Outsourced engineering design and FEA for engineering firms
Extra design and simulation capacity for a single stage or a whole programme, so you can take on the project without hiring for skills you need only now and then, while the client relationship stays with you.
Most engineering consultancies and design teams can handle most of what their clients ask. The difficulty comes when a project needs more than the team has time for, or something it rarely does: a transient thermal case, a fatigue assessment of a welded frame, a full drawing pack for a fabricated skid or a prototype build to test a concept. Recruiting for that is hard to justify, and turning the work away can lose the client.
More about engineering services
SixGate™ adds that capacity at any of the six stages. You can hand over a specification and get back concepts compared against it, or pass on a model and receive a detailed design with FEA or CFD where it needs it and manufacturing drawings ready for suppliers to quote. We work to your scope, your load cases and the code or standard you specify, in Autodesk Inventor or from STEP and most native formats, and present the work in the form your deliverable needs.
Discretion is part of the arrangement. Your client deals with you, and we deal with your engineers. Because the same team designs as well as analyses, findings arrive with practical changes to geometry or process that your engineers can adopt or put to their client.
Suits mechanical and product design consultancies, structural and civil consultancies, building services engineers, and contractors with in-house design teams.
Situations we help engineering firms with
A study the team has no time for?
A study scoped by your engineers can be taken on in full and returned as results and written findings, while your team stays on the rest of the project.
Physics outside your usual work?
CFD, thermal, fatigue, non-linear, drop and electromagnetic studies are all available, so an unfamiliar question on a project does not have to be declined.
A design that needs a drawing pack?
Detailed manufacturing drawings, with tolerances, weld details and a bill of materials, produced from your model or concept so your client’s suppliers can quote.
A project already under way?
We can pick up from your existing CAD, paper drawings, calculations and load data, and work within the decisions already made.
A concept that needs building and testing?
Prototypes machined, printed or both, in polymers, composites, aluminium or stainless steel, and tested against the specification your client has set.
Work firms most often bring to us
Concept design
Concepts compared against your client’s specification, with the calculations behind them, for a bid or an early feasibility study.
Detail & Simulation
A detailed 3D model designed for manufacture, with FEA, CFD or DEM included where the product needs them.
Stress analysis
Linear static and contact studies of components, frames and connections, to your client’s load cases.
Fatigue analysis
Life assessment of welded and machined parts under cyclic loading, against the code or standard your client names.
CFD
Internal and external flow, pressure drop, ventilation and convective heat transfer.
Engineering Pack
Manufacturing drawings and the manufacturing process for your design, ready to issue to your client’s suppliers.
Reverse engineering
Existing parts captured as 3D CAD from scans or measurement, and paper drawings converted to CAD, so older equipment can be modified.
Before you start
What to send us
- The scope or question, as your client has set it
- CAD (STEP or native), drawings or scan data
- Load cases, boundary conditions and operating data
- Materials, and the code or standard your client names
- Your report or drawing template, and key dates in your client’s programme
Who is the work carried out for?
For your firm. The work is part of your project, and how it is presented to your client is your decision.
Can you work in our templates and units?
Yes. Drawings can carry your title block, and results can be reported in your template, units and sign convention, so they read as part of your document.
Will you contact our client directly?
Only if you ask us to. Questions go through your engineers, and the deliverable carries your name.
What CAD do you work in?
Autodesk Inventor. STEP and most native formats are accepted, and models can be returned as STEP for your team to carry on with.
Do you take one-off jobs or longer arrangements?
Both. A one-off study or drawing pack suits an occasional need, while a longer arrangement suits programmes where the work recurs, and the same engineers can stay with the project throughout.
Tell us about your client’s project
