MODELLING AND SIMULATION
The Volkswagen I.D. R Pikes Peak is Volkswagen’s first fully-electric race car
standard internal combustion engines) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). ADAS affect the design of every part of the vehicle, according to Schramm, who said: ‘We’ve applied Altair Feko to the design of front bumpers/fascias for the effective mounting and operation of adaptive cruise control (ACC) radar systems. In addition, we’ve assisted with the design of rear fascias to ensure that they are highly visible to ACC.’ Electrification brings further change
to the world of simulation and modelling. Schramm said: ‘Electric vehicles enable and demand changes to traditional vehicle architectures. Combined with a change in attribute priorities – especially if the crash regulations for autonomous vehicles diverge from current passenger cars – means past experience is not a good guide to future designs.’ Elaphe Propulsion Technologies
develops and manufactures off-the-shelf and custom in-wheel electric powertrain technology for the automotive industry. The company uses a range of FEM simulation and modelling tools across its design and development lifecycle. The company’s CTO, Gorazd Gotovac, explained some of the challenges the team faces: ‘Since we design the most
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“The linking of the two worlds – numerical and analytical – is challenging but very rewarding in terms of result accuracy and speed balance”
torque-dense e-motors in the world, we often need to take into account a lot of details already during the optimisation steps, or else we risk choosing a non- optimal design, which leads to late changes in the design process and costly overruns.’
‘Some of these details, especially the ones that depend on geometric nuances, are obtained much more accurately with finite element analysis than by analytical equation – however, optimisation algorithms require a large number of calculations and transient multi-physics calculations tend to be too slow to allow algorithm convergence,’ he added. As a result, the simulation needs to
perform the minimum required numerical calculations and obtain results from the underlying analytical model. ‘The linking of the two worlds – numerical and analytical – is challenging but very rewarding in
terms of result accuracy and speed balance,’ Gotovac explained. This need for speed was apparent when
Volkswagen Motorsport recently beat the time record at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Its first fully-electric race car was developed with the help of ANSYS’ simulation solutions and driven by racing professional Romain Dumas. Volkswagen Motorsport engineers
carried out complete virtual drive tests of the entire race to help optimise the battery cooling system with minimal weight and aerodynamic drag loss. The engineers also replicated the course’s extreme driving conditions using this multiphysics solution. François-Xavier Demaison, technical
director at Volkswagen Motorsport and I.D. R Pikes Peak project, said: ‘Behind the wheel of the 680hp sports car prototype, Dumas mastered the track and the battery cooling system performed precisely as simulations predicted. ANSYS provided us [with] the competitive edge to outperform the high altitude and challenging turns and set a new world record.’
Moving to multiphysics Multiphysics simulation and modelling tools help optimise the many interacting systems now found in our vehicles.
June/July 2019 Scientific Computing World 27
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VW Motorsport
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