modelling: computer-aided engineering


simplifies stress Simulation software


Design engineers are increasingly turning to simulation software to ensure they make the best


choices. Tom Wilkie reports


I


t is a commonplace of modern industrial society that products are getting ‘smarter’ – and therefore more complex. Whether it be the eponymous smartphone or an


oil drilling rig, many more functions and capabilities are being built-in – oſten, in the consumer market, more than the customer can actually make use of. But before complexity and ‘smartness’ can be


built-in, they need to be designed-in; and this is posing multiple challenges for the providers of computer-aided engineering (CAE) soſtware. Where once individual aspects of physics could be evaluated sequentially – electronics and then structural mechanics for a phone; structural mechanics and fluid dynamics for an off-shore oil rig – now the demand is for multi-physics packages to do it all at once. And the people worrying about the antenna design of a smartphone need to talk to the people designing the case, yet they come from two different disciplines – can the soſtware allow mechanical engineers and electronic engineers to talk together effectively, even if they are on different continents? Tis trend to more complex, smarter


products is a key driver for the soſtware developers, according to Barry Christenson, director of product management at Ansys, which specialises in engineering simulation soſtware. Products have electronics in them that they never had before, he remarked, citing the example of oil drill-bits. Tese sometimes go down two miles and it would be impracticable to use wires to communicate with the drill-bit, so they are equipped with an electronics package that sends a sonogram back


www.scientific-computing.com l


Esteco software is used to drive geometry modification and simulation processes


to the surface for interpretation. ‘Twenty years ago you would not have thought of electronics in a drill bit,’ he said. Te point about such complex systems, he


went on, is that they do not fail individually; they fail as a system. Tus it is no longer possible to optimise a system by optimising the individual components – the system has


THERE WAS INTEREST


IN SIMULATING LARGER MODELS, REQUIRING ACCESS TO MORE COMPUTING POWER


to be evaluated, and optimised, as a whole: ‘Tis creates complexity, and is one of the challenges that soſtware developers must face and overcome.’ A second driver for innovation and


development in CAE soſtware is that engineering designers want their products to be more robust and to work over a wider range of conditions. Partly, this is because in today’s age of publicity, the failure of one consumer product will not result in just one


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disgruntled customer but will be tweeted or otherwise disseminated on social media, much more widely than before. Tus, he said, engineers will want to evaluate lots of different designs but it will be impracticable to build as many physically as they want to evaluate. Te only solution is simulation, in his view. But, Christenson continued, simulation is nowadays being used not just to validate or troubleshoot a single design but to study hundreds of designs to make sure they are robust.


Complexity needs collaboration Growth in demand was evident across all areas, he said, although there was particularly strong interest in simulating larger models, requiring access to more powerful computing power such as high-performance computing (HPC). ‘You can evaluate designs very quickly on a large cluster or network,’ he said. Complex designs necessitate large design


teams, with mixes of different scientific and engineering disciplines. One further aspect of modern engineering simulation soſtware, according to Christenson, is that it should facilitate communication between these different people who may not be in the same office together or may not even be in the same


APRIL/MAY 2013 27


Esteco


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