Analysis Driven Design—Not Just For the Expert Anymore

By Peter Varhol

Most design engineers havent hadan opportunity to fully exercisetheir skills and creativity in designingnew products. Because of theneed to do finite element analysis and simulationon large clusters or supercomputers,designing on the desktop was largely hit ormiss. It wasnt possible to create a design,run the analysis, and incorporate the resultsback in order to fine-tune the design. Youneeded an expert and access to an expensiveand often complicated high-end cluster orsupercomputer to analyze a design and employthe results to improve the design. Unlessthe analysis indicated an inadequate design,the engineer took the results of a singleanalysis and made final adjustments to a design.While it met the defined design criteriait may not have been the optimal design.

That approach is changing, thanks to theaffordable power of engineering workstationsand work group high performanceclusters. With these tools, engineers cancomplete virtually all of the initial designwork on the desktop, rather than takinga design as far as it can go on the desktop,then sending it to a supercomputer orcluster to perform a structural or dynamicanalysis. Now, analysis and simulation canbe done by all design engineers as a part ofthe design process. Any design engineercan be an expert in analysis and simulation,performed on the desktop workstation.

Today, its possible to create a design, performmultiple analyses and even a simulationof the design, make adjustments basedon the results, and run the analysis againto ensure its correctness. Its also possibleto test different designs altogether to determinethe most appropriate one.

Technologies That Are Changing the Game
What is driving this new approach to designengineering? Two technology breakthroughs;first, users now have access toinexpensive workstations and workgroupclusters based on the new 64-bit Intel ®  Xeon ® processor 5600 series. These workstationsand work group clusters deliverthe compute capacity of high performancecomputers that were in a glass room just afew years ago. Second, the transformationfrom discrete software tools into organizedand democratized software suites fromcompanies like ANSYS, SolidWorks andothers are easier to use by more than justthe expert simulation engineer.

The result is analysis driven design is nolonger a luxury, it is a mandate to deliveringnewer, more innovative products tomarket faster than ever before. Todays newworkstations are now capable of computingfinite element analysis, multiphysics analysis,fluid dynamics, and other sophisticatedprocesses at your desk.

And with technologies from Intel likeIntel ® Turbo Boost and Intel ® Hyper-threading technologies performance of CAD andCAE tools is getting faster than ever.

It’s Time for Analysis Driven Design
With the advent of new hardware and softwaretechnologies it is now time to re-evaluatehow you design and develop products.It is time to change the workflow and optimizeit to leverage new tools.

Desktop engineering workstations takeanalyses that used to require hours andcan now be accomplished in a matter ofminutes. If a larger analysis is required,engineering teams can implement a highlyeffective and affordable workgroup highperformancecluster. These clusters, availablefrom companies like SGI, Appro andothers, take advantage of the Intel ® ClusterReady specification. The specification isdesigned to minimize traditional support,installation, and deployment issues. Organizationswill see entirely new systems withamazingly simple deployments utilizingIntel ® Cluster Ready certified hardware andsoftware components. Intel Cluster Readysimplifies the HPC solution requirementsfor large and small organizations.

These hardware and software technologiesshould cause a paradigm shift in howwe approach product development. Engineersneed be given tools that give them anopportunity to design the optimal productand not simply an adequate product.

As engineering teams consider technologyupgrades, they should evaluate the economicand product development benefi ts ofanalysis driven design workflows and contrastthat benefit to the small incrementalinvestment in dual processor workstationtechnology and work group focused HPCclusters. They may find these investmentscan save time and produce better productsthat not only boost a businesss competitivenessbut also result in faster time to market.Last, it saves the most valuable commodity “the engineers time and skill, which canbetter be put to use on improved designs ormore design projects.

More Info

Intel Corp.:
intel.com/go/workstation
intel.com/go/hpc
intel.com/go/cluster