit and function, but are also cost effective, recyclable, and reduce environmental impact,” said Jim Rusk, senior vice president, Product Engineering Software, Siemens PLM Software. “The accessibility of the Granta MI database for NX provides our customers with the tools they need to leverage their corporate standard material properties, and make them available to designers and engineers in an easy to use process. Siemens PLM Software is pleased to be able to extend its long working relationship with Granta Design.”

“We are delighted to be working with Siemens PLM Software to support their wide user base of designers, engineers, and analysts by providing them with tools and data that will save time, ensure consistency, and provide them with high confidence in their results,” concluded Granta’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Patrick Coulter.

 

About Granta Design

Granta Design Limited are the materials information technology experts. Granta develops the leading software for materials information management in engineering enterprises, and the leading teaching resource for materials engineering education. Granta serves sectors as diverse as aerospace, defense, energy, medical devices, automotive, manufacture of consumer and industrial equipment, materials production, and publishing. Customers realize multi-million dollar benefits in reduced cost, enhanced product performance, improved quality, and faster design turnaround. Granta was founded in 1994 as a spinout from the University of Cambridge and the work of Professors Mike Ashby and David Cebon.

 

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