Every company has different requirements for the analysis it does. For dental work, Osstem Dental Senior R&D Engineer Byung Kook Kim suggests looking for analysis software that provides accurate solutions without sacrificing efficiency. Evaluating a suitable CAE tool requires weighting several criteria that includes ease of learning and use, and accuracy. He suggests:

A tight link with CAD.

Associativity with CAD software lets the modeler update the analysis model when designers make inevitable changes.

Fast and reliable mesh generator.

Dental implants have small yet critical geometric details such as threads, so the software should have an automesher to create high-order elements for complex shapes.

Find solutions quickly.

Solver speed is important because designers must evaluate many design ideas under different contact and loading conditions.

Easily evaluates various “what-if?” scenarios.

The idea is to line up several different models or design ideas and let the software examine each under the same loads and boundary conditions.

Most of Byung's work centers around implants. They are a common part of dental practices thanks to a growing senior population across the globe and higher standards of living. South Korea-based Osstem Dental has been working to improve its designs using FEA. “Two recent cases that show how the software can be used involved analyzing four thread designs, four materials, and a range of loads,” he says.

Byung uses 3G.author from Plassotech Inc., Calabasas, Calif., (plassotech.com). Users define loads and boundary conditions as ranges in the software's GUI. This way, every model can be run through many simulation cases with one setup. These so-called function studies can be either a single FEA simulation case or set of parametric-based simulations. For multi-material cases, users choose a multi-material function study from the GUI, and can enter the material properties for each set in a spreadsheet, imported through an internal material library, or by using the Web-based MatWeb library.

The FEA software imports CAD assemblies with all features and dimensions. Users need only locate the CAD files and create a project name. After importing a model, users can parameterize dimensions and establish the groundwork for optimization, that is, set up enough simulations to find a best design.