The Benefits of Siemens’ Product Template Studio

Analysts can create a library of templates to help automate 85 percent of the design from CAD to simulation.

At the end of the day, making minor changes to your geometry and simulation can be tedious. Setting up your CAD geometry and FEA for similar parts is not only repetitive, it is inefficient. By automating the workflow, analysts and engineers can reduce iteration time and human error. However, these templates traditionally require a significant amount of coding.

Siemens offers help to automate the design and analysis of similar parts with a template that requires no coding. The Product Template Studio (PTS) allows users to create customized NX workflows using a drag and drop interface.

“One of the key ideas when developing PTS was to break down this coding barrier,” explained Ganesh Sethuraman, senior marketing manager at Siemens PLM. "Siemens has other technologies that can create templates like NX OPEN and our API. These tools also allow users to do more complex things other than templates. PTS, however, is a lot simpler to use and is tailored for the specific purpose of templates."

Sethuraman added, "Many analysts understand the simulation workflows they have created but they don’t have a software background to code the template from scratch. With Product Template Studio, the process of creating re-usable part templates has been streamlined.”

CAE template opens a dialog box asking users to input a new load and re-run the solver. Variable input of the load can be limited by the template author.

“Some automotive customers have based 85 percent of their CAD parts on templates. Therefore, for each new vehicle they only need to create 15 percent of the parts from scratch. The rest are modified from existing templates,” added Sethuraman. “And since PTS templates are based on existing parts it makes the creation process much easier. Whether it’s a CAD part or a simulation part, from a PTS creation perspective there is very little difference. The fact that it is codeless alleviates a lot of the customer concerns.”

The template can capture an existing workflow using standard part geometry as a starting point. The author/creator determines the variable inputs or parameters the users will be able to control through a series of dialog boxes. These variable inputs can be set with prompts and limits to ensure it is used properly.

“The analyst will want others to use their basic framework without exposing them to all the details that advanced analysts might need,” said Sethuraman. “PTS opens the door of high-end CAE tools to others that are less experienced in simulation.”

Templates enable designers to be comfortable with executing simulation workflows from within their usual design environment. This allow analysts to easily share their knowledge and expertise with others, freeing up their time to work on more complex simulations.

How to Use a Product Template Workflow

Templates associated with a part are accessible via the NX design tree.

The template user can access a library of templates associated with each part through the NX design tree. By right clicking on a part, the user can select “Edit Reusable Component” to find the CAE and CAD templates. By clicking on the desired template, the user is able to access the customized workflow.

When redesigning a part, the template user is able to control a series of variables made accessible by the template author. These variable inputs are made through a series of dialog boxes and buttons.

The effects of variable changes can also be automated by the template author to further simplify the user’s workflow. For example, users can change the length of their part and instantly see the effect on the part’s weight and mesh.

“NX has a built-in Strength Wizard application but PTS takes it one step further. Our customers are making their own wizards,” said Sethuraman.

To see in more detail how a template user can perform a CAE analysis, watch Sethuraman’s demonstration:

Creating a Template in the Product Template Studio

Product Template Studio authoring tool allows template authors to streamline all NX functionality.

The authoring tool of the Product Template Studio is automatically installed on a system with NX but users will need to obtain a license to use it.

The Product Template Studio authoring tool allows an analyst to set up a template workflow for the user based on a CAD part or finite element model (FEM).

“The analyst defines which variables the designer will have access to by drag-and-dropping the variables into custom made dialog boxes. The analyst can name the variables, assign input limits and create prompts to ensure proper use of the template,” clarified Sethuraman.

Product Template Studio authoring tool uses drag and drop features to create a customized CAE workflow with dialog boxes for inputs.

Sethuraman recommends template authors to “keep it simple. If the material of the part is the only variable, then make that the only variable the designer can alter. Alternatively if you are looking into the load, geometry or mesh size then make those variables available for the designer to alter. But don’t add a function to the template just because you can. The less complex a template is, the faster it can be completed and debugged and the easier it is for the end-user to consume”

As such, the PTS templates work best when translating a well-defined documented process to assess a specific family of parts. Instead of following a standard operating procedure manually, people can work through the step-by-step procedure in NX.

“If you are making major changes to the part each time you run the analysis then PTS may not be the best option,” acknowledges Sethuraman. “You can run the risk of breaking the template when faces and meshes are altered drastically. NX best practices will still apply to PTS.”

He added, “the template is only as good as its ingredients: a family of parts, a good mesh, geometry, results and workflow. Templates are useful to guides users through a process that is repeated but you also need to know how to limit the variables with ranges. This will add engineering intelligence to your template to ensure accurate results.”

For a more detailed look at how to author a template, watch Sethuraman’s demo of the authoring tool:

Siemens PLM has sponsored this post. They have no editorial input to this post - all opinions are mine. Shawn Wasserman