Siemens launches new version of NX to enhance sustainability in product design

• New NX version helps users assess environmental impact during product development
  

• Front-end simulation for design leverages GPUs to gain near real-time design insights

Siemens Digital Industrial Software recently launched an updated version of the NX™ Product Engineering solution. As the flagship product in Siemens' Xcelerator solution portfolio, NX software supports design, engineering and manufacturing and is widely used in industries such as aerospace, automotive and fast-moving consumer goods.

“This update to Siemens NX focuses on product sustainability,” said Dr. Ken Versprille, Executive Consultant at CIMdata. “The complete workflow not only helps manufacturers address the challenges of product complexity and continuous optimization, but also provides a range of new smart tools for sustainability, helping manufacturers meet functional requirements while reducing environmental impact.”

Sustainability is a key concern in all industries today, and more than 80% of the environmental impacts associated with products depend on the product design stage. The new Sustainability Impact Analysis feature in NX can help evaluate environmental impacts in the early stages of product development, combining accurate 3D design data with an AI-driven material recommendation engine to deliver sustainability indicators based on EN15804. Companies can calculate, evaluate and optimize the impact of design decisions and material selections based on data sets containing more than 30 environmental impacts and 3D design sustainability reports.

The Siemens Xcelerator solution portfolio provides integration capabilities that connect to a wider enterprise network, enabling downstream reuse of the same data. Siemens Teamcenter® Product Lifecycle Management software can extract environmental goals and requirements, helping companies to verify designs based on relevant requirements and environmental credits.

Helping Simulation Achieve “Shift Left”

As system complexity increases and design resources decrease, simulation becomes more popular during the design process. To fully utilize simulation capabilities in the early stages of design, Siemens has added Performance Predictor to the new version of NX, which delivers real-time simulation results in its main design tool by using graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware. After applying boundary and load conditions and specific materials, parts can be simulated in real time and the simulation results can be directly overlaid on the 3D model.

The technology can also be used for parameter-driven studies, using the NX Design Space Explorer solution to define and solve multi-parameter, goal-based optimization studies in significantly less time. Once defined, this simulation data can be reused and augmented in Simcenter™ software products to perform more advanced simulations as the project progresses.

Accelerate molded part design

With the molded parts market expected to expand from $520 billion in 2020 to $750 billion by 2028, manufacturers are scrambling to reduce design iterations, eliminate costly physical prototypes, and phase out the trial-and-error process of molded part design.

With the new Molded Part Designer feature in NX, designers can create, manage and verify molded part design features (such as hubs, brackets, clips, and openings/grooves) using 3D design data in the native NX environment. Whether the features are created based on best practices or imported from third-party suppliers, NX Molded Part Designer can verify them one by one, perform plasticity analysis, and display the results on a visual dashboard to evaluate design feasibility and design options in different scenarios.

When this capability is combined with NX sustainability impact analysis, it ensures that materials not only meet functional and manufacturability requirements, but also environmental requirements.

Tool management in the cloud

Standardization of tools used in CNC manufacturing operations can not only help companies reduce tooling costs, but also promote the sharing of best practices among dispersed manufacturing teams. The new cloud tool management solution (Cloud Tool Manager) in NX CAM uses modern network technology to help companies easily achieve centralized management of tools and tool holders. In addition, this function also supports the import of tool data directly from the tool supplier's catalog, speeding up NC programming and enabling manufacturing companies to take full advantage of the latest advances in the field of tooling.