QUALITY PRODUCTS FASTER WITH VIRTUAL SIMULATION

With new models of cars, aircrafts, industrial machines, white goods, consumer electronics and medical equipment being churned out rapidly by manufactures, engineering leads times have reduced dramatically. Adding to the dilemma are drastically reduced budgets for physical testing.

Manufacturers the world over are moving over towards adopting computer simulation technologies that allow for virtual simulation of complex physical systems. As a result, physical testing that used to involve large investments and approximately four to six months has been replaced by virtual simulation, which can accomplish the same task in less than a month and with much smaller investments.

By analyzing product design using virtual simulation in the early phases of development, manufacturers can make changes to designs easily and inexpensively. Design changes during the latter stages of product manufacture like prototype testing and production can be very costly and design changes to rectify an error after the product has been sold can translate to embarrassing recalls and expensive warranty claims.

One of the greatest benefits of virtual simulation early on in development is that manufacturers can run “what-if” scenarios and come up with better designs. By allowing engineers to simulate a variety of physical phenomena acting on a part and showing the results via an intuitively understood graphical representation, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) offers a means to help reduce design cycle time.

FEA is the use of a complex system of points called nodes that form a grid or mesh, across a surface or solid model. The mesh contains the material and structural properties that define how the part will react to certain loading conditions. Hence it can be said that, FEA is a numerical method used to solve a variety of engineering problems with complicated geometries, material properties and loadings that involve stress, heat transfer, electromagnetism and fluid flow.

Finite Element Analysis:

Some of the FEA analysis of interest to manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, industrial machinery, white goods, consumer electronics and medical equipment industries include:

• Body Stiffness/ Strength Analysis
• Crash/ Impact Analysis
• Chassis Analysis
• Power train Analysis
• Suspension Analysis
• Random Vibration Analysis
• Aerodynamics
• Stress Analysis
• Composite Material Analysis
• Fatigue Analysis
• Thermal Analysis
• Rotor Dynamics
• Fluid Dynamics
• Electromagnetic analysis
• Printed Circuit Board analysis
• Weld or Riveted Joint Analysis
• Noise Vibration Harshness Analysis
• Mechanism motion Analysis
• Seismic analysis

Design analysis using NISA

The need for design analysis can be demonstrated by discussing a real-life situation where a manufacturer needs to launch a bus in a developing country in a short period of time. Illustrated below is a typical example of design analysis coming to the rescue of manufacturers with the help of cost effective and accurate solutions.

The CAD design is ready and work on the production drawings is about to start. But then realization dawns;

• The bus is being built for a developing country with uneven roads with deep pot-holes.
• Will the body, suspension and other parts withstand the large deformations and stresses the bus will experience in service?
• Production deadlines are approaching and the project is over budget. Answers are needed and fast.
• Building a prototype and physically testing it will be impractical.

All that is required is the CAD model and a FEA simulation package such as NISA. The analysis is completed in 5 easy steps.