PARIS--ESI Group (ISIN FR0004110310), pioneer and world-leading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes, announced today the release of its Welding Simulation Suite version 2009, including Weld Planner and PAM-ASSEMBLY. Dedicated to all engineers who manage the welding assembly of large and complex welded designs, the main objective of the simulation suite is to significantly reduce time and cost to arrive at the bill of material and at a feasible process design.

In the early design and process evaluation phase, Weld Planner is first used to quickly evaluate numbers and positions of welds, clamping conditions, and design. While its dedicated GUI, ease of use and simulation speed meet the requirements of product and process design, Weld Planner allows finding the best possible design in the shortest possible time range.

PAM-ASSEMBLY is then used to validate the preliminary decisions taken. The complete physics of material is computed in local models, thus feeding the global model which is used to compute the overall distortion. Therefore, the computational effort is reduced from months to minutes, without losing any precision.

Version 2009 of ESI’s Welding Simulation Suite is embedded in a complete CAE environment, including dedicated meshing and post-processing tools.

“Weld Planner has been used at the National Metals Technology Centre (NAMTEC) for modeling welding deformation of large and complex assemblies. We have found that the software is very fast and straightforward to achieve rapid results, even for large mesh densities with a high number of welds”, said Dr. Kathryn Jackson, Technologist, NAMTEC. “The intuitive graphical interface has enabled us to define weld lines and clamps easily. The 'process definition' tool has been used to explore a range of weld sequences and clamping configurations rapidly, and therefore Weld Planner is ideal for investigating a high number of iterations of weld sequences at an early stage of the design process.”

“Rolls Royce found Weld Planner impressive due to the time taken to perform the analysis, the quality of results produced and the flexibility it offered in the early design cycle”, said Scott Wood, CEng MIMechE – Mechanical Engineer - Advanced Engineering, Transmissions, Structures & Drives, Rolls-Royce. “Weld Planner enabled an investigation of the fabrication route to be integrated with the thermo-mechanical design stages of the assembly.”

ESI offers training which lasts just one day and includes a step-by-step ‘getting started’ session to help users get the job done.

For more information, please visit: http://www.esi-group.com/welding

About ESI Group

ESI is a world-leading supplier and pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically simulate a product’s behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment’s impact on product performance. ESI’s products represent a unique collaborative and open environment for Simulation-Based Design, enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner while eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs over 750 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of NYSE Euronext Paris. For further information, visit www.esi-group.com.