The design and manufacture of industrial equipment is a major challenge for mechanical engineers, as such equipment is extremely large and heavy and must frequently operate under heavy loads and for long operating cycles. If it fails, it is not only expensive but can be dangerous to operators as well. Therefore, it is critical that engineers are able to ensure that industrial equipment will perform reliably before it is manufactured.
Simulation allows for industrial equipment to be modeled and tested virtually before it is manufactured and put to work in the real world. SIMULIA’s simulation tools enable industrial equipment manufacturers and engineers to ensure the safety and effectiveness of these machines in the pre-production stages, reducing development time and cost.
Customers using Dassault Systèmes tools have seen 10% and 40% increase in speed in simulation models set-up and have also found that updating the simulation after a design change is up to 10 times faster.
What types of situations are these users testing in their simulations? One common issue is weld fatigue, which is commonly caused by vibration and can occur in multiple types of industrial equipment. SIMULIA software can analyze the fatigue life of welded joints by using vibration loads from either simulation or test data. Another workflow offered by SIMULIA software is induction hardening, which increases the hardness of materials in a selective and controlled way. Simulating this process requires modeling three different physics that are strongly coupled: electromagnetic, to simulate the induced current and Joule losses; thermal, to calculate how electric power losses heat up the metal; and structural, to model the transformation of material and calculate residual stresses.
Another process that can be simulated is shot peening, which is often used to shape and strengthen components such as crankshafts and turbine blades. Simulation can be used to assess the performance of the shot peening process and to verify that fatigue life targets can be met. These are only a few of the workflows SIMULIA is capable of modeling.
Sectors that can benefit from these and other SIMULIA workflows include industrial machinery, heavy mobile equipment, turbomachinery, and powertrain. These industries are seeing changes due to new smart manufacturing methods, which require more sophisticated machinery. Industrial equipment operators are also demanding customized equipment tailored to their personal requirements, which presents another challenge for the manufacturers of this equipment.
Industrial equipment manufacturers must work quickly and smartly in order to keep costs down and deliver quality, reliable equipment on time while dealing with increases in product variants, equipment combinations and design concepts. Simulation allows them to reduce the number of prototypes needed while quickly analyzing structural integrity and fatigue over the entire life cycle of the equipment, as well as modeling its performance in a challenging real-world environment such as a construction site or mine.
SIMULIA offers an advanced simulation product portfolio, including Abaqus, Isight, fe-safe, Tosca, Simpoe-Mold, SIMPACK, CST Stuido Suite, XFlow, PowerFLOW and more. The SIMULIA Learning Community is the place to find the latest resources for SIMULIA software and to collaborate with other users. The key that unlocks the door of innovative thinking and knowledge building, the SIMULIA Learning Community provides you with the tools you need to expand your knowledge, whenever and wherever.
Clare Scott is a SIMULIA Creative Content Advocacy Specialist at Dassault Systèmes. Prior to her work here, she wrote about the additive manufacturing industry for 3DPrint.com. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Hiram College and a Master of Arts from University College Dublin. Clare works out of Dassault Systèmes’ Cleveland, Ohio office and enjoys reading, acting in local theatre and spending time outdoors.