January 2019 FOCUS ON: New Vehicle Lightweighting Design Meshless Simulation Simulate Additive Manufacturing DigitalEngineering247.com A Touch of AR MATERIAL DATA & DESIGN WORKSTATION REVIEWS BIOMIMICRY DE_0119_Cover.indd 2 12/13/18 4:41 PM ANSYS.indd 1 12/10/18 3:56 PM @XI_Computer.indd 1 12/10/18 3:54 PM //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// | DEGREES OF FREEDOM | by Jamie J. Gooch Hack Your New Year’s Resolution T’S THAT TIME of year when we reflect on the past to go back to school to get another degree, maybe resolve to and look ahead to the future. On one hand, this makes take a course in programming, finite element analysis or design sense: The calendar year ends and a new year begins. for additive manufacturing. Small successes can lead to setting What better time to make resolutions? On the other loftier goals, but the trick is to build on each success to get there, Ihand, it seems a bit arbitrary to make important life and rather than trying to achieve too much too soon. work goals based on a date chosen by the pope in 1582 to Another way to engineer yourself to keep your resolutions be the first day of the year. is to share your goals. Research shows that telling people about your goals can help you stick with them. Committing Research has shown that New Year’s Resolutions don’t to something like professional training, where you tell your work for most people, but just barely. According to a 2002 supervisor your intentions, or improving your standard op- study by John C. Norcross and his psychology colleagues erating procedure on model annotation and markup, where at the University of Scranton, people who made resolutions others will notice if you slip up, can help. Just like personal were more likely to make progress toward achieving goals trainers are more effective than a gym membership alone, than those who didn’t. having someone hold you to your resolution, or at least be in For six months, the study followed 159 resolvers and 123 your corner, can help you keep it. people who wanted to solve a problem but didn’t make a New Year’s resolution. By July, only 4% of the control group Start Often had made progress toward their goals, while 44% of the re- In the Norcross study, more than a third (36%) of resolvers solvers had kept their resolutions. Of course, that means most had broken their New Year’s resolutions by the end of Janu- (46%) resolvers had not, but that’s a glass half empty perspec- ary, and half had given up by March. So maybe one solution tive. The study indicates that making a resolution can help is to recognize more than one New Year. In England and Co- you progress toward a goal 10x more than not making one. lonial America (who didn’t want the Catholic Church telling them when to start the year) the official first day of the year Start Small was March 25 until 1752. So, if you find your resolve waning With all of the big changes happening in design engineering around March, just re-up your resolution on March 25, or and manufacturing today, you may be tempted to set your on April Fool’s Day if that helps remind you that it would be goals accordingly. Everything from the industrial Internet of foolish to quit. Things, to 5G connectivity, to artificial intelligence to ad- But seriously, if you’re one of the majority of people vanced simulation seem to be here or right around the corner who break resolutions, then operating on the idea of con- and require new design knowledge and skills to keep pace. tinual improvement—rather than a single resolution on an These are big disruptions to be sure, but psychology tells us arbitrary date—could be the answer. Either way, it’s im- that starting small is a better way to address them. To achieve portant to track your progress. This has proven effective change requires creating new habits. Making grand resolutions in calorie-counting apps, financial planning and general that your habits can’t support leads to failure. One hack is to to-do lists. Just like in engineering, a successful outcome fool ourselves into creating small, incremental changes that depends on data. become habits and then eventually lead to bigger changes. You can’t track progress until you set the goal, and the So, instead of resolving to finally implement a full product New Year is as good a time as any to start. Whatever those lifecycle management solution in 2019, maybe just make it a goals are, we wish you a happy, and productive, New Year. DE point to collaborate more with your colleagues, add more infor- mation to your models that will help people further along the Jamie Gooch is editorial director of Digital Engineering. Contact digital thread, or better manage your data. Instead of resolving him via [email protected]. 2 DE | Technology for Optimal Engineering Design January 2019 /// DigitalEngineering247.com DE_0119_Degree_of_Freedom_Gooch.indd 2 12/13/18 3:14 PM EDITORIAL WEBCAST DISCUSSION SERIES — INSIGHTS, INSPIRATION AND INFORMATION Simulating Reality with a Touch of AR-VR Incorporating Haptic Devices into Product Design and Validation For years designers and engineers have worked in 3D modeling and simulation applications with immersive, photorealistic visuals that can mimic reality. The affordable AR-VR gear and hardware that have recently emerged promise to bring the missing piece—a sense of touch—into product development. FREE DOWNLOAD: DigitalEngineering247.com/ar-vr Sponsored By ON DEMAND Download Today! Generative Design: Your AI Partner in Product Development Established design and engineering work ows are about to go through radical changes, prompted by machine learning and AI-like algorithms that can suggest optimal design shapes based on user input. Dubbed generative design, the new approach often results in shapes and forms that are structurally superior and aesthetically more appealing for the human designers’ solutions. FREE DOWNLOAD: DigitalEngineering247.com/generative-ai DE_Multi_Editorial_Webcasts_On_Demand.indd 1 12/10/18 3:55 PM COVER STORY TECHNOLOGY AR-VR: Beyond Joysticks FOR OPTIMAL 12 and Touchscreens ENGINEERING Voice command, hand gesture, texture mimicry DESIGN and other advances bring a greater touch of naturalism to AR-VR. By Kenneth Wong FEATURES || DESIGN Coming 15 up ACES Automated, connected, electric and shared (ACES) vehicles present new design challenges. By Randall S. Newton INSIDE January 2019 Design Software Vol.24 • No.5 24 Review: IronCAD 2019 Pioneering program gets a host of improvements. By David Cohn ||| SIMULATE Meshless FEA 19 Opportunities Is there a future for meshless methods in mainstream analysis? By Tony Abbey Virtual Printing Enables DigitalEngineering247.com 26 Next Phase of AM Adoption ON THE COVER: Simulating 3D prints will make it easier to Images courtesy of create high-quality end-use parts using RealWear, Tech Soft 3D, Getty Images/iLexx and additive manufacturing. Pixtum By Brian Albright 4 DE | Technology for Optimal Engineering Design January 2019 /// DigitalEngineering247.com DE_0119_TOC.indd 4 12/13/18 2:45 PM Biomimicry Inspires 44 Lightweight Lattice Design The combination of nature and new topology optimization and simulation tools serves up a powerful || COMPUTING approach to achieving lightweighting design. By Beth Stackpole Dell Precision 3530 Mobile 37 Workstation Review This 15.6-in. system delivers great performance || PROTOTYPE/MANUFACTURE and long battery life. To 3D Print, By David Cohn 30 or Not to 3D Print? Consider the application, volume requirements and @Xi PowerGo XT Mobile operational ef ciencies. 40 Workstation Review By Tom Kevan This powerful mobile workstation equals desktop performance. || DIGITAL THREAD By David Cohn Weaving Materials 34 into the Design Workflow Advances in materials science offer promises of part quality improvement at the microstructure level. By Kenneth Wong DEPARTMENTS 2 Degrees of Freedom 10 Consultant’s Corner: 47 Next-Gen Engineers Hack Your New Year’s Resolution Simulation 101 Designing for Environmental Sustainability By Jamie J. Gooch The Spectrum of FEA Analysis By Jim Romeo By Donald Maloy 6 By the Numbers: 48 Editor’s Picks Facts and gures on the Internet of Things. 11 Making Sense of Sensors Products that have grabbed the Giving Machines the Sense of Touch editors’ attention. 8 Road Trip By Tom Kevan By Anthony J. Lockwood Generative design makes waves at Autodesk University and Formnext. 46 Advertising Index PUBLISHER ADVERTISING SALES A PEERLESS MEDIA, Kenneth Moyes | President Tom Cooney Tim Kasperovich | Eastern and LLC PUBLICATION and CEO, EH Media Midwest Regional Sales Manager Brian Ceraolo | President and EDITORIAL Phone: 440-434-2629 Group Publisher SUBSCRIBER Jamie J. Gooch | Editorial Director [email protected] CUSTOMER SERVICE Kenneth Wong | Senior Editor ADVERTISING, BUSINESS, Digital Engineering ® magazine Anthony J. 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