Full Spectrum CAE Solutions

By Dennis Nagy, CD-adapco

Since you are reading this commentary, you obviously have an interest in CAE and simulation. But the real question is, why? CAE has been around for decades and has made great progress in the speed and accuracy with which meaningful answers to real problems can be obtained. The key word here is “meaningful.” The old maxim “the purpose of computing is insight, not numbers” applies. We do CAE throughout the product development process to better understand the functional behavior of products and processes being designed for commercial—i.e., money-making—purposes. Industry has come to realize that the expense of design or product creation drives overall product lifecycle costs, profit, and ultimately shareholder value to a much greater extent than the cost of the engineering development. Thus,  product creation is a highly leveraged activity.

CAE simulation has made enough practical progress to reveal to management the time- and cost-saving potential of virtual product development. Computer modeling and simulation can now be used to eliminate many costly physical prototypes, sometimes providing insight not observable from physical tests. They shorten the development stage of the product lifecycle, and allow time for many more what-if examinations of design alternatives, enabling designers to look further “outside the box” for really innovative product ideas.
The better understanding gained through CAE can facilitate better development decisions (in the business payback sense). For that to be true, however, simulations must be done in a timely manner as early as possible in the development process, and simulations must be accurate enough to provide the needed insight. This recognition has given rise to the now-popular concept of “Upfront CAE.”

Equally important, however, and often overlooked, is the need for sufficiently realistic modeling of the actual physical behavior being investigated. The authentic physics of the product and its environment determine what capabilities are needed in the CAE solution, not vice-versa. The trade-off between the popular ease-of-use dimension and the physical requirements of the problem being investigated never ends. A quick, easy-to-obtain  answer to the wrong problem—i.e., a problem too simplified for the software’s convenience—does no one any good. Oversimplification can, in fact, result in much bigger and more costly to repair product performance problems later in the product lifecycle.

In other words, CAE has a wide range of business usefulness across the whole spectrum of problems encountered in industry. But CAE is useful across this spectrum of problems only if the vendor’s solutions—software, training, related consulting services—are tailored appropriately to the spectrum of problems that business needs addressed: quick examinations, specialized solutions, and expert-level engineering.

For quick examination of more ideas early in the development process,  design engineers need easy-to-use tools closely linked to their conceptual design tools, such as 3D MCAD. This “upfront” use is often their first encounter with CAE, their gateway to applying more advanced CAE more frequently as their experience and problem challenges grow.

But as development details evolve, the degree of accuracy needed in the simulations also increases. However, these situations are still a mainstream part of complex technical product/process development. Here,  engineers need specialized solutions—i.e., vertical applications—customized to their particular repetitive workflow. Models developed, and experienced gained, in the upfront use of CAE can be migrated into this phase of product development without any loss of time or information if the software vendors’ solutions offer a full spectrum of capabilities and assistance.

Finally, specialists will always be called upon to tackle the toughest CAE simulations. Here, the combination of complex physics and complex geometry pushes the limits of available technology, either in the validation or troubleshooting stages of the product development cycle. Full-spectrum solutions must accommodate these cases as well, or they cannot honestly call themselves “full-spectrum solutions.”

Dr. Dennis Nagy is the vice president of Marketing and Strategic Planning for CD-adapco (Melville, NY and London, UK). Send your thoughts about this commentary through e-mail by clicking here.