Briefings: September 2005

By DE Editors

Industry News, Reports, and Items of Interest 

Record-Time Redesign Helps Lance Win Tour #7

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong rode a Trek bicycle during his victory this past July. What’s not generally known is that the high-tech two-wheeler was designed in just four weeks on workstations powered by an AMD Opteron processor with direct-connect architecture.

Founded in 1976, Trek is a leader in bicycle products and accessories. Its Advanced Concept Group completely redesigned the Time Trial (TT) bike on AMD64-based workstations from HP and BOXX to create the new “TTx” three months faster than a previous Trek redesign of similar scope.

In April, Trek’s Advanced Concept Group got the job to completely redesign the bike in an unprecedented 30 days. The accelerated timeframe was required to allow adequate time to test the bike prior to the Tour.

“To consistently improve bicycle performance, Trek regularly looks to improve our product development tools,” says Michael Sagan, the senior designer and technology principal for Trek’s Advanced Concepts Group. “The mind-blowing computing power of AMD64 technology, combined with great solutions from HP and BOXX, play a key role in these improvements.”

Trek experienced 50% improvements in processing speed when running CFdesign computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software from Blue Ridge Numerics. CFdesign was used to fine-tune the TTx’s aerodynamics on the dual-processing HP xw9300 workstation. The design team used this time to test more iterations than normally possible, eventually hitting on the optimal solution.

AMD designs and makes microprocessors, flash memory devices, and low-power processor solutions for the computer, communications, and consumer electronics industries.

For a discussion of the drag cyclists experience during the critical time trial stages of the Tour, see “Taking the Drag out of the Tour de France,” in the August DE by clicking here. STAR-CAD Series CFD software from CD-adapco was used in that independent examination.

AMD  •  Sunnyvale, CA

Blue Ridge Numerics  •  Charlottesville, VA

Trek Bicycles  •  Waterloo, WI

BOXX Technologies  •  Austin, TX

CD-adapco  •  Melville, NY

HP  •  Palo Alto, CA

FEMLAB Changes Handle and Adds Features to 3.2

On September 6, COMSOL announced that it had changed the name of its FEMLAB mathematical-modeling and simulation software to COMSOL Multiphysics. Concurrently, it released COMSOL Multiphysics version 3.2.

A key new feature is COMSOL Script, a command-line interface and modeling language with some 500 commands for numeric analysis, matrix operations, and visualization. When run within COMSOL Multiphysics, Script enables users to access all functions within the package, call Script functions from within the Multiphysics GUI to define any property of a model, and more.

Also new in COMSOL Multiphysics 3.2 is the ability to choose consistent units when setting up a model and a Moving Mesh mode to simulate geometries with moving parts.

An optional suite of MCAD import modules enables COMSOL Multiphysics 3.2 to read geometry from major CAD products, including CATIA V4/5, Inventor, Pro/E, Solid Edge, SolidWorks, and NX.

For complete details on COMSOL Multiphysics 3.2, go to the company’s website.

COMSOL, Inc.  •  Burlington, MA

New Fluke Website Offers Predictive Maintenance Info

Fluke Corp. has launched a new website, fluke.com/pdm, which features tools and educational material on predictive maintenance (PdM) and preventive maintenance for a wide range of environments. Fluke, a provider of electronic test tools, says that the website is designed as a resource both for experienced professionals running sophisticated predictive maintenance programs as well as for users just starting such a program.

The site offers business, technical, and application information on Fluke tools specifically designed for PdM applications, including power quality tools, insulation testers, infrared imagers, and logging multimeters.

Fluke Corp.  •  Everett, WA

UGS Focuses On PLM in Teamcenter 2005

UGS Corp. has announced Teamcenter 2005, a major release of the entire portfolio of its digital lifecycle management solution. Teamcenter 2005 integrates idea management and requirements planning with comprehensive digital product development, digital manufacturing, and digital lifecycle management processes. The focus for Teamcenter 2005, says UGS, is on addressing three critical product development and lifecycle management initiatives: new product development and introduction (NPDI), global product development, and regulatory compliance.

Teamcenter serves as the enterprise collaboration backbone that provides a comprehensive integrated digital manufacturing process. With Teamcenter 2005, UGS delivers a new platform technology that speeds implementations across all aspects of a product’s lifecycle. It delivers fully integrated applications for upfront product planning and strategy, along with enhanced integration to Microsoft Office applications.

For capturing an organization’s best ideas and building them into innovative products, Teamcenter 2005’s NPDI capabilities build off common MS Office tools, provide functionality to promote and capture innovation, and support an open and collaborative environment for sharing ideas within and outside an organization. It also provides frameworks for collaborative decision support, management and coordination of new product development and introduction, and a framework of planning and execution tools that optimize product and services launch processes.

Teamcenter 2005 offers a variety of functionality to support global product development, including simplified installation and deployment of automated digital validation capabilities. It offers enhanced integration with the Microsoft Office System, Windows Server, and Windows Share Point Services v2; expanded multi-CAD management with added support for UGS NX CAE/Routing, Autodesk Inventor, Mentor Graphics harness, Cadence PCB, Zuken PCB, and ECAD visualization; product definition management tools for CAD integration and product structure, configuration, and change management; project management capabilities; and the ability to synchronize design data, share design models in workflow-driven processes, and collaborate across a fully digital product development environment.

Teamcenter 2005 introduces several new enhancements that enable companies to strike a balance between regulatory compliance and lifecycle performance. These include a functional foundation that enables users to directly enforce and validate regulatory compliance. Key capabilities include the management of information access, retrieval, and retention, along with process visibility and integrity.

Teamcenter 2005’s enhanced document and records retention management capabilities support DoD 5015.2 standards. This foundation also provides the base for process-specific and industry-driven compliance including Sarbanes Oxley compliance management; environmental mandates such as ELV, RoHS, and WEEE; medical device mandates such as CFR Part 11 and 820; and export controls such as ITAR and EAR.