The world of vehicles is a large and diverse one, with a wide variety of designs and architectures. These architectures are becoming even more varied as new types of vehicles like autonomous and electric cars become more common. These vehicles are further disrupting the automotive industry, creating more competition and speeding time to market. With so many vehicle architectures in existence, it is a challenge for engineers to quickly and efficiently explore the many alternative designs early in the design cycle.
A number of reasons exist for this challenge. Limited tools and systems exist for creating and managing accurate predictive models. Users are also limited in their ability to reuse IP from past programs, and it is difficult to efficiently integrate and maintain simulation models from different domains in automated processes for design exploration.
Customer demands are becoming stricter, as well. Customers want excellent fuel economy, range, safety, and reliability as well as the latest technology and style. As manufacturers strive to meet these needs, it becomes harder to predict and trade off performance across different multidisciplinary workflows. The increasing complexity of vehicles is difficult to manage at the concept design phase, and no integrated solution exists between packaging, styling, simulation and testing, which makes design decisions tougher in the case of conflicts.
In addition to customer demands, regulations are becoming tighter, including WLTP and CLEANAIR regulations. The rapid time to market for these vehicles limits the time available for analysis, and architects and domain experts tend to operate in silos with little communication and knowledge-sharing between them.
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is designed to help engineers collaborate with each other instead of isolating themselves. This collaborative environment allows for better management of customer requirements, concept architectures and predictive models, resulting in efficient multidisciplinary trade-off studies and better designs early in the process.
The systematic use of predictive models made possible by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can result in up to 10 percent reduction in time to market, as well as physical improvements like significant reduction in weight. Designs can be evaluated more efficiently, reducing the workload for routine tasks from days to hours and helping engineers to discover optimal designs faster.
SIMULIA’s solutions for performance driven architecture are multifaceted and allow engineers to save not only time but money and labor as well. In such a competitive market, such savings are extremely valuable, helping manufacturers to edge out over their competitors.
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.