source: movieclips,com

When I was only 9 years old, I saw the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with my parents. In one scene when the main characters jumped off a cliff into a river far below, they both yelled "Sh*t!" I remember being mortified that my parents now knew I knew that word. Why do I mention this? We've got two technology previews on Autodesk Labs:

• Project Cassidy is a free technology preview of a composite plate bending simulation tool that allows designers and engineers to optimize composite layups for complex-geometry plates under bending loads. Project Cassidy allows users to import their own 3D part geometry for composite plates and simulate their response for a specific laminate and load configuration. Project Cassidy walks through the simulation steps required for composite materials by helping the user build laminates, define material orientations of the laminate on the geometry, and simulate the plate under bending loads. Project Cassidy graphically informs the user of maximum displacements, failure indices, factors of safety, and even display the material orientations of the laminate on the 3D geometry. Part weight and thickness is displayed after a composite laminate is applied to the geometry.

• Project Sundance is a free technology preview of an application that allows you to export the fiber orientation results from Autodesk Simulation Moldflow and use them to run a nonlinear structural simulation in Abaqus Standard or Explicit. Project Sundance provides an intuitive user interface and streamlined workflow that helps you set up your simulation easily and accurately. You simply import both your Moldflow and structural models and apply nonlinear data and calculate material model parameters. Project Sundance helps you inspect and judge if the meshes are suitable for mapping and then maps the Moldflow fiber orientation results to the structural model. You can then export the updated structural model to your FEA package for simulation. The result is more accurate insight into the behavior and structural performance of your short fiber composite part.

Yesterday the team gave me an update of Project Sundance. Like its Project Cassidy companion, Project Sundance now expires on October 15, 2014. So for those of you who were lamenting the expiration of the technology preview today, there's no need to utter an obscentity — just go get the new build. For those not yet in on the action yet, you can join these projects and share your feedback:

Join the project.

Join this project too (I hate to break up the set).

Extended time for feedback is alive in the lab.