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Announcing- Integration of Native Alibre Files in Mecway!

Joseph_L

Joseph_L

Administrator
Staff member
Hello all!

We are excited to share a significant development that will greatly benefit those of you who utilize Alibre Design in conjunction with finite element analysis. Mecway, one of our favorite FEA platforms, now supports the direct import of native Alibre Design parts and assemblies!

For those of you who have not used Mecway, it is a lot like Alibre in that it has an affordable perpetual license. I think it is very easy to use and is good for both professional and enthusiast use; it is able to perform cover a wide range of analyses including structural, thermal, dynamic, buckling, frequency response, transient, nonlinear, DC Current flow and even acoustic resonance analyses. Below, I have created an introductory video that includes instructions on natively importing Alibre files and assemblies. You can learn more at https://mecway.com/.

This new integration offers several key advantages:
  • Seamless Workflow: You can now import your Alibre Design models directly into Mecway without converting to intermediate file formats, ensuring a smoother and more efficient process.
  • High Fidelity: All geometrical and structural details of your Alibre Design models are preserved accurately, providing reliable data for your finite element analysis.
  • Time Savings: Reduce the time and effort needed to prepare your models for FEA, allowing you to focus more on analysis and results.
We believe this enhancement will help streamline your workflow and improve your overall experience- no more 'save as' or worrying about versioning on exported parts. To utilize this new feature, make sure you have the latest version of Mecway, Version 25 installed, and register COMdll's as outlined in the video.

Watch the video by clicking here!

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Victor at Mecway for his dedication and effort in implementing this feature. His commitment to improving the user experience and his responsiveness to our community's needs have made this integration possible. We truly appreciate his hard work and look forward to seeing how this enhancement will benefit all our users.

Best regards,

Joseph L
Alibre Team
 
Joseph_L said:
For those of you who have not used Mecway, it is a lot like Alibre in that it has an affordable perpetual license. I think it is very easy to use and is good for both professional and enthusiast use; it is able to perform cover a wide range of analyses including structural, thermal, dynamic, buckling, frequency response, transient, nonlinear, DC Current flow and even acoustic resonance analyses. Below, I have created an introductory video that includes instructions on natively importing Alibre files and assemblies. You can learn more at https://mecway.com/.
Click to expand...
I wish I knew this existed!
 
amazing step forward. Thanks for the hard work.
If the alibre part or assembly changes, is Mecway able to grab those changes in either real time, or after closing and opening the simulation file?
 
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LuminescentLoom said:
Hello @tyc, Mecway developer here. It opens the AD_PRT/AD_ASM files from disk rather than in the running session of Alibre, so you would save in Alibre and can then click Reload or remesh it in Mecway.

Also, hello again @stepalibre ! You were a helpful part of getting this working despite my vagueness about what it was for.
Click to expand...
Thanks for letting us know that all our hard work here on the forum pays off!
 
So... if we are using the PDM browser. What is the process for getting things into Mecway if using the safe?

I understand I can save locally, but because this would create two iterations and not update, that would not be ideal... it may be the way though...
 
I finally got around to updated from Mecway 23 to Mecway 30 in order to take advantage of the Alibre integration. I can import part files (ad.prt) just fine, but when I import an assy file (ad.asm), I get the following error message:

1766102069442.png

Any ideas what I am doing wrong? Did the registerCOMDLLs step. Running Atom V28 64-bit [Build 28227]. Have license and maintenance is paid up to next year.

Thanks.
 
Mecway sounds interesting, particularly the acoustics part. Is this comparable with compressible streams in OpenFoam? I would like to do some wind instrument simulations.(Which harmonics build up for a given shape, which note range produces stable base notes with which air pressure (before overblowing happens), and importantly how "breathy" is a particular flute design. Optimally to have a "microphone" plane/dot at some point where waves are converted to audible wave files). The goal is to reduce the number of necessary prototypes.
Is that possible with Mecway?
Edit: I invesigated a little: Some of my requirements (like finding nodes and harmonics for a given pressure seems indeed be possible! The nonlinear, chaotic characteristics like capturing "breathyness" in audio would probably require other models. But I found a project that allows to prepare Meshes for OpenFoam with Mecway, so it could still a useful piece of the puzzle.
 
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I don't think Mecway will handle any kind of flow calculations. The manual seems to indicate it can predict compressible standing wave behavior in a closed chamber, similar to structural dynamic response of a solid. For any kind of flow behavior, you'll probably need CFD software, and that is not quite as inexpensive. But of course we are off topic as Mecway's capabilities are not the subject of this thread.
 
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