The SolidWorks Blog

Domespace is creating the next generation of eco-friendly homes with SolidWorks

Many years ago, I had ambitions of being an architect. I worked at a firm, and even went to architecture school briefly, until I realized I didn't have the artistry needed for the job. If I had my way, every structure built today would be an angular Bauhaus affair. So I have something of a soft spot for anything related to building design, which is why I found it interesting that a French company called Domespace is now a SolidWorks customer.

Domespace International designs and builds dome-shaped, eco-friendly homes. According to the company, the dome shape is designed to be more in harmony with nature, takes advantage of solar radiation, and is less susceptible to seismic and cyclonic forces than traditional, angular designs. On some models, the exterior of the home actually rotates, following the sun in winter to take advantage of its warming rays, and the shade in summer for cooling.

Domespace uses SolidWorks Professional for concept development, SolidWorks Premium for structural design, and SolidWorks Flow Simulation for studying air flow and environmental conditions. They say they have cut time-to-market and development costs in half. In a case study on our website, Computational and R&D Head Benjamin Thoby discusses how 3D design and simulation technology is helping Domespace ramp up production of its world-class, ecologically sensitive homes. Even if you're not in the AEC space, it's worth checking out.

You can find it here.

 

 

Designing for sustainability in the Asia / Pacific region

I recently returned from a long trip to the Asia/Pacific region, and was struck by some of the ways that businesses in the region are truly embracing the idea of sustainability.

I first started noticing the trend when I arrived at the airport in Aukland, New Zealand. I would normally never think of an airport as a place that could embrace sustainability on a large scale, mostly due to the amount of fuel consumed by planes taking off and landing. So I was very impressed to see that the airport has dedicated a wall to talking about their efforts. In addition to a video about their sustainability practices, there is also a screen showing the amount of solar energy being generated at the airport over the course of the day, month and year. Watch the video below to see what I’m talking about.

On September 22, I attended a Sustainable Innovation Summit in Melbourne, Australia. This event was hosted by Dassault Systèmes, and I was asked to speak about the role of sustainable design.  If you don’t know, the Australian government is currently in the process of voting on a “carbon tax,” designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and limit global warming.

The argument I made was that manufacturers should worry less about the effects of the proposed legislation, and instead focus on making products and processes more inherently sustainable. Companies have a real opportunity to reevaluate their design and manufacturing processes now, and products like SolidWorks Sustainability can play a big role in helping them make better decisions. By designing more environmentally friendly products from the start, companies can be proactive when it comes to the changing environmental laws. I was very impressed by the reception from the customers in the audience.

I later found my way to Mumbai, India. When I checked in to my hotel, I was surprised to see a large display noting that every hotel in the ITC Hotels chain is certified LEED Platinum. Energy consumption is a real issue in India due to the population density, and I was very impressed to see that businesses there are really working toward lowering the amount of energy they use. The best way to save energy and prevent waste is to design it out of the building in the first place. If you’re not familiar with the levels of LEED certification, you can go here to learn more.

On a related note, our new Dassault Systèmes campus in Waltham MA is already LEED Gold Certified, and we’re working on an additional LEED certification for the interior space. 

Many people think that sustainability is just a North American or European idea, but that’s not the case. Sustainability is becoming a way of life around the world, especially in developing nations. At SolidWorks, we’re working to help every designer make better choices about the products they design. If we all work together, we can help ensure that the world we leave to our children is a better one than we inherited. If you or your company have started working on ways to make your products or processes more sustainable, I would love to hear about them.

New in SolidWorks 2012: SolidWorks Sustainability Enhancements

The powerful toolset in SolidWorks Sustainability uses established Life Cycle Assessment to measure environmental impacts. New features give you even greater flexibility to develop your product profile and differentiate with sustainable design. Highlights include the ability to

• Identify alternate materials and define the percentage of recycled content in your product;
• Get immediate feedback from the environmental dashboard and quickly generate detailed profiles;
• Define how long product materials will remain versus time of product use for more accurate assessment;
• Automatically measure environmental impacts during design for carbon footprint, total energy consumed, air, and water.

Want to see more? Just visit the SolidWorks 2012 website to learn about the rest of the updates for our 20th release.

SolidWorks 2012 - The Wow Feeling

As SolidWorks celebrates its 20th release, SolidWorks 2012 fills me with another “wow” feeling.  The “wow” feeling of that this release contains something special.  This SolidWorks 2012 release will change behavior on how you design. 

 

Green Design Contest Deconstructed

I didn't know what to expect when we launched our Green Design Contest on Earth Day (April 22), which ran until June 30th. We've spent the last month judging the contest, and now that the results are in and the winners chosen, I can reflect on what you've learned about sustainable design. Here are a few reflections.

There is no such thing as the "most sustainable" shape, material, or manufacturing setting. Winning designs were proposed in many different materials and shapes (and some really interesting ones... like this great design from reused tires by John Hodges), and there was no "killer" setting in Sustainability that you had to have to be considered a top design. Intuitively, I know this is true from my experience as a sustainability professional, but it was really nice to see it verified in the diverse nature of the winning designs. I was a little worried that your entries might fall into one or two "local min/max" design paradigms, but most of you reached a "global max" in your search to optimize beauty, functionality, and environmental impact.

That said, it's hard to beat the woods for environmental sustainability, like this wood offering by Kah Fai Chin. More than half of the winning designs were made in some sort of wood; many of you specified bamboo, which you modeled using a similar wood. The reason that wood looks so good from an environmental perspective is that it's a renewable resource. Wood absorbs carbon as it grows -- so-called "biogenic carbon" -- and so its carbon footprint in SolidWorks 2010 and 2011 is actually negative. (Spoiler alert: it will still be very low in 2012, but we're making some minor adjustments in the carbon model, so it won't be negative.)

And some of you even specified balsa wood -- you know, the really light stuff that you used to make your Pinewood Derby cars when you were a kid. Nature, when it builds ideal designs to solve its engineering challenges, favors novel shape before novel material, and novel material before expending energy; but we tend to solve problems in the opposite order. Your balsa wood designs were a nod to the way nature designs, by using this softer material in a structurally intelligent way so that would hold a 250-lb person, like this entry from Xiang Ma. And trust me, I double-checked each Simulation report for those balsa wood designs!

 

Perhaps most importantly, you showed us that you could think outside the (software) box -- that is, you thought about sustainable design beyond the mechanical manipulations of the software. You created designs that were:

   

...inspired by landing gear legs and an airfoil seat profile (Gerard Libby);

 

  

 

  ...shaped like a DNA strand, representing and reminding us of our connection to nature (Karan Ambwani);

 

 

  ...specified as made from the ground, extruded bits of confiscated personal items at airport checkpoints (Dallas Winspear);  

 

 

...designed as a pumped chamber to house the actual algae bioreactor for the algae biodiesel production (Ronald Majewski);

 

 

  



 ...and even collapsible for easy transport, perhaps tagging along in the cargo hold of one of our very own algae-powered aircraft (Rui Alexandre).

 

 

 

All in all, these designs were a real pleasure to judge, and made us a little more hopeful for the future world our kids will inherit!

The 2011-2012 SolidWorks Student Edition is available now!

If you're a student looking for something to do this summer, what could be better than honing your SolidWorks skills? I mean, you *could* hang out at the beach or go to rock shows, but are those going to help you get a leg up when you're out looking for a job? I don't think so...

In all seriousness, the 2011-2012 SolidWorks Student Edition is now available. For $150/€109/£89 you get a 12-month license of SolidWorks Premium, which includes eDrawings, SolidWorks Simulation Premium and SolidWorks Sustainability, as well as a SolidWorks t-shirt and poster.

You can visit our website to learn more about the SolidWorks Student Edition, or purchase directly through the SolidWorks Student Store

Disclaimer: The SolidWorks® Student Edition is available to high school and degree-seeking students or full-time faculty members using the software for personal learning or academic purposes. Proof of eligibility is required before you can complete your order.

Green Design Contest in Full Swing

Thanks to all those of you who have participated in our Green Design Contest so far! I'm dying to preview your entries, but I'm going to wait until the formal judging starts on July 1st to check them all out at once.

And just a reminder of some of the prizes you could win...

   

I want to respond to a few general questions that have come up.

 

Do I have to be the primary account holder of my SolidWorks license?

No, not at all. We're just asking for an "authorized SolidWorks license" to verify that you have a real license and to confirm that your license is appropriate for the category you've entered (Commercial or Educational).  

Can we enter as a team?

Each person should enter her or his own design. Else, how else would we know whom to give the prizes to?? Feel free to work together, of course, as long as each person enters on their own.

Can I add padding to the chair? It looks awfully uncomfortable.

Our "client", Sir Richard Doylson, wants the chair made from a single material, so make it as comfortable as you can with that constraint. They're designed to sit in for about 20 minutes as you wait for a plane, remember, not sit for a full day working in an office. And I'm sure just about any design would be more comfortable than the industrial steel plate that we gave you in the starter model.

I want to make this out of <insert your favorite Super Sustainable Material here>, but I can't find that in the standard SolidWorks material database.

You have to have the correct material properties to run Sustainability and Simulation analyses. For SimulationXpress, that means having the appropriate mechanical properties, whether that's a standard or custom material; for SustainabilityXpress, that means setting or linking to a standard SolidWorks material's LCA data.

If you're using SolidWorks 2011, you can run the simulation with a custom material (as long as you provide the mechanical properties), and then link this custom material to an appropriate standard material's Sustainability data. For example, if you want to use everyone's favorite woody perennial evergreen grass in your design, you can create a custom material called "Bamboo", find the properties online to run SimulationXpress, and then link its Sustainability data to an appropriate material, such as another wood to run SustainabilityXpress (right-click on the Material, "Edit Material", then in the Sustainability field, click "Select..." and choose the wood).

If you are using SolidWorks 2010, you can run the simulation using your custom material, and then run Sustainability using an appropriately-similar standard material. In either case, be sure to explain what you did and why in your 250-word summary.

Can I use recycled materials?

SolidWorks Sustainability currently includes the typical trade mix of recycled content in each material (where such data is available), but you can't adjust this amount higher. So if you'd like to indicate a higher recycled percentage or a novel source for your material, just describe this in the 250-word description that you'll submit. Want to be able to adjust this recycled content value in Sustainability in your real designs? Submit an enhancement request, and if we hear that from enough people, we'll start working on it!

Do I have to start with your starter model?

No, of course not. That's just intended to spark your imagination to think, "man, I could do way better than this." Feel free to start your own model from scratch, and submit this new design as long as it meets the criteria.

Can I enter more than one design?

Of course, just submit a separate entry for each.

What sort of entries do you have so far?

Currently it's mostly Commercial entrants, with a few Resellers sprinkled in. About half of the submissions are from the US, with the remainder coming from countries such as India, Austria and the Philippines. So far we have received very few student entries... students, where are you?! We want to invite two of you to show off your green designs at SolidWorks World 2012!

How long do I have again?

Until June 30th. Just a few more weeks...

Feel free to ask any more questions here, and I'll answer as best I can. Good luck everyone, and I look forward to seeing your innovative green design ideas!

University of Istanbul Solar Boat Team Competing in This Week's Solar Splash Competition

If you happen to be near Cedar Falls/Waterloo, Iowa this week, there's an interesting event taking place this week you might want to check out. Starting Wednesday, June 8, teams from universities around the world will be racing solar and electric-powered boats in the Solar Splash competition. The contest, which is run by the ASME, is a five-day event that judges teams on their ability to navigate water courses as well as their engineering and design skills.

SolidWorks is proud to sponsor the team from Instanbul Technical University, who will be one of the competitors in this week's competition. The team was founded in 2004, and has placed in several previous competitions. They even took third place overall in 2007, an impressive feat given the global competition.

Please join us in wishing the team the best of luck in the competition. We'll update you later this month with the final results. Below you can see some pictures of the team's boat, as well as a few design shots. There are more available on the team's website.

Win a trip to Belize and more in the SolidWorks Green Design Contest

I'm excited today to write about the launch of our SolidWorks Green Design Contest, in honor of Earth Day. Many of you may not yet have tried the environmental assessment tool that comes free with SolidWorks, called SustainabilityXpress. Those of you who have played with Sustainability may not realize how useful it can be when used in conjunction with our Simulation tools.

Hopefully this contest will give you a nice excuse to try 'em all...especially with some cool trips and gadgets on the line. The concept of the challenge is pretty simple. We've provided a rather plain-looking model of a chair, and are asking you to redesign it -- or design it anew -- to make it functional, beautiful, and more sustainable.

If you're up to the challenge you could win some cool stuff. The Grand Prize in the commercial contest is a trip to Chaa Creek Eco Lodge in Belize:

  

I've been there, and yes, it's as awesome as it looks.

The Grand Prize for the student contest is a trip to SolidWorks World 2012. And for the runners-up, we're handing out a total of 14 iPads (including 3 for our top Reseller designs). There are 56 winners in all in the various categories, so your chances are pretty good!

I'm looking forward to checking out your designs with these characters on the judging panel:

• Al Dean, Editor-in-Chief, Develop3D and the newly-launched Develop3D Sustainability magazines
• Sol Diamond, Assistant Professor, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College
• Josh Mings, Owner/Editor, SolidSmack.com
• Mark Buckley, VP of Environmental Affairs, Staples
• Stephen Endersby, Simulation Product Manager, SolidWorks
• Rick Chin, Director of Product Innovation, SolidWorks
• Asheen Phansey, Sustainability Product Manager, SolidWorks (that's me)

Why a contest for sustainable design? Earth Day is a celebration of our planet, and reminds us that the actions we take every day in doing our jobs can have a tremendous impact -- positive or negative -- on the natural capital and vibrant ecosystems that make the Earth our home. With 400K+ commercial users and 1M+ educational users, SolidWorks designers make a lot of the "stuff" that we use every day. What if we could boost awareness of the lifecycle impacts of our designs and products?

What I want everyone to realize is that you don’t always need to make sacrifices to advance sustainability -- you can make a product that’s greener, and still functional and beautiful. In invite you to "watch this space" for some tips and tricks for winning the contest in the weeks to come!

You can find out more about the SolidWorks Green Design Contest on our website.

And, because I can't resist, a couple more pictures of Chaa Creek, notably the bar and the nearby Mayan ruins in Guatemala...

 

SolidWorks Sustainability Wins Best Green Product Innovation Award at the 2010 Green Awards

Last night in London, SolidWorks was presented with the award for Best Green Product Innovation at the 2010 Green Awards. According to their website, "the GREEN AWARDS were set up to recognise and reward creative work that communicates the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainable development and ethical best practice in any sector and across any marketing discipline."

Here's what the judges had to say about SolidWorks Sustainability:

“This entry is our favourite. This software has the potential to revolutionize the way designers design their products.  By integrating lifecycle thinking into the design process, SolidWorks helps designers to lower the environmental impact of their creation from the design stage.  Their partnership with independent organisation PE International which provides life cycle inventory database makes their product: robust and reliable. A must have in any designer’s tool box.”

We at SolidWorks are extremely honored by this award, and hope that in the coming years, designing for sustainability becomes a standard practice for companies across the globe.