Modulift cuts design time from 600 to 200 hours with SimSolid

Source. This case study summarizes a customer story published by Symetri (software reseller). It is not a Softprint project. Read the original.

Customer

Modulift UK Ltd, founded in 2002, makes modular spreader beams, lifting beams and spreader frames with capacities from 2 t to 3,000 t, plus custom lifting frames and subsea lifting beams for projects such as wind turbines, monopiles and infrastructure.

Challenge

Finite element analysis is central to Modulift's design work. The software used before was highly technical and slow to learn, so analysis depended on one or two experts. When they left in 2021, the company was exposed: in the words of its engineering manager, there was too much risk in having one competent user in a team of seven.

Solution

Reseller Symetri recommended SimSolid, and the team adopted it after a guided demo.

• No meshing and no manual geometry simplification, which cut modeling time.
• Analyses run in seconds to minutes.
• Most of the engineers, not only specialists, can now run analyses.

Results

• Design time on a product development project dropped from 600 hours to 200 hours, a 67% reduction.
• FEA capability spread from one or two specialists to a team of seven.
• The company describes its adoption as still at an early stage.

“We have seen design time drop from 600 hours to 200 hours on a product development project.”

Harshal Kulkarni, Engineering Manager, Modulift

What this means for your work

Fabricated frames, lifting gear and machine structures are typical SimSolid work: large welded or bolted assemblies where meshing is the slowest step. See how the approach compares with traditional FEA in our article on meshless simulation.

Source: Symetri (software reseller), https://symetri.co.uk/insights/cases/modulift

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