Just Like Riding a Bike Altair - Startup Program Improves 3D-Printed Structures at Urwahn Bikes

With more than 35 years of experience in research & development projects INESPASA has been working with companies such as Airbus, Alestis, Boeing, and Renault. To be successful in a highly competitive market, aeronautical tooling companies like INESPASA must deliver maximum quality and comply with highly demanding standards and regulations while meeting tight time constraints and limited budgets. Developing and testing aircraft component prototypes is time consuming and expensive, so INESPASA had to find new and faster ways – like Multiphysics simulation – to evaluate its aero-structure designs, identify problems before they occur, and ensure viability. INESPASA turned to Altair and applied tools such as Altair SimSolid®, Altair® Inspire™ and Altair® MotionSolve®. Thanks to fast simulation results, INESPASA addressed their challenge and found the solution with the best weight-stiffness ratio providing optimum usability of their aero structure elements.

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are a rapidly evolving technology and used for a variety of civil and military purposes. To ensure airworthiness, UAS manufacturers rely on advanced simulation and manufacturing techniques to create efficient designs. Aerial systems active throughout Europe and operating with diverse payloads for different missions require a reliable vehicle architecture and fuel supply. To ensure perfectly tuned architecture and a lightweight design while increasing stiffness and strength, Schiebel used Altair solutions in combination with 3D printing. The engineers performed various simulations to optimize the design of AM engine parts. Using Altair’s topology optimization structural design tool, Schiebel reduced the weight significantly while maintaining high stiffness. Subsequently, the system was evaluated by laminar and turbulent flow simulation as well as conjugate heat transfer simulation using Altair CFD™. Contacts, NLFE and complex dynamic systems were modeled with Altair® MotionView® and Altair® MotionSolve®. Schiebel also took advantage of APA solutions.

Noise reduction is an important issue when developing products and components for railway applications. Recently, Ultimate Europe had to perform an acoustic analysis of a rail carriage bellow. In addition to its own broad portfolio of simulation solutions, Altair offers a wide selection of complementary software tools through the Altair Partner Alliance (APA). With Altair’s unique, flexible licensing model customers have access to these solutions at no additional costs. Altair Units allowed Ultimate to leverage APA products and access the functionalities of AlphaCell to predict the acoustic response of the bellow. Results included reduced run time, a decrease in model set up time, and increased combined metric correlation.

As the traditional optimization process at Renault required many iterations, simulation engineer involvement, and a considerable amount of time, the company was looking for tools and methods to improve this process. They wanted to implement a new, easy-to-use simulation tool that would allow non-experts, part-time analysts, and designers to gain insight and accurate results in early design phases of Renault chassis projects. With the goal to enable designers to run simulation by themselves without being dependent on the engineer’s calculations, the team began using Altair Inspire. The implementation on the Altair HPC platform enabled the engineers to send their highly complex calculations to the HPC server while running calculations on their workstation. The results included time savings, an 80% increase in process automation and mass reduction up to 20%.

Etteplan offers engineering solutions to the world’s leading manufacturing companies for industrial equipment and plant engineering. Etteplan’s client Wärtsilä were looking to redesign their valve spring press tools used for mounting cylinder head valves. Altair OptiStruct™ and Altair Inspire™ were used to run topology optimization and finite element analyses to create design concepts, and Additive Works’ Amphyon software simulated the print process. This resulted in Etteplan’s additive manufacturing press tool design being ready to be printed within one week from when the project starting data was frozen.

Würth Industrie Service GmbH & Co. KG (WIS) is an independent subsidiary of the Würth Group, providing integrated logistics solutions for automated, efficient supply of production materials as well as auxiliary and operating materials. The company offers individually tailored, logistical supply and service concepts such as scanner-supported rack systems and automated electronic ordering systems. In line with the company’s ultimate goals including innovation, cost reduction, and process optimization, WIS wanted to explore how simulation can be used to improve its products. As achieving a lightweight design was one of its main goals, the company started a collaboration project with Altair to perform topology optimizations on components of its KUKA robots. The project resulted in weight savings of 87%, leading to a reduction of repair costs by 94% and for used LED strips by 50%.

Payload is a key performance measure for military vehicles, determining how many personnel and/or goods can be carried. Reflecting this, the US Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC) is engaged in a project to reduce the curb weight of vehicles, and thereby boost payloads, by redesigning and replacing existing components with lighter alternatives. Specifically, GVSC is combining topology optimization with additive manufacturing to realize significant weight savings, without compromising other critical requirements. Altair was contracted for external expertise to create new component designs. The results included achievement of 67% mass reduction for an alternator bracket, and cheaper costs than the current machined baseline.

In modern passenger transport systems, flawless operation, comfort, and safety are key engineering criteria for design. To guarantee these key performance indicators, demanding fatigue tests are performed to ensure a component’s performance and strength. Advanced simulation methods can help to achieve an optimal design and ensure that components meet even the highest safety requirements. Using Altair Inspire, Doppelmayr, a manufacturer of ropeways and innovative transportation systems for ski areas and urban areas, built a design that passed the safety test, and optimized the gondola station to be lighter, safer, and more durable than requested. More recently, Doppelmayr also started using Altair SimSolid™ to explore its designs and create structural efficient concepts for large models and complex assemblies.

When planning offices and foyers to showcase the hallmark values of their customers, many architects benefit from the open and inviting atmosphere of glass structures. Faraone, designer and manufacturer of such lightweight structures, used Altair solutions to analyze and redesign support structures for large-scale glass elements, which are the core business of the company. The results are topologically optimized and stiffer aluminum channels that can host the structural glass element. With cost reduction, shorter development times, and design efficiency, this use case from Faraone demonstrates the benefits of simulation technologies in accelerating product development.

BOTT stands for “Battle of the Twins,” a racing category for motorbikes with two-cylinder four stroke engines. Bottpower is a Spanish motorsport engineering company located in Valencia. They specialize in designing and building custom motorbikes for racing and street use. They design and build parts, systems, and prototypes for other companies. A project challenge at Bottpower was to design a lightweight stay bracket for their motorbike that could withstand the main and aerodynamic loads. The goal was finding the optimal weight and stiffness ratio to reduce weight while ensuring safety measures. All of this had to be done quickly in order to arrive on time at Addit3D, Spain's most important 3D-print fair, to showcase the bike. The optimal design for aerodynamic loads was found using Altair software.

Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance is a French-Japanese strategic partnership between the automobile manufacturers Renault (based in France), Nissan (based in Japan) and Mitsubishi Motors (based in Japan). Today, the automotive group has 122 manufacturing plants worldwide with nearly 450,000 employees controlling ten major brands: Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Infiniti, Renault Samsung, Dacia, Alpine, Datsun, Venucia, and Lada. The ambition of the alliance is to offer autonomous drive, connectivity features, and services on a wide range of affordable vehicles. As part of the Renault Chassis Le Mans plant, which is building car-to-ground connecting components for the Renault Group and for the Alliance, the CTC Chassis Technical Center is a CAD engineering center where 350 engineers and technicians are working with a focus on testing and validation. Renault has been using SimSolid to perform simulations to develop lighter chassis faster.

New airborne solutions are being developed to accommodate one or more persons for air travel. Explorations including large drones, small helicopters, airplanes, and flying cars will enable companies to respond to the demand for Personal Air Mobility (PAM). The team at Talaria was founded by students at the Delft University of Technology. The idea for Talaria’s Individual Air Mobility project began at the end of 2017. Founder Philipp Essle heard about the Boeing GoFly competition which rewarded the best designs for a one-person aircraft. Talaria’s mission is to develop an electrically driven PAM that can take-off and land vertically in urban environments. Talaria is using Altair Inspire to check whether material and weight could be reduced through topology optimization. This approach resulted in a significant 1.5-kilogram weight reduction of the rotor hubs.

Using Altair simulation software, Gurit supports Western Sydney University's Bridgestone World Solar Challenge team, helping them design the most efficient and aerodynamic car possible, while ensuring driver safety and adhering to class rules.

Canadian start-up company Philomec specializes in mechanical engineering services that helps companies design and optimize their products using mechanical and biomechanical FEM simulation. Their creation of customized, validated biomechanical models, and the analysis of simulation results by experts allows surgeons to choose the model of an implant and adapt surgical maneuvers to a specific patient, thus reducing the number of implants used, as well as the risk of complications. It is challenging to validate biomechanical models due to the complexity of materials, scarcity of experimental data, and the lack of representation of variability. The application of Altair HyperWorks for explicit multiphysics simulation provides a high-level of confidence in the validity and stability of the musculoskeletal models.

The South African aviation manufacturing solutions provider Aerosud and the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) teamed up to launch a challenging 3D printing project, Aeroswift. Aeroswift collaborated with Altair to develop a methodology for designing large additively manufactured products. An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) frame was designed as a demonstration and subsequently printed on Aeroswift. To improve manufacturability while meeting all component requirements, the project engineers used Altair Inspire™ and its topology optimization capabilities in the design process.

The National Composites Centre (NCC), in collaboration with the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and University of Warwick (WMG) worked on a collaborative project to develop a Cross-Catapult technology demonstrator; the Mono-Ski or Sit-ski, a device for sports that uses adaptive equipment on mountain slopes, designed for individuals with lower extremity limitations. Composites were used extensively in the new Sit-ski design with the Altair HyperWorks™ suite being utilized throughout the development process.

Cyclone Racing utilized topology optimization and generative design to decrease the mass of its FSAE vehicle by generating a new design concept for its wing mount achieving 67% weight reduction of the bracket.

IAI and SpaceIL utilized topology optimization with 3D modeling and rendering to design a 3D Printed thruster bracket to be used on its Google Lunar XPRIZE craft for its trip to the moon.

A university team at MIT, Pune used topology optimization and additive manufacturing to develop two new designs for the Quad-rotor UAV drone that were lighter and stronger than previous designs.  

Subros is the leading manufacturer of thermal products for automotive applications in India and operates in technical collaboration with Denso. Being a major supplier of AC units to the predominant automotive segments and all classes of vehicles produced by global players in the country, it is very important for Subros to honor deadlines of product delivery with agreed benchmarks of quality. The Subros team has used Altair solutions such HyperMesh for FE modeling, RADIOSS and OptiStruct for structural analysis, AcuSolve for flow analysis, and solidThinking Inspire for Modal Analysis

Amazone develops and produces innovative agricultural technology, enabling and supporting modern and economical arable farming methods. For the re-design of an originally welded suspension component as a casting part, solidThinking Inspire was used for topology optimization. The benefits included increased durability by a factor of 2.5 and an 8% reduction in weight.

Ryerson's International Hyperloop Team utilized finite element analysis and topology optimization to redesign a metal additive manufactured motor bracket. PolyNURBS was used to make the design 3D print-friendly.

Faraone accelerates the design approach for lighter and stiffer architectural components with premium topology optimization technology.

Alstom coupled topology optimization with additive manufacturing to explore the feasibility of alternate manufacturing to traditional casting. This resulted in a 70% weight reduction of its locomotive component.

LEIBER Group, which specializes in developing lightweight metal components, applied topology optimization to determine the ideal shape for a vehicle suspension beam, resulting in mass savings of over 50%

HyperWorks used by leading Indian manufacturer of seating systems Harita, for homologation testing, regulations and crash analysis for all commercial vehicle seats, bus passenger seats and tractor & off-road seats

Gator Motorsports utilized Inspire to redesign its brake pedal, as well as suspension bell cranks. This resulted in increased stiffness and a reduction of weight.

The Politecnico di Milano University implemented generative design software to quickly and easily identify the ideal shapes and materials for three architectural design concepts.

A simulation driven approach was taken using solidThinking Inspire for topology optimization, Evolve for shape refinements and HyperWorks for FE analysis for the optimization of an existing component design to be manufactured with casting/AM technologies

The team at Technische Universität Dresden used Altair Inspire to redesign a Formula Student steering column mount that saved 35% of the weight and is produced with additive manufacturing.

Developing a Fully Customizable, Additively Manufactured Mountain Bike

The students used HyperWorks which resulted in a weight reduction of 30% for those parts that were taken under consideration.

Student teams from around the world participate in the Shell Eco-marathon (SEM), a unique low energy consumption competition for student teams. Within the competition the teams strive to design, build and drive the most energy-efficient car. In three annual events in Asia, Americas, and Europe, student teams compete on the track to see who goes furthest on the least amount of fuel. The competition evaluates different aspects of the car, the most important of which is of course the energy consumption: the less energy the car needs, the better it will rank.

3D Systems utilized topology optimization, finite element analysis,  and generative design to conceptualize a new material layout for a 3D printed skateboard deck and trucks.

Renishaw's Product Marketing Engineer David Ewing is talking about the use of solidThinking Inspire for the first bike ever built with additive manufacturing and how optimization technology is essential to additive manufacturing.

Steady improvements in the OptiStruct solver platform over 20 years have enabled users to tackle increasingly complex design challenges. Now, OptiStruct in combination with 3D printing helps to achieve more efficient structural designs.

By Uwe Schramm
Concept To Reality Winter/ Spring 2015
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Scania uses a simulation-driven design process including topology optimization and finite element analysis. This speeds up their design and development process and produces lighter, more efficient components.

Polaris uses optimization software to achieve lightweight designed and recede time to market. Learn how in this reprint of an article published on the January 2015 issue of Desktop Engineering magazine.

American Axle & Manufacturing employed topology optimization and FEA to redesign an automotive carrier to achieve a weight reduction of 20%.

Inspire for the Oil & Gas Industry presentation given by Blaise Cole at ATCx Energy.