MATCAP, EU-Project Brite Euram III - FEM Analysis of static and thermal effects on CNC-Machine tool.

European machine tool builders are mainly companies of small or medium size with little capacity for research and development. Due to this structural problem it is hard for them to benefit from modern CAD/CAE/CAM-tools enabling perform optimisation cycles in the development phase of a new machine. This is one reason why European machine tool builders have a comparatively high time to market, the aim of the project in general is to reduce their Time-To-Market. Although today's' hardware and software systems provide powerful 3D-CAD Solid Modeller in this project a "user-friendly" design methodology for 3D solid modelling and FEM will be developed to enable draftsmen and engineers early estimations about machine tool behaviour via fast analysis. In this particularly case the ift is dealing with static and thermal simulation.