SolidWorks Education Edition 2010-2011 Equips Students for Sustainable Design Careers

CONCORD, Mass — Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp kicked off a new era of engineering education with the release of SolidWorks® Education Edition 2010-2011, which includes powerful new technology for designing sustainable products.

This technology, SolidWorks Sustainability software, was originally designed for professional design teams. For the first time, it gives higher education students deep insight into the potentially significant environmental impact of the choices they will make as professional designers and engineers. SolidWorks Education Edition 2010-2011 also includes all of the improvements in the newest commercial version of DS SolidWorks’ design software, SolidWorks 2010, including SolidWorks Simulation Premium, a powerful, comprehensive set of tools for simulation. It handles nonlinear and dynamic response as well as composite materials.

SolidWorks Sustainability software helps quantify the air, water, energy, and carbon footprint impact of CAD assemblies from raw material sourcing through manufacture, use, and disposal.

“Today’s engineering students welcome the challenge to innovate the new products and processes that will minimize the environmental degradation caused by human activity,” says Assistant Professor Solomon G. Diamond, PhD of Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering. “When students learn that their design decisions have a snowballing environmental impact over the life of a product, they want to know how to make better choices. DS SolidWorks has now delivered a tool that helps engineers make smart, sustainable design decisions with unprecedented simplicity.”

Hard decisions made easier

When designing a product, engineering students have traditionally focused on concerns like cost, mass, rigidity, and tensile strength. While these factors affect a product’s utility, SolidWorks Sustainability calculates equally important environmental values: the impact of an entire assembly in terms of raw material extraction, material processing, part manufacturing, assembly, use, and disposal, including transportation at every phase. SolidWorks Sustainability software includes a material selection tool that compares any assembly against a baseline design in real time for better decision making. The software also automatically generates customized reports of its sustainability analyses, helping make engineering decisions understandable to non-technical audiences.

“SolidWorks Sustainability software fills a long-recognized void by allowing quantified analyses of sustainability to be incorporated into design education without requiring students to conduct independent research projects,” said Make McDermott, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University. “Students can now assess their designs automatically, yet with insight into each variable, and make sound decisions that make a positive impact on the planet.”

SolidWorks Education Edition 2010-2011 is distributed via the host institution’s computer network. Any student, however, can individually purchase SolidWorks Student Edition 2010-2011, which includes SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress, software that helps users analyze the air, water, energy, and carbon impact of any single part.

New: The SolidWorks Student Access Initiative

Institutions that use SolidWorks software also have the unique ability to provide SolidWorks to students and educators outside the classroom and off campus through the new SolidWorks Student Access Initiative. With SolidWorks on their laptops and home PCs, students can collaborate and complete their work whenever, wherever, and however it suits them.

Texas A&M is taking advantage of the program as part of an initiative providing SolidWorks access to 16,500 students. Students will now have SolidWorks software on their laptops and home PCs as well as on school-owned computers across a variety of disciplines – including petroleum, nuclear, mechanical, industrial, electrical, and biomedical engineering. All other schools at the university, including the college of science and veterinary medicine, will have SolidWorks, too.

By incorporating SolidWorks 2010’s improvements, SolidWorks Education Edition 2010-2011 includes broad new capabilities in modeling productivity, simulation, publishing, and data management. In addition, the education software comes with:

* Free testing and (if one passes) certification as a Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA). This certification prepares students for the workplace, motivates them to continue learning, and proves they’re good candidates to work in the design and engineering fields.
* An “Instructor’s Guide to Teaching SolidWorks” with lessons, PowerPoint presentations, assessments, and tips. For students, there is a companion “Student’s Guide to Learning SolidWorks.”
* New tutorials and curricula covering design, modeling, visualization, and making STEM (science, technology, e ngineering, and m ath education) relevant to the student. New simulation tutorials include verification problems and international standards (NAFEMS Benchmarks) to help students ensure designs will work in the real world. (Through a partnership with the STEM Academy , DS SolidWorks is introducing STEM-oriented sustainable design education to kindergartners. Continuing through high school, the instruction includes an emphasis on STEM-related careers for women and minorities.)