Panel Discussion: Trends in Design and Manufacturing Simulations

This presentation discusses the rise of intelligent design technologies used throughout industry to rapidly assess and optimize product performance before physical prototypes. The session includes a brief hands-on demonstration of some of the latest, easy-to-use simulation technologies that are empowering designers and design engineers around the world to capitalize on the digital design revolution. Speakers: Dr. Royston Jones, CTO, Altair Ken Welch, Senior VP Inspire Design and Manufacturing Products, Altair Duration: 20 minutes

This workshop demonstrates how a simulation-driven design approach to product development can have a drastic impact on the performance, design time, and profitability of a new product. Using a belt sander tool as a demonstration model, our presenters show how Altair’s design and simulation technologies can conduct a concept design analysis and optimization of the sander external housing to improve stiffness and reduce weight. They go on to show how we can simulate the manufacturing process itself by looking at filling, packing, cooling and warpage of the plastic housing; before concluding with a series of stress analysis and validation studies such as a virtual drop test, 3-point bending simulation and even a study of the effect of the heat transfer of the electric motor. This is a valuable session to see how simulation technologies can be used throughout the design process, adding value and reducing development time at each stage. Speakers: Ujwal Patnaik, Global Business Development Manager, Altair Chris Sambell, Application Engineer, Altair Duration: 60 minutes

AAM has been providing mechanical drivelines to automotive customers for more than 25 years. As the automobile transitions to electrification, so too must the driveline. AAM has developed a suite of innovative, lightweight, compact and cost-optimized electric drive units and electric beam axles to meet the growing global technology demand as electric vehicles continue to expand over the next decade. Engineering simulation, optimization and validation tools were significant enablers to increase the validation confidence and reduce the time to market for these new products.

Inspire’s new parametric modeling allows you to capture the evolution of your model’s shape by showing the linear sequence in which the geometry was created. You can roll the model backward or forward, as well as group, delete, insert, suppress, or edit entities in the History Browser. Inspire also features a new and improved sketching interface and several new sketching tools. See how you can use these new tools to seamlessly add, remove, and parameterize features in your model and then use the Variables table to quickly make design updates and see how they affect performance is in seconds to minutes.

Product engineers are under constant pressure to reduce costs, improve quality and increase the throughput of manufacturing processes. Applying a simulation-driven design for manufacturing (SDfM) approach to product development can help understanding the product manufacturability early in the design cycle, while considering various design alternatives and choosing the best performing, manufacturable design up front. After a brief introduction of the metal forming process, the presentation will explore a typical use case of a sheet metal part - subject to static and dynamic loading – showing how simulation can be very effective in reducing cost for parts redesign and dies modifications, while providing engineers with valuable insights on the manufacturing process and product performance.

Formula Student is an international motorsport engineering competition where teams from around the world design, build and then compete a formula style racing car. In this presentation, Team Bath Racing discusses how they make use of Altair Inspire for topology optimization and how it enables rapid design iterations.

Presented at the 2nd Altair Academic Outreach Event in June 2021

Speaker: Conor Smith, Outboard Suspension Designer, Team Bath Racing
Duration: 18 minutes

Brett Chouinard, President and COO of Altair discusses Development challenges in Industrial machinery and illustrates how Altair's scalable simulation solutions provide the environment for simulation-driven innovation and how machine learning expands the capabilities furter.

Daniel Jauss, Application Engineer CAE, gives a Demo Sessions on Altair Simulation Solutions for faster evaluation of real-world machines, explaining how to improve system understanding with dynamic motion analysis to Identify real behavior of the machine assembly and Identify peak loads.

Felix Koerfer, Technical Consultant at Altair, gives a Demo Sessions on Altair Simulation Solutions for faster evaluation of real-world machines, explaining how accurate structural assessment with real loading conditions allows assessment of global stress and deformations, evaluation of bolt forces, and how accuracy & deformation of linear bearings cna be achieved.

Simon Zwingert, Technical Consultant, gives a Demo Sessions on Altair Simulation Solutions for faster evaluation of real-world machines, explaining how, to improve the design with studies and the design exploration on the complete assembly to perform weld line optimization.

Daniel Jauss, Application Engineer CAE, gives a Demo Sessions on Altair Simulation Solutions for faster evaluation of real-world machines, explaining how to realize vibration reduction with topology optimization performing a modal analysis & Optimization of a machine portal, identifies economic manufacturing alternatives, and conducts a topology optimization for sheet metal constructions.

Industry expert Dennis Baum presents how Weber Maschinenbau applies simulation, how simulation can be used along product lifecycle and which benefits arise to customers and internal processes.

In his presentation, Sebastian Wachter of Porsche takes us through an exciting project where topology optimisation technologies were combined with 3D printing to create a highly innovative engine-gearbox housing that is 10% lighter than the existing component and twice as stiff.

Altair CTO James Dagg presents an overview of the journey Altair took to develop the leading modeling and visualization technologies we have today, and provides a look at what’s coming next to help you reduce your product delivery time. James Dagg has been at Altair for more than 30 years and is a visionary behind Altair’s software strategy and development activities. He has also led the development of Altair’s concept design technologies and oversaw the development of Altair’s CAE software suite for more than a decade.

Faraone are specialist in transparent architectures such as canapes, balustrades, staircases, glass partitions and other glass structures. Gabrielle will take us through their design teams who uses SimSolid and Altair Inspire on their structures. Speaker: Gabriele Romagnoli, Head of Structural Engineering, Faraone Duration: 18 minutes

Pete Darnell, Vice President, Software Development at Altair discusses why embedded development tools must track the ever-increasing complexity and feature set of microcontrollers as well as demands from new markets like the Cloud based “Internet of Things”. He looks at trends in the microcontroller space and discusses how block diagram model-based development tools can be used to abstract these changes to ease firmware development. He also looks at the thing side of IoT and the challenges of power management to extend battery life and what it will take to provide secure over-the-air firmware updates. The recording is about 19 minutes long, and was presented at the 2020 Global Altair Technology conference.

Simulation has its greatest impact when done early and often in the design process. Now, SimSolid is reimagining how simulation-driven design is performed.

Altair Inspire has rapidly advanced from a topology optimization tool for designers to a design environment spanning industrial design, structural simulation and optimization, motion analysis and manufacturing simulation.

Presentation by Edan Lazerson, CAE Engineer, Plasan. The Stormrider is a new vehicle which was designed from scratch and developed by Plasan. Altair Inspire was used for Topology optimization In order to find the ""best"" design for the vehicle front sub frame. The available volume (design space), 5 different load cases and target mass were specified and the optimization software calculated geometry to maximize stiffness. The optimization results were complex to manufacture with traditional technologies; the simulation and design teams collaborated on designing a manufacturable front sub frame assembly. The new design was simulated to ensure it will withstand all the required loads. The front sub frame was implemented and tested on the prototype vehicle. The optimized front sub frame proved mechanically sound, while satisfying the mass and geometrical requirements. The early stage optimization reduced the development time, by creating a valid geometry however, the topology to manufacturable design process is not trivial. In this presentation, we will present the mentioned development stages and compare the test results to the simulation predictions. Presentation at the ATCx in Israel, Netanya on October 30, 2019.

Dr. Stuart Bates, Concept Technical Specialist at Altair presents at the UK e-Mobility seminar 2019. Rapid Exploration of Packaging Alternatives e.g. Battery System Layout, Battery Frame / BIW Integration. Developing Balance Design (Weight vs Attribute Performance), Target Setting using Simulation.

Industry 4.0 Meets Additive Manufacturing

Advances in energy storage, motor efficiency, and flight control systems have us on the potential cusp of a revolution in air mobility. This comes at a time when many traditional transportation infrastructures are saturated and new modes of mobility are desperately needed. The presentation will provide an overview of recent developments in urban- and extended-air-mobility and discuss the hurdles that must be overcome, not only technical obstacles but also challenges in regulations, societal acceptance, and business. It will provide context with an overview of our own technical challenges and successes, from the imminent Transition® to the aspirational TF-X.

With the prospect of increasing labor shortages among a wide variety of industries, combined with the significant costs of occupational injuries and the ever-increasing pressure to increase productivity, leading robotics company, Sarcos is in a unique position to deploy industrial robotics designed to increase productivity while eliminating injuries, by augmenting rather than replacing human workers. Chris Beaufait, COO of Sarcos, discusses the current robotics landscape, why automation is not the right solution to the problems industries are facing, how Sarcos and its product lineup - including the full body, fully powered Guardian XO exoskeleton - will play a critical role in defining the workforce of tomorrow, and his vision for the robotics industry over the next five to 10 years.

This presentation discusses advancements of the range and quality of products in the last few years at Faraone, thanks to the adoption of both Altair Inspire and SimSolid. SimSolid is a great tool that allows Faraone to study and refine the design of complex structures and a variety of different products, not just glass balustrades. In less than half an hour, it makes it possible to analyze and verify a three-story glass staircase, directly from the 3D CAD file, a simulation that would normally requires about half a day. Additionally, Moreover the original CAD drawing does not need simplification, SimSolid® works directly from the 3D CAD file, allowing fewer issues, and a better, final solution.

Presentation by Avishai Warszawski, Mechanical Designer at IAI, Israel Aerospace Industries at the ATCx in Israel, Netanya on October 30, 2019. The goal of this project is to design a lightweight and stiff support bracket for delicate coaxes which are attached to an electronic unit. The machining design of this bracket, although very light in weight, did not provide the required stiffness and was also very expensive to manufacture. The best approach for design was only realized after the AM team was requested to find a solution. Topology optimization with Altair tools was used to define the best shape that provides the best solution. Finally, the bracket was printed in an SLM machine from AlSi10Mg. In the near future it will be qualified by dynamic tests in accordance with the defined environmental loads.

Presentation by Sergi Chanukaev, Country Managing Director, Altair Israel, at the ATCx in Israel, Netanya on October 30, 2019.

Presenter: John Straetmans, Computer Engineering Student, University of Michigan

This project attempts to build an accurate real-time (RT) drone simulator through the full integration of a 1D functional model of a drone created in Altair Activate®, along with its corresponding geometry, into Unreal Engine via the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard. Then, VR, peripheral controllers, and other functionalities were added to the representation. This task was accomplished by modifying the Altair RT Vehicle Package, making it able to handle not just vehicles, but any system model located in an FMU for co-simulation, in this case a quadcopter model. Once the FMU containing the Altair Activate® drone model was successfully loaded into Unreal Engine, the tools provided by the application allow additional features to be added, such as VR support. By implementing an FMU, together with its geometry, into Unreal Engine, we can visually analyze the dynamics of the system to further verify the drone model and its performance. In the future, this integration process should be facilitated to automatically load any FMU following just a few steps.

Presenter: Michael Hoffmann, Sr Vice President of Math & Systems, Altair

In this presentation, Michael Hoffmann, Sr Vice President, shares the company’s vision & strategy for Altair’s Math & Systems tools for Model-Based Development – based on providing an open platform tightly connecting 0D to 1D to 3D modeling & simulation. At different stages of their product development cycles, engineers can model and simulate their increasingly complex products as multi-disciplinary systems by using equations, block diagrams, and/or 3D CAD geometry. His scope includes Altair Compose™, Altair Activate™, Altair Embed™, and Altair MotionSolve™ as well as the multi-body motion capabilities in Altair Inspire™. He also spotlights several recent success stories about customers who have used these technologies to drive innovation through simulation.

Jon Heath, Lead Mechanical Engineer at Brompton Bicycle presents at the UK ATC 2019. The Brompton bicycle has been engineered over many years using very much traditional engineering development methods. Introducing FEA tools and methods into the development process has allowed Brompton to reduce development time and improve early stage design robustness.

This presentation details how the company has implemented the Altair Inspire, SimSolid and HyperWorks suites into its development process, enabling its design team to find problems quickly and correct them before prototyping.

This presentation was given at the 2019 ATCx Multibody & System Simulation conference at the Altair Headquarters in Troy, MI.

Presentation by Axel Werkhausen, Manager FEMFAT Support and Sales at Magna Powertrain ECS.

Presentation by Orlando Sadaro, Managing Director at Design 8.

If you are a designer then this presentation is right up your alley. Design seems to be an iterative process by nature. But what if we don't accept this default? What if we could get it right, from the start...? It would lead to a shorter time to market, less material use and better product performance. A dream? My presentation is about solidThinking design software helping you achieving just that. Get a head start and take the best possible solution to start exploring your design thoughts.

Presentation by Stephan Henrich, Robotikdesin und Architektur.

In this presentation, Stephan Henrich discusses several projects from different areas, including additive generative robotic fabrication and concept design.

Presentation by El Abidi Ahmed, CAE Manager - Senior Expert at U-Shin Group.

Concept Design with Altair Inspire seminar held during the 2018 Global ATC in Paris, France on October 18, 2018.

Presentation by Sylwester Szymanski, MOTH2.

Sylwester Symanski discusses the MOTH2 project, a 3-wheeled vehicle, and the use of Inspire and OptiStruct for topology optimization.

Presentation by Eduardo Bajo, FEA Engineer at IDAERO.

Presentation of a project consisting of redesign with topology optimization of a transtibial leg prosthesis. It is a project in which the reverse engineering workflow has been followed, starting with 3D digitization of an amputated limb and real old prosthesis. Subsequently, they have been reconstructed in 3D to simplify and applied topology optimization, taking into account the biomechanics of human gait, using Altair Inspire software. Finally, the reconstruction of the optimization through organic design has been carried out with the software Evolve.

This project won the 1st prize in the II International Industrial Design Contest UPM-Technical University of Madrid.

During the presentation it will be presented the new 2019 Edition of the Industrial Design Contest UPM, open to students and professionals, sponsored by Altair.

Design for additively made parts has become a very hot topic. Many engineers see the potential for topology optimization when designing ALM parts, but once they start the workflow, they tend to get bogged down in how to complete the process.

The application of CAE early in a product’s design cycle can make an important difference in its cost and functionality.  However the level of fidelity of the design early in the cycle limits the application of many traditional CAE tools.   Fortunately this is where systems modeling can be applied due to the nature of utilizing a more abstract representation of the overall system and its components. 

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology enables the possibility of realizing highly efficient, optimized structural components with configurations not achievable using conventional manufacturing methods.