Use of a particular CAD tool by an industry has a lot of history behind it, and investment, more than just what is the best current tool for a particular job.
Ford Motor Company put a lot of money into Unigraphics back in the early days. Ford and BMW also used very advanced 3D systems running on Prime computers in the early 1980s. (These same computers were used to do the Disney movie, "TRON".)
The aerospace industry uses CATIA, which was developed by Dessault Aerospace, as the 3D FEA add-on to CADAM, the 2D CAD developed by Lockheed on the IBM in the 1970s. CATIA developed Solidworks, which a lot of smaller shops use for machine design and plastics parts and mold design. CALMA is used for a lot of plastic molding, because it was developed by GE to engineer and sell their plastic resins.
Bridges and steel buildings are old hat. NASTRAN and STRUDL programs developed in the late 1970s have all the input parameters. Just plug in the beams, loadings and connection nodes, and it will give you all the modes of vibration, wind deflections, etc. We used to have to write that stuff from scratch in FORTRAN 30 years ago.
The surviving CAD programs are not necessarily the best ones. A lot of superior products failed due to marketing, herd mentality staying with an inferior product, business cycles, etc.
