Connection of PDM System and Web-Based CAE Supporting System for Small and Medium Enterprises

A web-based Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) supporting system is connected with a Product Data Management (PDM) system for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) suffering from the lack of building hardware, software and related experts. An analysis of current business models and worksite requirements provides an improved process model and data to be shared between the PDM system and the CAE supporting system. Since all engineering tasks such as geometric modeling, mesh generation, static stress and modal analysis, and fatigue durability analysis are automated in the CAE supporting system, the user in charge of the CAE have only to configure the concerned values of design variables and result data through the web page. The existing Change Management module of the PDM system is modified for seamless data exchange, i.e. sending the Engineering Change Order (ECO) data to the CAE supporting system and receiving the CAE result data bark. The hi-directional data transfers between the PDM system and the CAE supporting system is made possible by adaptors bused on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The current approach will be very helpful for SMEs that only have the PDM system and have no adequate infrastructure for CAE.