MODELLING AND SIMULATION


Fattening up FEA


GEMMA CHURCHDISCUSSES ADVANCES TO FEA SOFTWARE AS IT IS NOW USED TO SIMULATE A WIDE RANGE OF PHYSICAL PHENOMENA


The finite element method (FEM) is an established numerical method. Engineers have long


used it to optimise components in the design phase, reduce the number of physical experiments and prototypes and develop better products, faster. But this bread and butter method is


starting to feel more like a club sandwich, as new industries and innovations push the FEM to understand and quantify an increasing range of physical phenomena. The FEM was once primarily used in structural analysis within the aerospace, automotive and civil engineering industries – and later spread to consumer goods and manufacturing. But, nowadays, it can be applied to a much wider range of physics domains, including fluids, electromagnetics, multi-body dynamics and systems.


Consequently, the development of the FEM is driven more by usage patterns than specific industries, according to Oliver Rübenkönig, a consultant in the algorithms R&D department at Wolfram Research, who said: ‘The methods (such as the FEM) are not important. Ultimately, our customers would like to find solutions to their partial differential equations, and the method chosen for that is secondary.’ However, while specific industries are not a driver for FEM usage per se, the increasing range of physics domains has opened the floodgates, as Guna Krishna, vice president of product development at Altair, explained: ‘ Today, the FEM is used in many industries such as robotics to design motors, in computers to design chips and circuit boards, in biomedical applications to design heart valves, tooth implants, stents, in self-driving cars to locate the sensors, in manufacturing to reduce the number of defects, and improving the additive manufacturing process.’


Both the advancing additive and


electronic industries are embracing the FEM. Bjorn Sjodin, VP of product management at COMSOL, said: ‘Additive manufacturing is a strong trend and we have plenty of users in this area. In many cases it goes hand in hand with topology


optimisation and other classes of geometry optimisation, such as generative design and genetic algorithms.’ He added: ‘There is also a big interest for simulations within electric motors, batteries, and fuel cells; within the IoT, where the Internet of Things has a wide definition but we are certainly seeing users in this area; and within 5G, where the development of the next generation wireless technology is in many cases driven by advances in simulation technology.’ The traditional aerospace and


automotive industries are also continuing to innovate in the FEM space, as Stuart Sampson, vice president of HyperWorks enterprise implementations at Altair, explained: ‘Composites traditionally have been the focus of aerospace and F1, now you see composites much more in mainstream automotive, see as an example the BMW i3 with its carbon fibre composite passenger cell. Modular architecture in automotive is now being applied to other non-automotive industries.’


Krishna added: ‘In the automotive


industry, emission standards are shifting emphasis to low emission vehicles (such as electric and hydrogen fuel engines). Longer warranties and more passenger comfort is demanding increased analysis with multiple physics included in the analysis process. Fuel efficiency in aerospace continues to challenge the FE solutions to create efficient designs.’ Sampson added: ‘The large


transportation industry – including automotive and off-highway vehicles – is also driving dramatic changes in the product development process. E-Mobility and ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) are making connectivity and communication paramount for any new development platform, driving dramatic changes in the design process.’


 Concept design of a car BIW using Altair Inspire 24 Scientific Computing World June/July 2018


Performance matters With such widespread demand across industries both old and new, an increase in computational performance is required. Krishna said: ‘Low-cost computers are being replaced by laptops and the availability of inexpensive memory have


@scwmagazine | www.scientific-computing.com


Altair


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