From CAD Geometry to FEA Results

CAD → Geometry check → Mesh → Loads → Solve → Results

Six stages, the same order every model goes through — from an imported STEP file to a stress field you can read.

What's actually in the product

Everything below is functionality you can use today, in the UI — not a roadmap item and not something available only through the scripting layer.

• STEP import

  AP203, AP214 and AP242, including multi-body assemblies — each solid becomes its own body in the model tree.

• Boolean operations

  Union across any number of bodies; cut and intersect between two bodies.

• Geometry repair

  A manual Repair operation (heal gaps, then merge same-domain faces) plus an automatic auto-fix option before meshing.

• Fillet and chamfer

  Pick edges directly in the 3D view and apply a radius or distance.

• Sketch and extrude

  2D sketches with lines, circles and arcs, geometric constraints (coincident, parallel, tangent, concentric and more), extruded as a new body, an addition, or a cut — including holes through a sketch with an inner loop.

• Tetrahedral meshing

  First- and second-order elements, curvature-driven sizing, local sizing zones, and adaptive refinement based on stress hotspots.

• Materials

  A material library plus custom entries — elastic properties, density, thermal conductivity, thermal expansion, and strength data for factor-of-safety checks.

• Loads and boundary conditions

  Force, pressure, distributed force, acceleration, remote load and remote motion; fixed, pinned and coupled supports; rigid (RBE2) and general MPC equations.

• Multi-body contact

  Bonded, tied, penalty, frictionless and frictional connections between parts in an assembly, plus geometric bonding at the geometry stage.

• Analysis types

  Linear static, modal, linear buckling, prestressed modal, and thermoelastic — all reachable from the same Solve step.

• Results and post-processing

  Von Mises and principal stress, displacement, reaction forces per boundary condition, factor of safety against a chosen strength criterion, and stress-hotspot detection.

Example: a bracket from STEP to stress field

A typical path through the workflow above, using a load-carrying bracket as the running example.

1. 01

   Import

   The bracket arrives as a STEP file — a single part, or a small welded assembly of two or three bodies.

2. 02

   Clean up the geometry

   Run Repair to heal any gaps left by the CAD export, then fillet the sharp internal corners that would otherwise concentrate stress artificially.

3. 03

   Mesh

   Let the automatic tetrahedral mesher size elements from curvature, then add a local sizing zone around the mounting hole and the fillet, where the peak stress is expected.

4. 04

   Materials, loads and supports

   Assign steel from the material library, fix the mounting holes, and apply the service load as a force or pressure on the loaded face.

5. 05

   Solve

   Run a linear static analysis. For a bracket near a motor or pump, a modal run alongside it checks the first natural frequency against the excitation frequency.

6. 06

   Read the results

   The von Mises stress field shows where the peak sits — typically at the fillet, not at the load point itself — and the factor of safety says how much margin is left there.

What each stage actually does

A closer look at the same six stages, in the terms the UI uses.

What this workflow doesn't cover

Stated plainly, so nothing here reads as a promise that isn't backed by the product:

• —No revolve, sweep or loft. Solid modeling in the UI is sketch-based extrusion (new body, addition, or cut, including holes) — revolve/sweep/loft exist in the underlying engine but aren't wired up to any UI control.
• —No STL import. STEP (AP203/AP214/AP242) is the supported CAD input.
• —IGES import exists in the engine but has no import button in the UI today — it's reachable only through the scripting/DSL layer.
• —Contacts between bodies are MPC-based: frictional sliding and separation aren't modeled the way a fully nonlinear contact solver would.
• —Materials are linear elastic (or hyperelastic for large-deformation cases) — there's no plasticity model.
• —Analyses are static, eigenvalue-based, or steady-state — there's no transient/explicit dynamics, crash or drop-test simulation, and no fatigue or CFD.
• —WebCAE isn't a certified solver and doesn't provide engineering sign-off — it supports design decisions, and larger assemblies may need the desktop build rather than a browser tab.