My experiences using SolidWorks for chemical equipment design

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I majored in mechanical design; after graduation I worked on automation equipment for a few years. For various reasons, I ended up working in the field of chemical engineering machinery (used in the pharmaceutical industry), and I used SolidWorks for that work. Now I plan to study PDMS, and once I’ve completed that research, I’ll switch away from SolidWorks. These days, using SolidWorks for 3D design is becoming increasingly difficult, and the issues mainly lie in the following areas: 1) Although SolidWorks can be used for the design of chemical processing equipment, allowing for the creation of sheet metal parts, pipelines, and construction drawings, its pipeline layout functionality is more suited to the mechanical industry; when it comes to chemical processing equipment, it doesn’t deliver satisfactory results ； 2) SolidWorks has a dedicated Routing plugin for chemical processing equipment, which can be used for piping layout in such equipment. However, it has significant limitations; it’s fine for smaller chemical processing units, but when the equipment becomes more complex, it requires very high computer specifications. For piping layout in an entire chemical plant, it seems impractical to use this tool ； 3) SolidWorks cannot be used for the layout of equipment and piping in entire chemical plants, which is not conducive to future development; as experienced users on forums have said, SolidWorks is used by small companies for such tasks, while design firms and large companies do not use it. Please forgive any mistakes in what I have said above