The latest release of Simcenter software for mechanical simulation helps streamline electrification engineering projects, assists new aircraft meet margins of safety, simplifies durability testing across many industries and more.

“Addressing complex engineering challenges such as developing products that are more powerful, yet greener, lighter yet stronger requires a fully-integrated CAE solution,” said Jean-Claude Ercolanelli, Senior Vice President, Simulation and Test Solutions, Siemens Digital Industries Software. “The latest release of Simcenter offers a host of powerful enhancements to help engineers meet those challenges efficiently and significantly faster than ever before, whether that is getting tire contact simulations solved 45% quicker or reducing airframe structure preprocessing by up to 80%.

The highlights in this release are applicable across all industries and workflows and bring new functionality to the Simcenter family of products. Highlights include:

For those exploring Additive Manufacturing (AM), build process simulation is a must, particularly when dealing with metals-based powder-bed fusion production methods. The complex nature of these processes usually require the AM engineer to collaborate with an experienced CAE expert. The latest release of Siemens’ Simcenter 3D software introduces a simplified application for simulation of the powder-bed fusion (PBF) build process that is easy to use for engineers without in-depth CAE expertise. Using a robust voxel-based mesh in the background, it can quickly model and simulate the PBF build process, allowing engineers to gain a good understanding whether a part will build successfully. More detailed analysis can then be performed by CAE experts also using Simcenter 3D, thus enhancing collaboration.

Following on from the introduction of the ability to launch simulations on remote HPC systems directly from within Simcenter 3D, engineers now have the ability to review simulation results directly from the Remote Simulation interface. This helps engineers determine if simulation studies ran correctly before transferring large results files back to a local workstation for in-depth evaluation.

Electrification is a major trend across the Automotive industry and development of new Electric Vehicle (EV) powertrains tend to be broken into silos for e-motor design, transmission analysis, NVH and acoustics. Simcenter mechanical simulation tools can help automakers break these silos by helping critical load, design and model information to flow easily between each of these disciplines for EV powertrain development. Beyond EV development, additional new capabilities in this release improve simulation of other automotive applications from NVH, to tires, to windshield wiper performance. Highlights includes:

–The new contact pattern display in Simcenter 3D helps analyze wiper contact patterns. By modeling the wiper as a flexible body combined with contact elements, the new contact pattern display will show easy to interpret results of the wiper forces across the windshield, allowing the user to learn how consistently or inconsistently the forces are distributed and if the wiper design is working as expected, without the need for costly and time-consuming physical testing.

Finally, the latest release of Siemens’ Simcenter Tire software has an updated road contact algorithm to reduce the large amount of road data exchange required to build the high-fidelity tire models required for driving simulators and Hardware-in-the-Loop set-ups. This means that computational performance is increased by up to 45% enabling the use of high-fidelity tire models in real-time applications.

For the Aerospace industry, new capabilities reduce the number of models needed to simulate the behavior of thin aircraft skins and perform margin of safety calculations more quickly than ever before. In addition to the new improved airframe applications, Simcenter can help engineers better understand rocket launch dynamics by simulating the liquid sloshing in fuel tanks. Highlights include:

New standard calculation templates have been added to the margin of safety analysis tools within Simcenter 3D. These new templates automatically prefill all the inputs based on a set of rules so the engineer just needs to select the geometry to apply calculation to – removing the traditional reliance of custom script development and the associated maintenance costs.

A new capability in Simcenter Nastran software helps airframe engineers with thin skinned airframe structures that have different stiffness behavior depending on the load case; tension (membrane) vs. compression (shear). Today, engineers typically create multiple models and properties to account for all the different loading conditions. The new tension-only-quad will change from membrane behavior to shear behavior automatically so only a single model is needed to represent an airframe structure – reducing simulation preprocessing time by up to 80%.

While not isolated to aerospace and rocket applications, liquid fuel sloshing dynamics in storage tanks can pose a challenge to guidance systems. In this latest release of Simcenter Nastran, the new incompressible fluid model helps to predict slosh frequencies and hydro-elastic modes. In other industries, it can also be used for evaluating sloshing in cargo, ballast or fuel tanks of large ships​, automotive vehicles, rail cars and much more.

For the Industrial Machinery industry, machine uptime is the prime driver, but machine manufacturers often lack the time or resources to physically test their machines to their limits. Here, Simcenter can help with new capabilities to help durability prediction without the need for specialist knowledge. Highlights include:

Simcenter 3D overcomes the need for separate toolsets and knowledge for proper durability by streamlining and automating strength analysis. Simcenter 3D can automatically calculate the parameters needed to adhere to the industry standard FKM guidelines. This means engineers can conduct durability analysis directly from their stress analysis results, to ultimately help machines meet operation requirements.

Industrial power transformers need to meet strict noise emission standards and qualify the EMAG-Acoustics models for transformer development. Simcenter 3D can now simulate the complex multi-disciplinary magnetostriction effects that cause transformer noise very quickly and accurately. Additionally, the forces calculated can be used both for noise and vibration assessment allowing electromagnetics and acoustic performance simulation within a single environment.

Lastly, industrial machines often have rotating shafts spinning at high speeds which can also vibrate. Engineers use rotor dynamics simulation and Campbell diagrams to understand the vibration frequencies at various operating speeds – but these are only applicable to linear systems. When working with non-linear bushing systems, Simcenter 3D allows the calculation of complex modes during a nonlinear harmonic response to generate a Campbell diagram so that critical speeds of a nonlinear system can be assessed, providing a greater level of understanding of complex rotating components.

Siemens Digital Industries Software
www.sw.siemens.com

Siemens Digital Industries Software announced the latest release of Solid Edge software for product design, engineering and manufacturing, bringing a new streamlined user experience, greater interoperability with the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio and greater capability and collaboration across many industry workflows.

“Alongside our work to bring innovative technology and capability to each release of Solid Edge, covering everything from 3D design through advanced CAM and into technical publications, it’s key that we also evolve how we make these capabilities available to our community,” said John Miller, Senior Vice President, Mainstream Engineering Software, Siemens. “We’re now introducing new licensing options designed to better meet the changing business needs of small and medium-sized manufacturers, providing greater flexibility, more value and, with Xcelerator Share, greater collaboration and speed.”

Solid Edge’s new look and feel brings a modern update to include more intuitive ways of working, greater personalization options and improved modeling workflows. Updates to the geometry definition tools in Solid Edge include synchronous technology applied to traditional ordered history-based parts and parts created using convergent modeling (using generative design or from 3D scans) can be used in simulations without the need for additional conversion.

Solid Edge 2023 also unlocks the power of design data while future proofing customers’ work – data from Solid Edge can be transferred between other solutions in the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, including NX Mechatronics Concept Designer (MCD) and Process Simulate. Solid Edge 2023 also leverages Siemens’ leadership in Model Based Definition (MBD), with a new Solid Edge Advanced PMI add-on that delivers high-quality consistent dimensioning for downstream applications that can take advantage of 3D annotated product data models.

The new Solid Edge Inspector add-on brings tools to automatically identify, label, and extract critical design and manufacturing characteristics for inspection and metrology purposes, automatically generates high-quality inspection data and reports that facilitate communication in downstream manufacturing processes.

New advanced manufacturing capabilities include new Roughing for 5-Axis Machining in Solid Edge CAM Pro, a new 4-axis Rotary Machining add-on and new wire EDM functionality. For those working at the leading edge of machining, the new Smart Machine Kits library provides easy access to standardized, professionally built machine simulation kits, enabling machinists to get up and running with full machine simulation in a fraction of the time typically needed.

Also introduced with Solid Edge 2023, Solid Edge SaaS brings value-based licensing combined with cloud-connected, anywhere access through Xcelerator Share. The new flexible licensing option available through a Solid Edge SaaS subscription allows capabilities to be added when needed, providing access to integrated add-ons for generative design, point cloud visualization, electrical routing, PCB collaboration, advanced simulation and much more. All of these can be easily mixed and matched with a flexible token system.

Meanwhile, product engineering data can be stored securely in the cloud and easily shared by teams and wider value chain, anywhere, anytime, on any device using Xcelerator Share. Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities can be used to see that same data in the context of the real world.

Learn more about the updates to Solid Edge at siemens.com/solidedge2023

Siemens Digital Industries Software