DS SolidWorks’ Software will Gauge any Design’s Environmental Impact

By DE Editors

Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corp. has introduced software that details, in real time, the environmental impact of parts, assemblies, and the design decisions that go into them.

“Engineers live to solve problems, and they are in a uniquely powerful position to make a positive impact on the environment,”  says Rick Chin, director of product and marketing innovation for DS SolidWorks. “The impact of the decisions engineers make can be magnified thousands of times or more, given the number of people that use their products and how long those products are used. We’re providing designers and engineers with valuable information for making good decisions that significantly reduce the environmental impact of the products they create.”

The software, code-named Sage, will be available in two product forms with this fall’s release of SolidWorks 2010: an Xpress version included with every license of SolidWorks and a Professional version. Both the Xpress and Professional products will display a dashboard at the bottom of the SolidWorks user interface that provides information about a design’s prospective carbon footprint, air impact, water impact, and energy consumed in manufacturing. The Professional version will roll up the impact of an entire designed product across its environmental life cycle and also include information on energy consumption throughout a product’s usage phase.

Sage provides a comprehensive view of a design’s environmental impact. Its analysis, for example, accounts for where the product will be manufactured and used. This determines environmental factors such as:  where and how raw material is mined; transportation impacts; energy production (e.g., coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, etc.); and power consumption. This view increases engineers’ confidence that their decisions don’t have hidden negative impacts and that they aren’t overlooking any positive impacts.

Sage was developed in collaboration with Germany-based PE International and PE Americas,  its U.S. division. PE International has performed product life cycle assessments for two decades, gathering detailed data about materials and processes to perfect its impact models.

Sage is built on PE International’s GaBi software, a tool for quantifying the environmental performance of materials, processes,  products, and infrastructure, with more than 100,000 impact scenarios. It gauges sustainability from a wide number of perspectives, including greenhouse gases, energy, most environmental impacts, life cycle cost, and social impacts.

For more information, visit SolidWorks.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.