In my almost 20 years of work at CADFEM, an Elite channel partner of ANSYS in central Europe, I have seen a continuous transition in the usage of simulation from experts to development engineers. One big step in this direction was the introduction of ANSYS Workbench. A second — often undervalued — approach, how simulation helps our customers in a better product development is the usage of automated simulation processes by implementing products such as ANSYS AIM.
As an example, Hydro Aluminium uses ANSYS software to reduce energy consumption in aluminium production and by this, to improve their competitiveness. Twenty years ago, the energy consumption was about 14-15kWh/kg Al, today the electrolysis ovens of Hydro Aluminium require only 12.5 kWh/kg Al. A further reduction to 10 kWh/kg Al is the vision for 2020. To get there, the fabrication specialists of Hydro Aluminium use an automated extraction of the simulation model of the oven from the CAD model, without touching CAD software or ANSYS directly. By a predefined process, they can examine stress gradients, heat fluxes and temperatures, change the design of the oven and check how the properties can be modified to reach the required targets. This automated workflow ensures a standardized approach, quality of the results and a short engineering time.
A second application, where customized workflows help is the product development of ZF TRW who designs and produces active and passive safety components such as wheel brakes, airbags, safety belts and driver assistance systems, which are crucial for the safety and comfort of the automobiles of tomorrow. Together with our customization team, ZF TRW automated some of their simulation processes, to reduce the effort of repetitive tasks and to increase the efficiency of the engineering staff.
By the automation of simulation tasks, it was possible to transform them from simulation specialists to design engineers. In addition, some outsourced simulation tasks were transferred back into their own product development. The designer’s simulation tasks for standard applications were condensed in a so called “FEA pocket calculator” and are an integral part of the brake development today.
Based on the automated calculation, a design engineer can judge his design within a few minutes by himself, recognize problem regions immediately and optimize the design directly. This reduces costs, project working times and enables comprehensive support of the product development by simulation. Design engineers no longer have to wait for simulation results from the CAE experts. They can improve their knowledge of the physical properties and understand their products in a better way.
The implementation of such automated processes first requires a defined standard for a certain class of analyses. The required processes are categorized and structured in repetitive steps and then programmed by a scripting language. Within ANSYS Workbench, several scripting languages like Python or JScript come into play; and with experience and background knowledge, we at CADFEM can implement an economic solution.
Easy access to scripts and journals
But for an easier and more efficient customization, that is able to be implemented directly by the simulation experts in our customer base without the need of years of programming experience, we are happy that the new product ANSYS AIM provides persistent and unified scripting & journaling. This means, that each single step of an interactive simulation process is recorded in the background automatically. The generated journal includes all actions and inputs of the user and can be replayed in a separate session afterwards.
Through changes in the recorded entries – for instance the name of the imported geometry file, the material used, the contact searching algorithms, the loads or other inputs – new variants can be assessed without manual handling of the simulation software. The journal includes the full simulation process, from the configuration of the imported geometry, meshing (including local mesh refinements), definition and assignment of material properties, application of boundary conditions, up to to the setup of the simulation and the assessment of the results. The generated journal enables extended opportunities for variation, beyond parametrization. That is because not only can parameter values be changed, but also every other input. The result: Variations with much more flexibility.
Besides the higher flexibility of known processes, the persistent python based scripting enables the implementation of company specific functions and workflows. The known Workbench technology of ANSYS ACT, the Application Customization Toolkit, is also available in ANSYS AIM. It enables individual simulation templates for good support of occasional users and safe application of simulation, based on a predefined standard. No separate licence is required for the development or usage of these ACT extensions. Every user who wants to generate Extensions for himself or colleagues, can do this without any further restrictions.
The reduced effort for generating customized workflows will help our customers to get a higher throughput in the simulation process and at the end, to make a more efficient use of the most precious resource of all of us: our time.
To read more you can download a PDF of Process Automation of a new generation, CADFEM Journal 2/2015 (Text in German).
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