Simulation Software

Simulation On-The-Go with COMSOL Client for Android

April 25, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

COMSOL announces that COMSOL Client for Android is available. Researchers, engineers, and students can perform simulation tasks from their Android devices, such as phones, tablets, and Chromebooks simply by connecting to the COMSOL Server software which runs the computations remotely.

COMSOL Client for Android expands on the capabilities of the Application Builder and COMSOL Server by enabling you to take your simulation applications on the road, without being limited by your device hardware. Providing field technicians or sales representatives with the power of COMSOL Multiphysics directly on their Android devices allows them to bring the R&D work on site or to the sales pitch.

“COMSOL Server allows users to run simulations through web browsers or desktop-installed clients,” explains Daniel Ericsson, Applications Product Manager, COMSOL. “COMSOL Client for Android expands on those capabilities by introducing a more seamless user experience on Android devices.”

“Using COMSOL Multiphysics and its Application Builder I can create models and build apps based on them. This allows other departments to test different configurations for their particular requirements and pick the best design,” comments Sam Parler, Research Director at Cornell Dubilier.

The Application Builder and COMSOL Server were developed to make multiphysics modeling more accessible to a wider audience. The Application Builder allows simulation specialists to create custom-made applications based on their multiphysics models. With COMSOL Server, organizations have been able to deploy industry-specific analysis tools in a streamlined and quick to implement format that can be scaled for global benefit. COMSOL Client for Android has made the convenience of running simulation applications as easy as ordering a rideshare.

Just like COMSOL Client for Windows, the simulations are run on remote servers, so you are not limited by your device hardware. Administrators continue to have full control over who can access and run the apps by using COMSOL Server. Android users will have the latest version of a simulation application each time they open the app.

COMSOL
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.comsol.androidclient

ANSYS Cloud: Direct cloud HPC access through ANSYS Mechanical, ANSYS Fluent

April 17, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

“Engineering simulation has long been constrained by fixed computing resources available on a desktop or cluster,” observes industry leader ANSYS. “Today, however, cloud computing can deliver the on-demand, high-performance computing (HPC) capacity required for faster high-fidelity results offering greater performance insight. To leverage the combined benefits of cloud computing and best-in-class engineering simulation, ANSYS is partnering with Microsoft Azure to create a secure cloud solution: ANSYS Cloud.”

Within ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS Fluent, the company says its users can “easily access HPC in the cloud directly—without the need for any additional setup. Access the hardware and software you need, when you need it—pay only for what you use.”

Capabilities

Built-in cloud HPC access—ANSYS Cloud delivers easy access to on-demand HPC resources from within your ANSYS environment. Using your ANSYS tools, prepare your simulation models on your desktop. Simply select a pre-configured hardware, then submit your jobs directly to the cloud. You won’t have to wait in HPC cluster queues or reduce your model size to fit desktop constraints. Job progress may be monitored from your desktop or through a web-based cloud portal.

The ANSYS Cloud is optimized for ANSYS solvers. Choose from a set of pre-defined hardware configurations depending on the needs of your model.

Ready-to-use cloud service—Mechanical and Fluent users can “easily access ANSYS Cloud without involving their information technology (IT) teams. Without the need for complex software installations or cloud-side setups, users are free to focus on solving their engineering problems. And, without having to build in-house solutions or rely on third-party vendors, businesses can avoid costly upfront investment and delays.” ANSYS Cloud is a “ready-to-use solution that is ANSYS-tested and certified, and fully-supported by ANSYS HPC and solver experts.”

“Completely secure workflows”—ANSYS Cloud provides a “highly robust and completely secure environment for running simulations in the cloud. At the Azure data centers, where simulations are run and data are stored, access is strictly controlled. The solution combines Microsoft Azure’s best practices with custom encryption for added security.” Both data at rest and in motion are encrypted.

Leveraging Azure Virtual Networks, ANSYS Cloud offers a “separate, secure network architecture for each customer: only you can access your data.”

The complete system architecture has undergone comprehensive testing, including detailed penetration testing, ANSYS says. Because new security threats continuously emerge, the solution’s security is regularly audited by a third party.

“Economical on-demand pricing”—Pay-per-use access to both cloud hardware and ANSYS software is available on Microsoft Azure and enabled through ANSYS Elastic Licensing. Rather than locking into a longer-term lease, users purchase a pool of ANSYS Elastic Units (AEU) based on their short-term cloud-computing needs.

How this works: “Using your existing licenses, prepare your model using your on-premise hardware. When you submit your simulation job for analysis in the cloud, use your pool of AEUs.”

AEUs are consumed at a specified hourly rate that varies with the choice of hardware configuration and solver type (i.e., Mechanical or Fluent). For example, a Mechanical simulation on a small hardware configuration (1 node, 12 cores) will consume 13 AEUs/hour, whereas the same simulation on a medium configuration (3 nodes, 36 cores) will consume 18 AEUs/hour.

Your pool of AEUs (shared with other users in your organization) is charged based on your cloud runtime (in fractions of an hour). Consumption of AEUs may be tracked using the cloud portal, which is accessed via a desktop or mobile web browser.

“With this combination of traditional licensing (leased and paid-up for steady workflows) and pay-per-use licensing (for in-cloud, flexible capacity),” ANSYS says, “you can optimize your company’s investment in simulation.”

Remote job monitoring

Easily monitor the progress of your simulation from within the desktop installation of Mechanical and Fluent or from a web-based cloud portal. Job monitoring tools provide full access to the solver transcript, a graphical view of convergence parameters and real-time access to debug information when help is needed.

You can also view a summary of your simulation jobs via a web-based cloud portal, which can be accessed from your desktop or mobile device. Using the cloud portal, you can track total consumption of AEUs and even share your simulation jobs with your peers and ANSYS support.

Cloud-based 3D results visualization

With ANSYS Cloud, users can review and validate the results of their simulations while their data are in the cloud. “Innovative post-processing technology leaves the heavy data in the cloud, transferring only requested information to you for 3D rendering in your web browser,” ANSYS says. This approach “avoids heavy network usage and eliminates the latency typical of virtual desktop approaches. The performance is unmatched for all-size models.”

Users can plot scalar and vector fields and visualize results on existing parts, planes, isosurfaces and isovolumes. When needed, “download the data to your desktop for detailed post-processing using your familiar desktop applications.”

ANSYS, Inc.

Microsoft Azure

Democratizing Simulation: delivering measurable results

April 11, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

By Robert Farrell

Through the process of “democratization” organizations can safely put the power of engineering simulation into the hands of those who are not experts in using CAE software, including product designers, new engineers and even those in technical sales and customer support. This resulting Democratizing of Simulation accelerates design validation, which in turn shortens time to market with more innovative products. But what are the challenges, benefits, and enabling technologies of this democratization movement; and what results are companies actually seeing today?

Product development leverages intelligent Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models. This is no great revelation; it’s been this way since the early 1980s. About that same time the engineering world began to investigate ways to analyze these models to simulate performance. This created a need that was filled by a new breed of engineer who would develop expertise in the domain of numerical simulation – the CAE Analyst.

“Portfolio of simulation apps displayed in an e-handbook browser. (Courtesy of ESRD, Inc.)”

Software tools quickly emerged enabling these experts to painstakingly create elaborate mathematical finite element models for replicating real-world conditions and helped reduce the number of required physical prototypes. The process came to be known as “simulation;” and the results were measurable improvements in time-to-market, quality and costs. Since that time industry has embraced simulation and continued to invest in the tools and resources to support its on-going use and development.

The expert dilemma
The ability to apply advanced training, software tools, methods, expertise, and experience is as much an art as it is a science. Consequently there remains a relatively small fraternity of CAE experts – many early pioneers, or direct disciples thereof. These are the custodians of a level of expertise and experience relied upon to perform key analysis. It has been estimated there are an order of magnitude more product designers and engineers who consume the results of simulation than those who perform the simulation.

The problem is twofold. Limited expert resources create unnecessarily long analysis processes. This reduces the number of design alternatives that may be evaluated thereby stifling innovation. Second, as this generation exits the workforce there is concern that much of their knowledge will retire with them. The truth is that analysis/simulation is a critical competitive advantage for those who possess it. So what’s the answer?

Democratizing simulation
Today, there are a limited number of simulation experts and a sharply growing demand for simulation. Consequently, the resident expert is often a bottleneck. But what if a way existed to capture and reuse such knowledge and engineering judgment throughout the product development team? Democratizing Simulation is the term that is used for the techniques and approaches that allow product designers and engineers, without expertise in the use of simulation tools, to safely perform even advanced simulations and leverage the results in the design process.

Expanding the number of those capable of performing simulations safely and robustly reduces experts’ workload and allows designs to be validated more quickly while exponentially expanding the number of design alternatives that can be evaluated. Also, the simulation automation techniques that are used make the experts themselves more efficient and accurate. The results are measurable improvements in product quality, time to market, and product innovation. Additionally spreading the workload allows CAE experts to focus on more sophisticated or critical simulations. This further elevates the role and value of the expert in the organization while allowing their expertise to be leveraged by many others.

Gaining traction
More than five hundred engineers, designers and business professionals gathered in Cleveland last summer at the NAFEMS Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering. The event included a growing number of sessions on Democratizing Simulation including fourteen presentations, two workshops, and a roundtable.

“It’s clear that it is no longer a question of whether democratized simulation will occur; or if it’s worthwhile to implement. Instead, the focus is on when it will become the industry norm,” said NAFEMS Americas Vice President, Matt Ladzinski. “Most presentations were real-world success stories detailing the challenges and ROI of implementation. It’s noteworthy that while none concluded that democratization is an easy process, all felt that the ROI is well worth the effort and intend to expand democratization within their organizations. These companies are the forerunners of the next generation of simulation users, when complex simulation technology vanishes behind a façade that will allow huge numbers of non-experts to safely leverage its power.”

Challenges
The vision and promise sound great; but admittedly, there are a few challenges.

Implementation
The biggest obstacle to widespread implementation is a general lack of understanding as to how or where to begin. Until now engineers were forced to scour the Internet and similar resources for bits of disjointed information. Too many web sites are all about selling something rather than educating their visitors. At the same time success stories were not well documented or readily available.

Quantifying the ROI
Often, the higher the business value, the harder it is to quantify. This is true of any business activity as it shifts from tactical to strategic importance. Quantifying the value of an expected reduction in cost or schedule can be challenging, but it is much easier than quantifying the value for increasing such things as quality, performance, or innovation.

Threat to the Status Quo
Democratizing anything represents a paradigm shift for organizations. And so Democratizing Simulation is often viewed as a direct threat by the CAE experts. Knowing the complexities of their job and unsure of how to accurately and completely replicate that knowledge for use by non-experts is understandably concerning. Consequently, CAE experts may be hesitant to endorse such an initiative. Still others may see it as diminishing their value in the eyes of the company. In no way is the role of the senior analyst diminished; nor are they being asked to relinquish control. To the contrary, through democratization techniques such as simulation applications, senior CAE analysts are taking on a more visible and important role as their expertise is now being leveraged throughout the company. Something in common amongst many of the Democratizing Simulation successes is the willingness of the CAE experts to champion the cause.

Democratization of 3D CAE Models + Results + Product Performance Information to improve data insights and fasten the design decisions. (Image courtesy of VCollab)

How it works: implementation
For those interested in taking a next step; or just want to learn more, there are multiple starting points for implementation. The most common include:
Intelligent automation templates

Template-based Simulation Automation has been used by many organizations to significantly improve the accuracy, consistency, repeatability, and efficiency of performing complex simulations. These intelligent automation templates embed the expertise of the experts in the form of rules that are automatically enforced when a template is executed. Templates not only allow non-experts to safely and robustly run simulations, but often also provide enterprise-wide standardization while making the experts more efficient and accurate.

Simulation apps
Equally important is the speed and ease of creating these templates. Specialty tools and Low-Code Development Platforms (LCDP) allow Simulation Applications (Sim Apps) to be created with little or no manual coding. This in turn allows those closest to the design process to build the Apps rather than relying on IT developers. Increasingly, Sim Apps are browser-based, and with authorized access into a corporate network one has access to the Apps without any need to have locally installed software, eliminating yet another historical constraint of simulation and modeling.

Simulation governance and standardization
All major industrial organizations employ numerical simulation in support of their engineering and business decision-making. Therefore using numerical simulation is no longer a differentiator. The differentiator is related to how safely and reliably numerical simulation is being used? Depending on the answer, numerical simulation can be a significant corporate asset or a potential liability. Whenever engineering or business decisions are based on the results of numerical simulation there is an implied expectation of reliability. Without such expectation it would not be possible to justify the time and cost of a simulation project. In fact, if simulation produces misleading information then it has a negative economic value.

System simulation
System simulation incorporates the end effects of all sub-systems and components in determining overall product performance. Throughout engineering design and simulation circles, system-level simulation has been synonymous to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), which the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) defines as a “formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing throughout development and later life cycle phases.”

Simulation Process & Data Management (SPDM) and the enterprise digital thread
Traditionally, simulation data, processes and experts have operated within various silos in the organization. Hence, this valuable expertise and data has not been an integrated part of enterprise engineering processes. Furthermore, organizations are now striving to manage their engineering data and processes in a more consistent manner, connecting these into what is being called a Digital Thread. Any engineering data that exists within silos is, by definition, left out of the Digital Thread – simulation data is such an example.

Aras Corp. believes that effective, enterprise-wide SPDM must be implemented within an open, vendor-agnostic PLM platform with a systems-centric approach and must be “invisible” to the simulation analysts.

High performance / cloud computing
From product prototyping to process design, High Performance Computing (HPC) can save businesses both time and money, while improving products and streamlining operations. Regardless of one’s experience level with HPC, in order to fully utilize it, you need access to three main components: hardware, software, and expertise.

HPC Hardware can consist of cloud-based resources, small departmental level clusters, or even powerful workstations. These are available from a variety of vendors, ranging from online ‘pay-as-you-go’ access, to large systems custom designed and installed in dedicated data centers.

CAE software can comprise of things such as solvers, meshers, visualization, and workflow managers, and so on. This software can range from very specialized, open-source packages available at no cost, to more generic commercial packages that can run across a wide scale of domains and resources.

Expertise that is available includes domains such as Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Structural Analysis, Bioinformatics, and so on. Companies needing expertise often start with external consulting “engineering service providers” who can assist with a specific project, before eventually directly hiring domain experts versed in a variety of technical skills.

Success stories surrounding Democratizing Simulation are plentiful and growing. Forward-thinking companies are taking advantage of available tools and resources to supercharge innovation, quality and productivity with effective use of simulation. Here are some documented examples:
GKN Driveline implementation results:
–Removes the bulk of routine analysis work and tedious report creation from the CAE Expert role, freeing them to work on more complex problems
–Allows a non-expert user to investigate many iterations and establish design-intent before expert involvement
–Data interrogation remains available for expert users, but is not required to execute the process
–Automation activity drives process refinement and structure, creating a globally consistent methodology

American Axle & Manufacturing implementation results:
–Average 75% time reduction for each analysis iteration
–Approximately $130,000 in annual cost savings at a single engineering site
–Improved quality through globally enforced standards and practices which remove human error
–Ability to run many more Noise Vibration & Harshness (NVH) analysis iterations, leading to more design decisions, earlier
–Ability to redeploy resources as less experienced engineers are now able to safely run simulations

Where to learn more
A new on-line resource community was launched in June, 2018 to support industry’s growing interest in the Democratization of Simulation. The Revolution in Simulation (www.Rev-Sim.Org) initiative is a collaborative effort among subject matter experts, industry end-users, professional associations, and solution providers. They all share a common mission to educate, advocate, innovate and collaborate through an open, non-commercial community to further advance engineering simulation for experts and non-experts alike to help ensure a significant, exponential increase in the use of simulation and simulation data.

“Rev-Sim provides access to the largest collection of educational materials including success stories, industry news, whitepapers, blogs, presentations, videos, webinars, best practices and technical reference materials to help individual professionals and their companies fully exploit the latest advances in simulation,” said Rev-Sim co-founder Rich McFall. “Perhaps most exciting is that the initiative is a true collaboration among topic experts, end users, thought leaders and solution providers including ANSYS, Aras, ASSESS, Beyond CAE, EASA, ESRD, ESTECO, Front End Analytics, Kinetic Vision, Modelon, NAFEMS, Ohio Supercomputer Center, PLM Alliances, UberCloud and VCollab. These innovative organizations are providing the expertise and funding to support this growing industry-wide movement to make engineering simulation more accessible, efficient, and reliable.”

Smart Engineering Simulation Apps: Ply-by-ply modeling and automatic lamination using 3D-solid elements enable the creation and deployment of this App in a Desktop CAE-Handbook.

Get on board
Democratizing Simulation isn’t some futuristic vision. It’s here and now and it’s delivering measurable and sustained results. Design and product development organizations, manufacturers, suppliers, software vendors and other solution-providers should begin taking steps to learn more and to join this revolution, this next generation of simulation methodologies and usage.

The confluence of simulation methodologies, software, automation templates and processes, and affordable high performance computing platforms, aided by the advent of mobile devices with ubiquitous high-bandwidth access to the Internet, has the potential to increase the number of users of simulation by an order of magnitude, over the next five to ten years.

Aras lays out strategy for acquired Comet Solutions technology

April 3, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

“You probably saw our recent acquisition of Comet Solutions and thought, ‘Why’d they do that?’” writes Aras senior vice president of strategy Marc Lind. “Well, that’s a good question.” For background, see our Aras acquires Comet Solutions: Giant leap forward in simulation at enterprise scale, published here last September.

“As everyone knows,” Lind observes, “the amount of simulations being conducted has increased substantially over the past decade, and is projected to grow exponentially moving forward with the:

Need to further reduce physical testing,
Complexity of smart connected product design / MBSE,
Push for predictive maintenance through Digital Twins.”

Aras says it views simulation “in the context of the overall systems engineering process together with configuration and change, variants, requirements, validation testing and others. The fact that simulation management is completely disconnected from mainstream engineering processes is a problem—no closed-loop traceability/digital thread.”

Simulation will increase exponentially across the lifecycle, Aras predicts.

“Persistent problems”

According to Aras, what its largest customers say is that “simulation process and data management (SPDM) from the other major PLM providers are primarily standalone systems optimized for their own tools sets [and] treat others as second-class citizens.”

The result? When simulation environments are “isolated in silos, bad things happen:

Simulation results aren’t used or are too late to be useful,
Models get out of sync with the product design,
Wrong design gets simulated.”

And Aras calls these problems “just the tip of the iceberg. Without a new approach to SPDM, many of the strategic imperatives/Digital Transformation goals that rely on simulation will not be attainable.”

New approach to simulation management/SPDM is required to avoid risks, Aras believes.

“Consistent needs”

Global companies “must be able to increase simulation coverage of all types while staying in sync with design/model changes,” the company insists. “They’ve got to rapidly conduct analysis on product variations, options and concepts with repeatable processes.” Which means that “SPDM needs to be able to handle the full range of commercial tools, along with custom in-house tools, Excel and others.”

Putting its finger on one of the thorniest challenges to date in integrated, full-lifecycle engineering modeling and simulation, Aras adds, “It also means SPDM must be capable of managing mixed-fidelity models (0D/1D/2D/3D) and a wide variety of different data types. You will need multiple representations of the same item, and engineering objects should be captured independent of the underlying tools.”

Accomplishing that requires “vendor-neutral/tool-agnostic data and processes in SPDM, and a deeper level of understanding and control over the models is required—not just at the file-level—which means a unified data model in the PLM platform.”

And finally, says Aras, “Scalability has been a big problem as well. A new level of scalability is necessary moving forward.”

Aras perspective

Aras believes that “better data management and tool chaining are necessary in SPDM because they’re foundational to Digital Thread enablement, closed-loop verification, and future scenarios like machine-driven analysis. SPDM should be ‘invisible’ so that analysts and experts don’t have to worry about:

Where the CAD file came from,
Which HPC cluster to run on,
Where results get stored,
Report generation.”

Aras’s goal is to make SPDM “invisible.”

“Our approach to SPDM shoots to eliminate these redundant administrative tasks, and expose results throughout mainstream engineering processes.,” the company says. “That means from concept engineering, detailed design, test, field operation and back to requirements across the full lifecycle as part of our PLM platform. We’re doing the same thing for simulation management that we’ve done for PLM: making it more open, scalable, flexible and upgradable.”

“To accelerate things,” the company explains, “we’ve acquired Comet Solutions—provider of best-in-class capabilities for simulation process management—which immediately enables repeatable process automation to complement our unmatched data management capabilities. While we’re working on SPDM projects with customers already, we’re going further and working to incorporate Comet into the Aras platform for even more seamless capabilities moving forward. We’re excited to have the Comet team join Aras and help drive our momentum in SPDM.”

Aras Simulation Process and Data Management

Aras white paper: Unlock Simulation’s Value Across the Product Lifecycle with an Open Platform Approach

Ora Research white paper: AAM Sees Dramatic Productivity Gains, Cost Savings from Automating NVH Analysis Process with New Comet NVH Driveline SimApp

Marc Lind, SVP Strategy, Aras

Malcolm Panthaki, VP of Analysis Solutions, Aras

• Latest Simcenter 3D release reduces transmission modeling time by 80%

January 29, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Manufacturing is changing with the advent of new materials and production methods, making it more challenging to ensure that as-manufactured parts match the as-designed shape. In the latest release of Simcenter 3D, Siemens PLM Software introduces cutting-edge simulation capabilities, stronger connections to the broader Simcenter portfolio, and an expansion of the integrated multi-disciplinary environment to cover an extended simulation solution footprint, which will help engineers reduce the time, cost and effort required to predict product performance. The simulation solution has also been updated to include simulation of the additive manufacturing process and to cover areas such as transmission simulation, aerostructure margin of safety analysis and fluid-structure interaction.

“In order to build accurate digital twins of their products, companies are demanding more innovations in their simulation software,” said Jan Leuridan, Senior Vice President, Simulation & Test Solutions, Siemens PLM Software. “We are continually innovating new ways to streamline simulation processes and deliver greater accuracy. This release integrates more physics and technologies into the Simcenter 3D environment, to help our customers predict real world performance.

Simcenter 3D can automate the creation and simulation of transmission simulation models within a single, integrated environment. Integrating this traditionally multi-step, error-prone process into a single tool can reduce the engineer’s effort by up to 80%, leading to a more efficient simulation process. “Creating a complex transmission multibody model is a time-consuming process, often requiring the use of multiple software tools,” said Horim Yang, Senior Research Engineer, Hyundai Motor Company. “Simcenter 3D is well suited for our engineering purposes and can reduce the overall time spent on transmission modeling and simulation.”

The latest release of Simcenter 3D offers new ties to the digital thread through synergies with the Simcenter portfolio. New connections between Simcenter 3D and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ software enable aero-acoustics and aero-vibro-acoustic simulations, allowing customers to eliminate the source of unwanted noise for improved cabin comfort. Simcenter 3D can also connect with the routing application within NX software to obtain electrical cord layouts and connection points. Simcenter 3D can then simulate electrical cord deformation within moving assemblies so engineers can make sure wire harnesses don’t get caught on moving parts and adjust as needed to cord routing.

Other new features of Simcenter 3D 2019.1 include:
• Simcenter 3D Aerostructures can streamline the end-to-end aircraft structural analysis and margin of safety process by up to 30%.
• Topology Optimization is more robust, easier to use, and adds design objectives or constraints for structural integrity of a part when subjected to critical loads.
• A new additive manufacturing process simulation tool helps manufacturers achieve a quality print that matches the desired shape on the first try, saving resources, cost, and time.

Siemens PLM Software
www.siemens.com/plm

SimLab sT slashes simulation cycle time

January 29, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Altair SimLab sT is a turn-key program for the mid-market. It enables a community of designers and engineers to leverage multiphysics simulation to explore design proposals, drive innovation and accelerate product development. Designed to support manufacturers burdened with increasing complexity amid shrinking development cycles, SimLab sT automates every step of the simulation process through shareable workflows with live bi-directional connections to popular CAD systems.

The program features the addition of deeply embedded physics solvers, revolutionary business models, and more:

–User experience opens new markets – The new user experience further accelerates simulation cycle time and expands the addressable markets for high-end multiphysics analysis. This includes SMB manufacturers and design engineers responsible for developing product families sharing common and variant components.

–Live, bi-directional syncing with popular CAD systems – Always stay in sync with the latest design level to evaluate performance and explore proposals with live connections to parametric CAD systems including CATIA, Pro/E, Siemens NX and SolidWorks.

–Embedded physics solvers enable CAD-to-simulation in minutes – The introduction of embedded physics solvers for statics, dynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetics provides a turn-key solution to accelerate multiphysics analyses, coupled simulations, and DOE studies from days and weeks to minutes and hours.

–Freedom to choose the best licensing model for maximum value – SimLab sT is immediately available through Altair’s solidThinking and HyperWorks suite offerings. With advantages and price points, customers have the ability to select the licensing model that enables the right set of simulation capabilities at the best value to their organization.

solidThinking Units (sTU’s) Licensing Option: Provides enterprise access to SimLab sT and all of the products available through the solidThinking suite offering. Sold through Altair’s valued channel network, the more attractive SimLab sT price point provides a compelling offering for SMB manufacturers and organizations starting or upgrading existing simulation capabilities.

HyperWorks Units (HWU’s) Licensing Option: Provides enterprise access to SimLab sT as well as the ability to access all Altair products available through the HyperWorks and solidThinking suite offerings. This licensing option also includes the broadest set of direct CAE readers to run 3rd-party solvers with Simlab and access to more than 150 Altair Partner Alliance applications.

Altair
www.altair.com

“Human-aided engineering”: Automated high-fidelity flow simulation from Ingrid Cloud

October 3, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

Stockholm-based software developer Ingrid Cloud has brought to market a revolutionary cloud-based computational tool designed to “automate the entire process of flow simulation and design optimization by building the computational model without human intervention.”

The company says the “proprietary self-learning algorithms which form the core of Ingrid Cloud enable the automation of the entire simulation process, increasing accuracy and eliminating costly process repetition due to human error. The algorithms also reduce computing costs, since they optimize the usage of computational resources.”

Technology foundation

The foundation of Ingrid Cloud is the groundbreaking CFD framework developed by its precursor organization, Adaptive Simulations, which uses the finite element method together with adaptive mesh refinement based on adjoint techniques and a posteriori error estimation. Since 2010, Adaptive Simulations’ technology has been regularly validated in benchmark workshops organized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and by NASA. The team behind Adaptive Simulations has dedicated over 30 person-years of research to:

Develop a methodology that allows automatic creation of highly complex simulation models from CAD geometry,
Implement this method in a scientific code, and
Optimize and test the code on the fastest supercomputers in the world (K computer in Japan, Beskow in Stockholm and Hazel Hen in Stuttgart, among others).

Unique characteristics

High-fidelity turbulent flow simulations.
Setup simulation with simple wizard and intuitive user interface.
Automated, smart mesh generation based on adjoint techniques and error estimation.
No explicit turbulence model needed.
Very few input parameters compared with traditional CFD.

The company explains that its technology is based on two unique innovations that provide superior capabilities. The capabilities are:

A parameter-free method for simulation of turbulent flow at high Reynolds numbers, in the form of weak solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations approximated by adaptive FEM. Here, viscous dissipation is assumed to be dominated by turbulent dissipation proportional to the residual of the equations, and the effect of skin friction is observed to be small compared with inertial effects.
Algorithms for adaptive optimization of the mesh based on adjoint techniques and a posteriori error estimation, so that the output quantities of interest, in the form of functionals of the solution, converge to become independent of mesh resolution.

The method resulting from these innovations has no adjustable parameters, and no ad hoc design of the mesh is needed, enabling full automation of the simulation workflow, according to the company.

Vision: “Human-aided engineering”

Ingrid Cloud’s vision is that “instead of having computers aid humans, humans should support computers doing the design. In other words: computational design. We have developed intelligent algorithms that simulate flow and optimize the design based on the simulation.”

The company’s “innovation is the result of a spinout from world-leading research conducted over more than a decade by a team of researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.” In 2014 the team was awarded a grant from the European Research Council to commercialize its research.

The company behind Ingrid Cloud, Adaptive Simulations, was founded in January 2015, and has been led since then by CEO and cofounder Sebastian Desand. The vision “was at first to create an easy-to-use, fully automated flow simulation service. That vision has evolved into a vision with more far-reaching implications.”

Funding and partners

In 2016 the company received funding from Vinnova, the Swedish Agency for Innovation and Growth, as well as from the EU Commission’s Horizon2020 program for disruptive innovations. In April 2017 the company raised a seed round of $1.5 million from Karma Ventures, Creathor Venture and KTH Holding. From 2015 to 2018 the company has developed its product in close collaboration with pilot customers of varying sizes in several industries. The first public version of Ingrid Cloud was launched in January 2018. The company has its principal office near its origin on the KTH Campus.

Product & pricing

Applications: Virtual Wind Tunnel, Urban Wind Comfort, Building Wind Load, Custom

Ingrid Cloud home

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

EU Horizon 2020

Aras acquires Comet Solutions: Giant leap forward in simulation at scale across the product lifecycle

September 27, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

“Addition of simulation management to the Aras PLM Platform extends Digital Thread traceability” was the subhead to the press release announcing this acquisition. Based on our decade-plus end-user research into the capabilities of Comet’s technology, we have to concur 100%.

Comet Intelligent Engineering Model.

Aras, the leader in open product lifecycle management (PLM) software for the enterprise, acquired Comet Solutions, Inc., a provider of best-in-class software for simulation process management. Using Comet’s technology, manufacturers are able to reuse complex simulations in order to scale the application and use of simulation results. The addition of Comet’s capabilities to the Aras PLM Platform provides a way for organizations to connect simulation – and simulation experts – to mainstream engineering processes for traceability, access, and reuse across the product lifecycle.

“Extending the Digital Thread to include simulation tools and processes has emerged as a critical enabler for future business models. Simulation can add significant value to product development, manufacturing and field operations, but has not yet reached its potential due to limited connection to the rest of the enterprise. The addition of Comet’s capabilities will allow us to bring repeatability, reusability and traceability to simulation across the product lifecycle,” said Rob McAveney, Chief Architect, Aras.

“Joining the Aras family turbo charges Comet’s vision to bring simulation to the enterprise. Comet’s philosophy and approach to simulation align well with Aras’ approach to PLM. We see significant increased value for both Comet and Aras customers.” –Malcolm Panthaki, Chief Technology Officer and Founder, Comet Solutions

“Bringing simulation processes mainstream with an open PLM platform”

Industry experts anticipate increasing demand for simulation across the product lifecycle driven by product complexity, competitive pressure, and emerging opportunities with Digital Twin and IoT. To date, broader use of simulation has been held back by the failure of simulation process and data management (SPDM) tools to connect simulation users to the enterprise.

Aras says its acquisition of Comet Solutions is an “important step on Aras’ roadmap to develop platform-based SPDM to support higher-volume simulation for the most complex scenarios. With the addition of Comet’s technology, Aras closes the gap between simulation and mainstream design by providing simulation analysts with the means to repeat and reuse simulation while connecting their analysis to through-life product configuration and cross-discipline design.”

Our deep firsthand research among Comet technology users, from 2009 to today, very, very strongly supports that statement. Its technology is simply two or three generations beyond anything else out there today.

Comet’s vendor-agnostic application also mirrors Aras’ open approach by connecting with a wide array CAD, FEA, meshing, 0D/1D simulation tools, and in-house applications which is a requirement to support organizations’ heterogeneous simulation tool environments – and therefore essential for SPDM to work.Comet’s capabilities for managing mixed fidelity models, different data types, and various representations of the same product or assembly for simulation purposes are an important aspect for simulation management across systems engineering disciplines. The ability to extract intelligence from simulation models and results – rather than simply managing data at the file level – is also a significant benefit above and beyond that of other SPDM systems on the market. Ora Research’s end-user research has confirmed this over and over.

Flexibility and efficiency for simulation experts

Comet Solutions enables simulation experts to be more productive through creation of simulation processes for re-use and tool chain automation for job execution i.e., linking of simulation tools to perform a complex function or analysis. Comet’s technology provides a range of features to increase the volume and effectiveness of simulation:

Achieves better product simulation coverage.
Empowers experts to rapidly conduct analysis on product variations, options, and concepts.
Performs required calculations using pre-specified CAD and CAE software.
Manages job execution of tool chains including job server, data extract, pull files, operations on cloud, high-performance computing clusters, and others.

Comet software will be available for Aras subscribers at no charge. To request Comet software or inquire about subscriptions, companies may submit a request here.

Aras Core Tenets for Simulation Across the Product Lifecycle

Aras PLM Platform

Simulation & SPDM

User interface update for SimScale for better simulation experience in the cloud

September 26, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

SimScale, the provider of the world’s first production-ready SaaS application for engineering simulation (CAE), announced today the release of their new workbench.

The new and improved SimScale Workbench 2.0 was built entirely from scratch on the latest, state-of-the-art technology stack, with the goal of drastically improving user productivity by decreasing loading time and increasing interaction speed.

Screenshot of the SimScale Workbench 2.0

With this update, the SimScale web-based CAE platform is now as fast and interactive as a desktop application, while taking advantage of the unlimited computing power of the cloud. Furthermore, the new solution stack sets the stage for major new updates and features that are already in development and will be released in the coming months.

In addition, the latest release from SimScale introduces some fundamental changes to the overall user experience, making the SimScale Workbench 2.0 the most advanced, yet user-friendly simulation interface version ever created by the cloud simulation company.

Compared to the old workbench, with the new version the viewer takes up significantly more screen real estate, becoming the heart of the interface. To improve the overall user experience, the settings panels now ‘float’ on top of the viewer, reserving as much space as possible for visualization. Together with a new model color scheme—which preserves the original CAD coloring if possible—and a translucent render mode, interaction with the model has been made significantly more efficient.

Conjugate heat transfer simulation of an electronics enclosure with SimScale

SimScale’s vision includes making engineering simulation as intuitive as possible. With the previous workbench, the meshing, simulation and post-processing steps were separated into three different tabs. The new version, on the other hand, consolidates the entire workflow into a single tree, helping users set up their projects faster and easier by following a straightforward, step-by-step approach, from top to bottom.

A third major change is the possibility for users to carry out a simulation directly on a CAD model. In practice, this means the user can now set up a complete simulation directly on their geometry with less exposure to mesh generation—something that will particularly help novice users to successfully simulate faster. The added benefit of this approach is that, in the case there is a need to change or refine the mesh, all settings and assignments will be kept.

SimScale
www.simscale.com

Aras outlines core tenets for managing demand for simulation across the product lifecycle

September 17, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Aras, a leader in open product lifecycle management (PLM) software for the enterprise, announced its core tenets for managing simulation in anticipation of exponential growth in demand for simulation at all stages of the product lifecycle. The company projects a growing wave of simulation driven by increasing product complexity, competitive pressures to reduce time to market, and new technologies such as Digital Twin and IoT.

Connecting simulation across the product lifecycle
The benefits and rationale for broader use of simulation as an enabler for early design verification and reduced reliance on physical prototypes are well documented and an opportunity that manufacturers must pursue for both pragmatic and competitive reasons. As product complexity increases and businesses seek opportunities for growth, simulation moves to the forefront for strategic capabilities around the Digital Twin, for predictive maintenance and closed-loop development, as well as additive manufacturing and generative design. As a result, Aras anticipates a looming wave of demand for simulation that manufacturers need to prepare for and incorporate into their product design, development, and manufacturing processes to maximize simulation’s value.

Game time for SPDM
Although access to simulation tools and their high-performance computing requirements has always been limited by the deep domain and technical knowledge required, the greater barrier to simulation’s inclusion in mainstream engineering processes has been the limited adoption of existing simulation process and data management (SPDM) tools. Without an effective SPDM capability, organizations are not able to efficiently incorporate simulation into systems engineering processes or to accurately connect simulation outputs with product data and product configuration during development, much less simulate an asset in service for many decades as in aerospace and defense.

Core tenets for managing simulation at scale
Aras believes the same characteristics of next-generation PLM – built on a platform that is open, flexible, scalable, and upgradable – must also apply to SPDM for it to effectively manage simulation at scale. Specifically, to support simulation across the lifecycle and meet the needs of manufacturers across a range of industries, SPDM must adhere to the following core tenets:

• Embrace in-house tools, including spreadsheets and custom applications, as well as the broad range of heterogeneous, commercial vendor systems

• Enable and support multi-discipline scenarios, mixed-fidelity models, and different data types that comprise the range of simulation expertise

• Support simulation use cases through the product lifecycle; most importantly, those that cross lifecycle stages such as from operational feedback to design or simulation of in-service performance

• Integrate simulation processes fully with model-based engineering processes to create and maintain the Digital Thread for today’s complex cyber-physical systems

• Be transparent and “invisible” to users in managing the pedigree of a simulation model and any associated geometry, performance parameters, and results.

Aras’ open, platform-based approach to PLM is transforming product processes for the largest Auto OEMs, Aerospace & Defense, Shipbuilding, and High Tech Electronics companies. Bringing this approach to simulation processes is critical to manage the coming demand for simulation and maximize its value in systems engineering, configuration and variant management, verification and validation (V&V), design reuse, compliance and emerging application in Digital Twin and IoT condition monitoring.

Aras
www.aras.com