CONCORD, Mass., June 15, 2006 — SolidWorks Corporation today takes another step toward integrating validation into the design process with the release of COSMOS® 2007 analysis software. Combining power with simplicity, COSMOS 2007 includes more than 60 new features that encourage designers to innovate by giving them the tools to find and correct problems before they cost time and money.

COSMOS 2007 builds on SolidWorks' investments over the last five years to make analysis easy enough for anyone in the design process to use, yet sophisticated enough to produce accurate, dependable results. It is part of SolidWorks' strategy to enable designers to focus on product innovation rather than learning technology tools.

COSMOS 2007 provides quick feedback on a design's performance by incorporating new features such as virtual sensors, which are software devices that provide information about specific locations on a 3D model the same way a physical sensor works on a prototype. It also automates time-consuming processes that in the past have discouraged designers from analyzing their work. New cyclic symmetry functionality, for example, reduces to a few minutes the complicated task of analyzing a circular design like a brake drum or a turbine blade. In a similar vein, COSMOS 2007, simulates commonly used design elements such as bearings in a one-step process that eliminates hours of complex manual drudgery.

Easy-to-use tools that deliver accurate results remove the risk of designing products that don't work as expected when they go to prototyping and production, according to Charles Foundyller, CEO of market research and technology assessment firm Daratech, Inc.

“More and more engineering managers are putting advanced CAE tools into the hands of rank-and-file product designers and reaping benefits such as more innovation, faster time to market, and a significant reduction in the number of physical prototypes that have to be built and tested,” said Foundyller. “The skeptics said it would never happen, but today's CAE tools such as COSMOSWorks® are proving them dead wrong. By using CAE to quickly refine their designs and using physical tests for verification, product designers are free to innovate without incurring additional prototyping costs or risk. You can have your cake and eat it too.”

Focus on design, not tools

The COSMOS product suite consists of COSMOSWorks finite element analysis (FEA) software; COSMOSMotion™ mechanical analysis software, and COSMOSFloWorks™ fluid analysis software. They provide simple, accurate design analysis that leads to better products by giving designers a safety net for catching errors. Designers are free to innovate, secure in the knowledge that they won't pass costly mistakes down the line.

Chief among the new functionality in COSMOSWorks is adaptive meshing for assemblies and weldment/beam analysis. COMOSWorks 2007 employs unique analysis conversion and detection features in its weldment analysis functionality that sharply reduces meshing and analysis time. Traditional FEA programs require engineers to draw lines and specify joints to connect beams and trusses. In the new COSMOSWorks 2007 weldment analysis environment, users can automatically convert a structural member into a beam or truss with a single click. That enables designers to analyze beam structures in minutes without long, complex set up procedures that can cause errors.

Adaptive analysis for assemblies enables designers to analyze assemblies as they will work together in the finished product, rather than as individual components. The new functionality minimizes the need for designers to refine their meshes manually, which saves time by eliminating trial-and-error guesswork.

“The new adaptive meshing features in COSMOSWorks 2007 help me accurately analyze my assembly designs quickly by automating the process,” said Mike Marcu, an engineering specialist at water treatment technology developer Trojan Technologies Inc. “I can concentrate on designing the best product possible because I don't have to worry about inaccurate results, or taking too much time to set up my analysis .”

Versatility and ease of use in COSMOSMotion and COSMOSFloWorks

The 2007 COSMOSMotion upgrade focuses heavily on ease of use and interoperability with other COSMOS and SolidWorks® software. Complete integration with SolidWorks means that users can perform motion analysis directly from their SolidWorks user interface, eliminating intermediary set-up steps. Integration with COSMOSWorks Designer enables users to design, simulate, and analyze a mechanical assembly in a single, seamless operation.

COSMOSFloWorks fluid dynamics analysis software features first-of-its-kind thin-wall analysis technology and 64-bit support for solving problems of up to six million cells. COSMOSFloWorks is the first mainstream computational flow software to support 64-bit processing, which enables users to solve more complicated problems than commonly used 32-bit applications. The thin wall technology enables users to analyze the flows around and through thin structures by automatically capturing and resolving their geometry. The COSMOSFloWorks approach eliminates the need to use manual mesh controls, and solves thin-wall problems quickly with fewer mesh cells.

Across all three products, COSMOS 2007 makes design analysis simultaneously indispensable and inconspicuous; inconspicuous through its ease of use, and indispensable for its role in developing better products.

“Designers are eager to innovate, but in the past they've been limited by their tools and processes,” said SolidWorks COO Jeff Ray. “If a designer wanted to try something different, they had to be concerned about passing a potentially flawed design down the line, where the cost of correcting it multiplies. Analysis software would detect the flaws, but those tools took too long to learn, and they weren't worth the effort. We've built a set of solutions in COSMOS 2007 that remove that barrier by making analysis both easy and accurate.”