You know most people think we’re idiots, right?
I mean, why would we go through all that trouble of carrying out iterations, doing hand calculations and remain glued to the computer screen when we could just do a normal day job and watch Netflix for the rest of the night like others.
Why make it hard for ourselves?
To be honest, they’re right. It is a stupid thing to do.
Starting out with a career in CAE requires a ton of hard work. It takes time and dedication to learn all the skills you need to get off the ground.
You have to know how to discretize. You have to know how to analyze. You have to know post-processing and how to prepare technical reports.
But once it starts working, man does it feel good. Seeing the components you analyzed getting fitted in cars or structures in real world makes all those efforts worth it.
But again, it takes time.
To help you speed up the process, I’ve put together a list of resources that will give you a kick in the butt by guiding you seamlessly through all the overwhelming stuff on the internet.
All of them are free or have a free plan.
1) Passion to flirt with CAE –
It’s not a statement, it is actually a Youtube channel where you can watch videos ranging from how to perform hexa/tetra meshing to defining contacts in pre-processors. Highly recommended for freshers as it will give the required depth regarding modeling and analysis.
2) Indovance –
This is the typical website where you will get to know the Whys, Hows & Whats about CAE. The article explains in detail the exact reasons why we perform certain steps in FEA.
3) CAE.ATOA –
As you might be aware that CAE is a vast field and it allows Engineers to experiment with lot of versatile applications. For example, you want to try something new like ‘Acoustical design of a stethoscope’. Where can you find the reference/research material? It’s at CAE.ATOA
4) FEA for Beginners –
This YouTube channel is created by a CAE Engineer and teaches about Fundamentals of FEA, CFD, MBD in very easy language and terms so that the very new students can easily understand.
5) The Efficient Engineer –
This one’s my favorite. Apart from tools and softwares, a CAE Engineer must be familiar with the basics, that is concepts like Poisson’s ratio, Stress, Strain, Failure theories, Navier-Stokes equation (if you’re a CFD Engineer) and so on. If you’re looking for videos that can teach you these fundamentals, you should subscribe to this channel on YouTube.
6) Altair resource library –
As the name suggests, the Altair library is a place where you can read and even download articles, eBooks and whitepapers on various load cases for free. They also update their blogs on a weekly basis so that you can know what’s trending in the CAE industry.
7) Ansys resource center –
Somewhat similar to the Altair library, Ansys resource centre will provide you with all the reference material for your next project. May it be ‘How to’-guides, Webinars or free case studies.
8) MatWeb –
Okay. So here’s the thing, before we’re required to model something and then solve it with a load case, we need to assign the right material for the components. But sometimes the material inputs from the customer are a bit confusing.
To avoid headache, you can use this site to get all the material properties that you want as inputs for your analysis. It’s fast and easy.
9) Engineering.com –
CAE is used in almost all kinds of industries like Consumer goods, Cosmetics, Electronics, Aerospace, Automobile and even Healthcare.
This site is a one stop spot for all your technical information needs especially for products related to above mentioned industries plus the articles on CAE are too good.
10) ICAT (International Centre for Automotive Technology) -
If you have worked or are working on a project that requires to meet certain standards, you’ll likely go through a pre-defined criteria or industry standards.
This is an excellent site where you can download PDFs of all kinds of regulations- AIS, BIS, ISO, SAE, etc. Highly suitable for those who work in the Automotive field.
11) Roadsafetyfacts –
Have you ever been curious about what are the elements of Active and Passive safety systems? Or want to know how these systems work to save lives? You may visit this portal to learn all about Airbags, Seatbelts, Crumple/deformation zones so that the next time you are applying boundary conditions to your model, you will readily recall these concepts.
12) Omni calculator –
When we want to analyze something, we need few things handy like a conventional calculator, unit converter or a pen and paper to do simple hand calculations. But you know what? There’s this site where you have it all ready on your plate.
For example, you want to know the critical load capacity for a column of given dimensions and mass. You only need to insert the input values in respective sections and boom! The results appear instantly without the need for any paper-work (or rough calculations). See the image below to get an idea of how useful this web app is.
So, that’s all for now. I hope you loved these resources and will start using them on regular basis. You may bookmark the current web page to your browser so that you can directly jump to any of these resources in future.
Share your feedback about this blog in the comments and also mention if you know better resources.