Romax Technology, a gearbox, bearing and driveline engineering specialist, has launched a new design software package that will increase speed, quality, creativity and innovation when designing gearboxes and drivelines. Called Concept, the new product delivers on the Romax vision of streamlining the end-to-end planning to manufacture process with open, easy to use software solutions.  It has been developed in close collaboration with engineers in the largest ground vehicle, wind energy and industrial equipment companies around the globe.

The result is a highly intuitive drag and drop design environment enabling rapid creation of concept models. It provides semi-automated sizing, definition and rating of gears, shafts and bearings, with advanced 3-D visualization capability allowing evaluation and manipulation of key parameters. As a result it promotes creativity as new design ideas can be evaluated rapidly.
Concept also utilizes Romax’s analytical capabilities to enable initial NVH assessments, as well as preliminary mechanical design assessments of alternative concepts.

It is applicable for any gear, shaft and bearing system application, from power tools to mining equipment and from complex automotive planetary automatic transmissions to the largest wind turbine gearboxes. The new software not only enables creativity, effectiveness and efficiency, it also promotes a seamless workflow either as a stand-alone solution or used in conjunction with other CAD packages.
Its innovative easy-to-learn interface allows new users to become productive extremely quickly, which means graduate designers through to experienced gearbox and driveline design teams can use it.  Romax Technology Product Manager, Dr. Jamie Pears, who is heading up the product launch, believes concept design is one of the most important aspects of the gearbox and driveline product development process.

“Early decisions can be crucial in shaping product performance, robustness and durability, as well as minimizing manufacturing and operating costs,” he said. “However, this stage of development can be expensive and time consuming too, meaning that many engineered products fail to reach their full potential. This next generation design package, which incorporates many of our advanced analytical algorithms, helps users to pull forward new concepts into robust and highly optimized designs capable of subsequent detailed development.  It not only saves development time and cost but also improves the quality and robustness of the finished product.”

Also supporting Romax’s vision of streamlining end-to-end, planning-to-manufacture process is significant new capability in the company’s flagship products for detailed design and analysis - RomaxDesigner and RomaxWIND. This enhanced capability for improved manufacturability of end-product includes a comprehensive suite of tools that enables the gear manufacturing process to be considered as part of the gear design and analysis activities. Romax announced Concept in October and will be shipping the software in December.