Editing Computer-aided engineering (section)

== CAE fields and phases ==
CAE areas covered include:
*[[Stress analysis]] on components and assemblies using finite element analysis (FEA);
*Thermal and fluid flow analysis computational fluid dynamics (CFD);
*Multibody dynamics (MBD) and [[kinematics]];
*Analysis tools for process simulation for operations such as [[casting]], [[molding (process)|molding]], and die press forming;
*[[Multidisciplinary design optimization|Optimization]] of the product or process.

In general, there are three phases in any computer-aided engineering task:
*Pre-processing &ndash; defining the model and environmental factors to be applied to it (typically a finite element model, but facet, [[voxel]], and thin sheet methods are also used);
*Analysis solver (usually performed on high powered computers);
*Post-processing of results (using visualization tools).

This cycle is iterated, often many times, either manually or with the use of [[Multidisciplinary design optimization#Commercial MDO Tools|commercial optimization software]].