In this case study, the focus was a sea-water dredging system and the purpose was to evaluate the sediment flow path of fine silt injected into the stream. The client was concerned that inline concentration measurements of sediment were far lower than expected values. They were interested in gaining a better understanding of how sediment was distributed through their pipe system. For the CFD consulting team at Predictive Engineering, this analysis was an interesting opportunity to showcase the multi-phase capabilities of STAR-CCM+.

The sediment is injected at the far end of the pipe, down stream of the main inlet, and is modeled as a Lagrangian Multiphase. Here, the motion of the sediment particles is calculated through the main continuum phase of the fluid in the pipe. The particles varied in size as defined by a distribution provided by the end-client. The fluid makes two 90° bends through a pipe coupling and a sharp bend through a tee, which causes a significant amount of swirl in the fluid.

In a seamless transition, we recently set up a new support system for our customers. The good news? From the outside, nothing has changed. Customers can still use their existing methods to reach us for FEMAP, NX CAD, NX CAM, Solid Edge, Simcenter, STAR-CCM+ and Teamcenter support questions.

But from the inside, there are many advantages with our new support system. With an intuitive design and top notch features, Freshdesk lets us integrate various channels into a single ticketing platform.

Other advantages include:

• Identify tickets with lengthy periods of unresponsiveness
• Better ticket ownership for support team members
• Easily identify unresolved tickets
• Parent-child ticketing and linked tickets for similar issues
• Tools to create future support posts from existing tickets
• Tools to analyze data for support trends

If you're currently one of our support customers, please keep reaching out to us in your usual way.

If you're not currently one of our Siemens Digital Industries Software support customers, please reach out to us today!

Both Applied CAx and Predictive Engineering have been working closely with our customer SHB Power Plant Engineering on the modeling of bio-fuel power generation in STAR-CCM+. SHB is a local company in Portland, Oregon that specializes in upgrading boilers to increase efficiency and reduce emissions. This has been a unique project that has involved software support for Simcenter STAR-CCM+, engineering consulting services, and technology transfer so that SHB can run the models in-house for further design exploration.

Our CAE team's latest CFD case study covers their work on a newly built recovery boiler to estimate operational temperatures, CO emissions, and NOx emissions. The recovery boiler is fueled solely by black liquor that is sprayed into the lower furnace.

The coal combustion model defined by Lagrangian particles was used in STAR-CCM+ to model the drying, devolatilization, and char burning reactions that occur to the black liquor. One challenging aspect of black liquor combustion is the droplets swell in size (4 to 5 times original diameter) during the drying and devolatilization reactions. These effects were captured by using customized functions to simulate particle swelling during combustion. Analysis results were comparable to results obtained from previous analyses on comparable boilers.

READ THE FULL CASE STUDY HERE

When was the last time you evaluated your relationship with your CAD vendor? The most powerful, flexible, and innovative product development solution in the industry, NX for Design has the features, performance, and capabilities to help you get product to market faster than ever before.

With NX, you can consolidate on a single solution with a single data set, a single user interface, and lower total cost of ownership. You are concerned about data. We understand. We have the tools needed to help you bring all of your data forward to NX with the highest quality, and minimum amount of effort. With synchronous technology, you can make any changes needed to the data to help you execute your design changes.

Siemens Digital Industries Software has put together a good succinct article on moving from Creo to NX, and includes a profile on Team Penske and their managed migration process from PTC to NX.

Check out Siemens' first article in their new blog series, Beyond the Forum. The ongoing series will highlight the champions and community members working in the forum mines day & night.

And in exciting news, the very first article features Applied CAx’s own Randy Ellsworth! Randy is known far & wide for his PLM prowess, but in this revealing Q&A, Randy talks about his early days as a painter in Eugene, Ore., his decade-plus as an enlisted sailor in the Navy, and how he came into the world of PLM.

Says Randy: “Most Teamcenter administrators fall into the job, coming from either Engineering or IT, and don’t necessarily choose it. It chooses them and I’m no exception as you’ll read later. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it and am extremely thankful for the experience and relationships I’ve built over the years.”  

For Applied CAx and Sherpa Design, Randy provides strategic consulting, aligning Teamcenter with business needs to generate an architecture, landscape and road map.

Learn more about Randy and his experience with Teamcenter in the full article.  

With 10+ years of experience, Adrian Jensen, PE, specializes in all things FEA and FEMAP: geometry modeling, meshing, analysis, post processing, and programming with the FEMAP API.

We recently caught up with Adrian and asked him to share some future plans with us...

 Powerful new enhancements are now available in the latest release of NX for manufacturing, our comprehensive solution for CAD, CAM, CMM, robotics and additive manufacturing.

 The new capabilities will help you be more productive, including:

• Create multi-step drilling tools automatically
• Leverage barrel tools for more efficient machining
• Regenerate 5-axis toolpaths almost instantaneously
• Validate robotic operation with G-code-driven simulation
• Multiple in-process workpiece (IPW) sources
• Print CSYS
• 2D Nesting

Another cool new feature involves adaptive milling, a high-speed machining method in NX CAM software that can reduce roughing machining time by up to 60 percent. In the latest version, NX provides a new function to generate tool paths with smooth engage and retract moves. Additionally, you can smoothen the transfer moves improving the overall machine performance. These new controls can help you further reduce machining time, minimize machine wear and extend tool life.

READ MORE

Have you ever needed to access advanced NX features, but just didn't have the need — or the budget — to justify a purchase? Siemens has announced that starting this summer 2019, Value Based Licensing (AKA token licensing) will be available to those with floating NX Mach 1 licenses and above.

With over 50 different add-on modules available, this is a great option for folks wanting to explore & use other modules without wasting your budget on idle licenses.