Autodesk, Granta to Develop Software for Greener Product Design

AutodeskandGranta Design Ltd.are teaming up to develop software that will enable industrial designers, mechanical engineers and others to more easily create products through sustainable design.

Design software giant Autodesk and Granta, an industry leader in materials information technology, announced their strategic partnership this morning.

"So many crucial decisions are made early in the design process," said Sarah Krasley, Autodesk's manager for Manufacturing Industry Solutions.

Yet information on materials that can be used to make an innovative product that also has a lighter environmental footprint can be hard to come by, she said. High-quality, comparative data on materials -- the result of indepth research -- is scarce and often expensive to obtain, and when available often isn't accessible to designers until later in their process.

By combining Granta's industry strengths -- it is the largest materials information technology company of its kind -- with Autodesk'sdigital prototyping, the firms seek to produce software that provides "an amazing environment for designers and engineers that allows them to development a strong prototype and do a lot of experimentation" with various materials and designs early in the process, Krasley said.

The strategic partnership and its goal build on Autodesk's aim to remove barriers to innovation by making sustainable design easier and the tools to do so more accessible to companies of all sizes, said Krasley.

Image courtesy of Autodesk. Pictured: A digital prototype of a sustainable design for an aircraft engine created with Autodesk software by Adept Airmotive of South Africa. The engine is more than 130 pounds lighter than a traditional piston engine of comparable horsepower.