CADfix for CAE Pre-Post Processing Overview
CAE Modeling Technology Package 
The CADfix CAE modeling solution(CADfix CAE) provides all the tools necessary to prepare models for finite element, boundary element, and finite difference analysis.
The interactive graphics environment simplifies the creation and manipulation of geometry. Models can be imported from CAD data and CADfix CAE used to clean them and prepare them for meshing.
Boundary conditions, loadings, material and physical properties can be defined and assigned to the model. Advanced capabilities include allowing the user to define multi-point constraints, and interpolating analysis results onto a new mesh as a loading.
The images below show a CAD model which has been imported, defeatured to varying levels, and meshed using the CADfix CAE.
Meshing
CADfix CAE meshing provides mesh generation functionality to create volume, surface and beam element meshes. These can be quad or triangular meshes for surfaces, tetrahedral or hexahedral for volumes. The finite difference mesher produces cartesian grids for wires, surfaces, and volumes.
Meshing tools enable the setting up of controls for meshing, whether element size, meshing algorithm, or the lattice grading for finite difference meshes. A range of mesh quality checking facilities are provided to ensure mesh integrity.
Results Presentation
CADfix CAE also gives the user powerful visualization facilities for analysis results. These include: 
- Contour plots
- Animation
graphing
- Model probe line plots
- Sections
- Polar plotting - 3D and 2D graphs
The image (right) shows a CADfix CAE model of the Eurofighter 2000 aircraft. This model was created by British Aerospace based on importing data from CATIA. The geometry was meshed and analyzed for lightning strike behavior. The results shown in the image are from this analysis, taken at sections cut through the aircraft and the surrounding airspace.
Interfaces
A range of import and export translators are provided for leading analysis packages, including:
- ABAQUS
- NASTRAN
- PAFEC
- Dyna3D
An advanced data access toolkit is available for users to create interfaces to their own analysis codes, and a neutral mesh format is also provided.
Summary
This "CADfix CAE" solution overview talked about packaging of base CADfix functionality to provide similar ability to import and manipulate geometry. Instead of geometric output, CADfix acts as a CAE Pre-Post processor to create needed CAE analytic formats and process results of the analysis. This solution is different than the CADfix for Geometric Data Exchange packaged software product. For if you are interested in CADfix applied to CAD geometry model interoperability, please see the CADfix Product Page or the CADfix Solution Page.
ITI TranscenData is constantly developing cutting edge interoperability technology that will eventually become part of the commercial CADfix product. For information on the latest technology from ITI TranscenData that is being researched and deployed into select customer environments today, please see the Geometric Reasoning Technology Overview.
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