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Price of FEA software?

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price of abaqus ls dyna price

how much is abaqus software femap price

bongirs (Mechanical) (OP) 30 Aug 14 10:48

Hello,

I am considering starting my FEA consultancy.

So I would like to know the prices of FEA software packages.
It would be great to understand the fixed initial seat price as well as the yearly price of the packages.
I have tried searching a lot using Google but in wain...

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TGS4 (Mechanical) 30 Aug 14 18:55

Call the various software vendors. Get quotes. By this point you should know which software you are going to use (i.e. you should have 10+ years of experience in this
software before hanging your own hat out there). What industry are you wanting to work in?

bongirs (Mechanical) (OP) 31 Aug 14 00:20

I have experience using ANSYS and Creo Simulate.
My area of interest is Automotive.
Yes I have not much experience to inaugurate my consultancy tomorrow, but I am contemplating of doing so in a couple of years.
So to get a gist of the initial investment that would be required I have posted this question.
I am not fixing myself to one software as it would depend on my clients demands.
As a rough estimate I would like to know the approximate costs associated with the structural licenses of following software:
1. ANSYS
2. Abaqus
3. COMSOL Multiphysics
4. Autodesk Simulation
5. LS-DYNA

TGS4 (Mechanical) 31 Aug 14 11:31

Quote (TGS4)
Call the various software vendors. Get quotes.

This is proprietary information for these companies, so you will only be able to get it from them directly.

rickfischer51 (Mechanical) 2 Sep 14 09:52

Find out what software your intended customers are using and acquire that. That way you position yourself to take on routine overflow work where you build the model, run
the analysis, and then transfer all the files to the customer and he takes it from there. Do a good job with that and they may give you complete projects. IF not, at least it's
money coming in.

I believe ABAQUS is only available as a lease and it is very spendy. Ansys can be purchased in small chunks. You could start with Structural, then upgrade to Mechanical to get
heat transfer, then upgrade to Multiphysics if the need arises nad your income stream improves. Multiphysics was about 45k$ for a perpetual license, + an annual tech support
fee. I think Structural is about 19k$. Also, Ansys Design Modeler is great for fixing mutant geometry from various customers. You will likely not be able to afford or master
every CAD system out there, so Design Modeler will fill that gap. LS_Dyna used to be free from Livermore, but you needed a pre/post package like Femap. Not sure how it
works now. Of course, you can add ANSYS/LS-Dyna to an Ansys bundle. Autodesk Simulation is the old Algor program and is pretty low end (sorry Vince) and I would be
surprised if anybody big in Detroit uses it. I've have not heard good things about it for anything other than linear static. I see that Autodesk recently acquired NEI-Nastran, so
apparently they agree.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

bongirs (Mechanical) (OP) 2 Sep 14 11:28

Hello Rick,

Thanks for your suggestions. I have some queries though,

If a company is already using a FEA software they must have FEA analysts to work for them.
Then why would they transfer their tasks to a 3rd party?
Is that not wasting a lot of money?

Regarding ANSYS, if I buy the perpetual license and don't take the yearly support, then can I use ANSYS forever without having to pay any more money (apart from the initial
seat license fee)?

Yes I have used ANSYS Design Modeler and found it very good for correcting geometries.

Regarding Autodesk Simulation, is it not used quite a lot in the industry?

If so then it must be really cheap and lack good solvers.

Apart from all this I have one more query.

Does any company espouse a new software in the market easily especially if it is light on the pocket and has a lot of muscle power but lacks the "proven software" badge?

Thanks for your time and effort!

rickfischer51 (Mechanical) 2 Sep 14 15:25

1. You may get overflow work. The customer does not always have enough analysts and licenses to do all the work in the allotted time. He may go outside to consultants to
get through a period of peak demand. If they are using Nastran, for instance, you have a better chance to get that work if you are also using Nastran.

2. You also don't get tech support, error reports, new releases, etc. Not a lot of fun when you change computers or operating system, etc.

4. Not sure what you are asking. From what I've heard, the Algor solver runs slowly and suffers convergence issues when running nonlinear. This is supposed to be why
Abaqus is better than Ansys. Ansys aint bad, but Abaqus has a better nonlinear solver.

5. Nope. You get what you pay for. Also, what image do you want to send to your perspective customers? You dont want to scare off potential customers with unproven, no-
name software.
Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

IRstuff (Aerospace) 2 Sep 14 15:37

FEA is used in specific portions of the design cycle; it's therefore generally difficult to keep an FEA expert sufficiently busy, and up-to-date. Most of our FEA users are not doing
FEA full-time.

A couple of your notional packages are much more industry-specific than others. I would question your depth of knowledge in any given FEA package if you presented such a
list as your qualifications. If would be more impressive to me if you were a, "20-yr user of ANSYS," rather than having your experience spread out amongst 5 different
packages. Assuming equal time, that would barely make you an experienced user in any of the packages. Note that you will have to bid a certain amount of hours to complete
a job. The less experience you have in the package being used, the more schedule risk you incur, because you might run into issues that an experienced user could easily
avoid.

TTFN
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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

GregLocock (Automotive) 2 Sep 14 19:16

From the perspective of a big 2 automotive OEM

"If a company is already using a FEA software they must have FEA analysts to work for them.
Then why would they transfer their tasks to a 3rd party?"

If there is a specific area of expertise that the OEM doesn't have eg I think we'd struggle with FEA of magnetic lines for a motor design, or if we are running 2 or 3 vehicle
programs on top of each other, or a vehicle program suddenly needs a lot of help. In my group's case we had been unable to recruit a suitable additional head and so for a
year we covered that gap with an external consultant.

"Is that not wasting a lot of money?"

Yes but if it is critical path then not doing it wastes more. To be honest my charge out rate is higher than that of the consultants, so the waste of money is not all that apparent
at a program level. There are however many inefficiencies with using external contractors and those are transparent to the managers, but they are real at the working level.
Even finding a suitable contractor can be hard. There are lots of nuff-nuffs who did FEA or MBD at uni and think they can do the job. They can't.

"Regarding Autodesk Simulation, is it not used quite a lot in the industry?"

Not by OEMs, perhaps by suppliers.

"Does any company espouse a new software in the market easily especially if it is light on the pocket and has a lot of muscle power but lacks the "proven software" badge?"

Yes, it is not uncommon for an OEM to attempt to get a new product reconfigured in the direction of the OEMs wants. That happens less than it used to but it is still happens.
BTDT twice in 25 years.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

glass99 (Structural) 3 Sep 14 20:47

bongris: the software you are looking at is expensive. ABAQUS is approx $30k/yr. This is fine if you are using it every day, but if its only one of many expenses it can be pretty
onerous. ANSYS lets you rent their software by the hour now. NEiNastran is relatively inexpensive and high powered. Its approx $25k to buy plus $5k/yr for maintenance. btw:
my reference point is structural options up to the non-linear implicit transient. In the end, Strand7 actually works fine for my purposes. Its rare that i need contact surfaces or a
super robust non-linear algorithm, and it only costs ~$7k to buy plus $1600/yr for maintenance. Why spend $100k+ for ABAQUS?

GregLocock (Automotive) 3 Sep 14 22:29

"Why spend $100k+ for ABAQUS?' because if that's what your customer wants then you won't get the work without it. I don't know if our FEA boys work like we do in MBD but
our outside contacts have to use the exact same release of software as us, including patches.
Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

bongirs (Mechanical) (OP) 4 Sep 14 12:56

Hello All,

Thanks for explaining the need of 3rd party consultants.

I am getting a grasp to some extent now, on how to run business as a consultant.
I am working as a Product Engineer (1 year experience) as of now along with handling some FEA tasks for team mates using Creo Simulate.
I hope to pursue MS in Mech with specialisation in FEA and then work as an analyst in a firm for some years to understand this arena in more depth.
Apart from that, I have to say I love developing software (as a freelance developer).
My next project is a FEA software.
After reading the suggestions I feel it may not be a good project as nobody would be interested in buying it... :(
Anyways Thanks again all for your kind help and guidance. :)

glass99 (Structural) 4 Sep 14 18:52

Greg: interesting that you guys are so specific about standardizing FEA software. I have run into that in CAD but not FEA.

bongirs: being a consultant offering purely FEA is a tough business. Consulting engineers generally have to be more flexible than just FEA.

GregLocock (Automotive) 4 Sep 14 19:02

If you are determined to write a program I suspect a dedicated package for designing and analysing rubber bushings and hydrobushes and engine mounts would have a small
but lucrative market (do your research). This would have to handle non linear statics and dynamics, fluid coupling, durability, and so on.

glass99 - that's because we need to be able to run their models after they've finished with them and get exactly the same results.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

glass99 (Structural) 4 Sep 14 19:27

greg: as an aside, i totally agree about the rubber thing. Rubber gives you the ability to make compliant mechanisms, or solid state mechanisms thought of another way. Build
costs can be vanishingly small compared with traditional machined spring structures. First principles FEA of rubber is painful, so some better software tools would potentially be
very useful. I am using progessively more rubber bushings and washers in my glass engineering.

rstupplebeen (Mechanical) 5 Sep 14 09:17

For full disclosure I sell Abaqus among other programs and have purchased just about every one in the past.

I suggest getting actual quotes for the packages you are interested in because these numbers are far from accurate for a 1 man shop.

I hope this helps.

Rob Stupplebeen
www.optimaldevice.com

rickfischer51 (Mechanical) 5 Sep 14 09:29

The reality is that when starting out, your software will be by far your single biggest expenditure. You need to be able to start small and thrifty and expand as your business
grows. It would be best to do this with a single program because if there is anything a customer hates it is paying for your learning curve. The pay by the hour option with
Ansys mentioned above is new to me. Sounds interesting. This plus the multi-level product structure (NLS, Structural, Mechanical, Multiphysics) gives great flexibility, and
would ease the pain somewhat at start-up. Do the other codes mentioned above have anything like this?

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

glass99 (Structural) 5 Sep 14 12:51

Software can be expensive, and so is the investment in your time in getting efficient at it. We are getting scaled up on Solidworks right now, and I am reminded what a big
deal it is to really get into all the nitty gritty of the program to make real projects with it.

glass99 (Structural) 5 Sep 14 13:00

rstupplebeen: I would love to switch to Abaqus, but the price I got a few years back for the non-linear transient implicit structural package from a distributor was $30k/yr/seat.
For my application, Abaqus is probably twice as good as Strand7, but its twenty times the price. Is there any hope of something closer to $5k/yr/seat?

The main things that would be valuable to us are a more stable large deformation non-linear geometry solver and nice contact surfaces.

rickfischer51 (Mechanical) 5 Sep 14 13:44

glass99: Take a look at Ansys Structural.

I'm an Ansys weenie from way back, and have never used Abaqus. I will not pretend to know which is better. But I've heard people who've used both say essentially the
following: Ansys has better contact, and Abaqus has more robust solvers for really nasty problems with multiple nonlinearities. Doesnt mean Ansys will never converge, doesent
mean that Abaqus sucks at contact, both are good programs. This is what I got from listening to what I considered objective and balanced discussions. Opinions are inevitably
influence by the type of problems worked on and the expertise and expectations of the analyst, so one guy might get good results with Ansys where another doesn't, etc. Also,
you need to look at overall useability. For instance, Ansys has DEsign Modeler, which is a great tool for importing CAD geometry from multiple sources and turning them into FE
models. This would reduce(or eliminate) the number of different CAD licenses you would need.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

glass99 (Structural) 5 Sep 14 16:39

rick: thanks, I know a bunch of folks that work with Ansys and love it. From my perspective Ansys, Nastran, and Abaqus are all pretty amazing. I guess I wish they were a bit
cheaper so it wasn't such an investment to try them out. Really high end analysis where Strand7 chokes only comes up a few times a year. We used to use NeiNastran with
FEMAP at my old firm, which was pretty good. But 20k/yr for software only makes sense if you are using it every day.

bongirs (Mechanical) (OP) 6 Sep 14 02:41

Greg: Thanks for suggesting the idea of making specialised apps in addition to the FEA package. I gave a thought to it and now I have some more specialised areas like gears,
cams, fasteners, etc. to ponder upon.

Rob: As mentioned previously, I have a long term plan of setting up a consultancy. So right now I am not looking at really accurate figures. Just rough estimates to understand
how much I would have to invest and whether or not my business would be able to sustain. Overall I understand that FEA alone could possibly not sustain my business. I have
to work on some related activities (Rapid Prototyping maybe?).

Rick: Yeah the software is going to be a huge investment. So I am seriously contemplating developing my own software. Maybe also provide ANSYS consultancy side-by-side.
ANSYS is really famous compared to Abaqus here in India. Also I would never sustain the business with these high investments as people want everything cheap over here.
FEA itself is not used much apart from the big MNCs and OEMs.

glass99: I am starting FEA activities alongside Product Engineering in my organisation, to support my teammates using Creo Simulate. I have been having a very steep learning
curve with Creo Simulate especially after my experience with ANSYS in college. Recently it failed to deliver a very simple multi-body simulation despite having very short
intervals for non-linear analysis. The mesh was mostly prismatic but not very fine. Anyways cant expect much from a CAD software to deliver extra-ordinary FEA results.

rstupplebeen (Mechanical) 8 Sep 14 09:36

Unfortunately, I can't post prices on a userboard. Please email me directly and I can get you connected with the appropriate people.

rob at optimaldevice dot com

Rob Stupplebeen
www.optimaldevice.com

Fvibtech (Mechanical) 8 Sep 14 20:08

I was looking for a cheap FEA software and they recommend me Heron rotordynamics in another forum. It's cost less than 100 usd per month! depends of
the plan and it's online (Link or info(at)heronrd.com).

Regards.
GregLocock (Automotive) 8 Sep 14 21:25
Just before you get booted off the site, perhaps having a website that is not accessible without a password is not the best way to drum up business?

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

SergioP (Automotive) 16 Sep 14 10:14

Hi, I'm in charge of the FEA team in an automotive company, so we deal (and suffer) with that numbers, please send me a PM if you need the real numbers. Guess that is not
possible to post it directly.

4Pipes (Mechanical) 16 Sep 14 14:37

I'll just rock the boat a bit in the spirit of balance! I would agree with the general points about Autodesk Simulation. However, I would not write off Autodesk just yet. I
purchased Algor at the height of the crash at the end of 08. It was as much as a toy as anything and because I could afford it. Abaqus and Ansys are total non-runners for
individuals unless you have a near full time use which pays top dollar. Since then I have been very impressed with Autodesk and kept the licence paid up. Autodesk are still
expanding and it now includes NEI Nastran from August 14. I suspect that Autodesk will get their break at some time soon. End users of FEA services will wake up at some
time and realise that they do not need to pay for work done with Abaqus and Ansys. Neither guarantees that it will be correct. Big name consultants with big name software
can and do use screwy boundary conditions with very pretty but equally screwy models to produce meaningless rubbish. The same rubbish can be produced with less famous
software at a fraction of the price. If one wants to deal with clients who only want big name software and are willing to pay for it, then there is no point considering Autodesk
Simulation just yet. However, there are other more price sensitive clients. You pays you money etc.

GregLocock (Automotive) 16 Sep 14 19:07

I am not quite sure why you'd need to pay for software to produce rubbish results, but it's your money.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

IDS (Civil/Environmental) 16 Sep 14 19:58

I know Greg was joking, but I think 4Pipes makes a valid point. For the great majority of applications reasonably priced software will produce just as good results as the
software from the big names. The results need to be independently verified by some means anyway; relying on the name of the software supplier doesn't sound like a great
verification method.
I'd like to see more price competition from all software suppliers, and easily accessible fixed prices would be a good start. Whether Autodesk will be useful in driving prices
down in the long term, I doubt.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services
http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

GregLocock (Automotive) 16 Sep 14 20:46

Sure for simple structures. I'm a great believer in simple FEA models, and have correlated three 100-300 node models very successfully, at least to a level that demonstrated
their usefulness - that is where static deflection was an issue we got good agreement on spring rate, and for dynamics we got good modal results within the frequency range of
interest.

Most people don't correlate their models to any serious extent, they just want pretty pictures.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=4f7a9d21-e1a9-434d-ad5e-65

bongirs (Mechanical) (OP) 17 Sep 14 03:26

Just want to make it clear that if it is illegal to discuss the actual price of the software then I would not want to know the actual figures.
I don't think there is any crime to discuss rough estimates as done above and am satisfied with the information.

Regarding the reputation of the software I believe only one principle: Garbage in, Garbage out.
A tool is only as good as the operator is.

glass99 (Structural) 17 Sep 14 11:41

greg: 100% agree about simplicity in FEA. The 100,000 to 10,000,000 node model is for confirming the 200 node model, not for first instance design.

I also 100% agree about testing/correlation, though that can be harder to get through the project management folks. Question always arises: why am I paying you to do a
fancy model if you have to do testing too?
4Pipes (Mechanical) 17 Sep 14 13:59
I was just being tongue in cheek. I just get a bit cynical about the way folk talk about the big names as though these were the only things that could produce decent results -
certainly at the level that covers +80% of the market. I have tried to reverse engineer calcs in the past - basic stuff so nothing really fancy. The only one real difference was
that well a known user of Abaqus was not able to run one of my linear buckling models because it was too big. In fairness, I am not totally sure it was the fault of Abaqus.
Maybe Abaqus has small and large versions or the user made a mistake - I don't know.

In another case, I was already on a full time contract at the company but not doing FEA. I would have done the FEA within my existing rate so giving them the cost of
Autodesk licence just to be able to get them as a reference. Internal politics and software snobbery ended up with the work being subcontracted to experts. The end cost
ended up at nearly $0.5m. Not one model was geometrically correct and none had the correct boundary conditions. I was happy with what was built because I had designed it
and checked it with Autodesk Simulation first. The client was ripped off by nearly a factor of 10 on price even if it had been done properly. Frustrating but such is life.

4Pipes (Mechanical) 17 Sep 14 15:19

Bongirs, Sorry, I got a bit off piste. The price you want is best obtained from a software supplier. Get to know them and get budget prices. Then ask for the basic 30 day
licence to be extended to give more time for review. Suppliers are desparate to get market share. They are not going to charge top prices for small users. If they think you
might be a good bet and are moving into markets that they are interested in, then you will get a good price. Keep them guessing - in the nicest possible way. They are only
trying to do a job. List prices or prices charged to larger organisations could be meaningless.

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