Roush Fenway Racing Accelerating Race Car Development with Siemens Solutions

Automotive Roush Fenway Racing Accelerating race car development with Siemens solutions Products NX, Teamcenter NX and Teamcenter help Racing’s fast-paced research and develop- improve productivity and reduce ment for more than 20 years. Business challenges time to market Faster complex surface modeling Compressed time cycles with Roush Fenway engineers rely on the power- continuously changing rules A dominant force in motorsports ful design tools of NX to improve and designs With eight championships in NASCAR’s top productivity and reduce development time. three divisions, Roush Fenway Racing is a Customize designs to specific One example is design of components with dominant force in motorsports. The com- race conditions complex surface geometry, such as ducts for pany has used product lifecycle brake cooling. Traditional surface modeling Rapidly engineer performance management (PLM) solutions from software required tedious and error-prone improvements Siemens Digital Industries Software since procedures. “Years ago I did a lot of our sur- Improve speed of complex its initial deployment of NX™ software for face modeling,” says Mike Janow, design surface design computer-aided design (CAD) and com- manager. “Typically, that involved sweeping puter-aided engineering (CAE), followed Comply with racing profile shapes along guide curves, which by implementation of Teamcenter® soft- regulations takes a lot of time.” Alex Lenzmeier, a ware for product lifecycle management. design engineer at Roush Fenway Racing, The Xcelerator portfolio of software and adds, “With previous surfacing techniques, Keys to success services from Siemens Digital Industries the modeling often failed when you tried to Mindset for rapid engineering Software has supported Roush Fenway Flexible design methods Implement Siemens solutions for design, simulation and collaboration Results Reduced design time for components with complex surfaces by up to 80 percent Reduced component lead times with advanced design and manufacturing technologies Improved collaboration for fast-paced engineering Photo credit: Action Sports Photography siemens.com/software The complex aerodynamic geometry of the brake ducts must be modified for each configuration to fit around suspension components like shock absorbers. Roush Fenway Racing improved time to market for brake ducts using the Realize Shape™ modeling capability, introduced a few years ago in NX. Realize Shape uses a subdivision modeling approach – designers begin with primitive shapes, around which are control cages. When moved, the Photo credit: Action Sports Photography cage pulls edges and vertices of the geometry, and polygonal elements can be make changes, for example to package the subdivided for greater control and refine- model around different components.” ment of the shape. Designers can push and pull the model using intuitive inputs Cumbersome surface modeling techniques with instant visual feedback to sculpt the limited Roush Fenway Racing’s ability to shape. The result is a solid model with quickly engineer components for specific high-quality engineering surfaces that can race conditions and racetracks. be used in simulation and manufacturing. “Superspeedways, intermediate and short tracks all require different suspension con- “With Realize Shape, once you get the figurations, and different suspensions hang of it, it’s pretty intuitive,” says require unique brake ducts,” says Janow. Lenzmeier. “It’s almost like you’re “ With Realize Shape, once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty intuitive. It’s almost like you’re modeling clay.” Alex Lenzmeier Design Engineer Roush Fenway Racing “ Realize Shape is definitely a game-changer as far as the resources needed to design and manufacture these ducts.” Mike Janow Design Manager Roush Fenway Racing Photo credit: Action Sports Photography modeling clay, if you will. It helps to have Additive manufacturing a design envelope that you’re working Roush Fenway Racing uses the 3D printing within, so you can almost use it as a tem- capabilities of NX to manufacture the plate. When you create the cage, you can brake ducts from carbon fiber composite move the nodes around to create this qual- materials. The company uses the duct ity, flowing surface that is beneficial for models to design molds for composite airflow, and can be used directly in down- layup, and feeds the model data to an stream processes.” additive manufacturing machine. The 3D printed molds are used to shape the car- The use of Realize Shape at Roush Fenway bon fiber plies and resin prior to and Racing has yielded significant time gains. during curing. “We are also using additive “Realize Shape is definitely a game-changer manufacturing in rapid prototyping for as far as the resources needed to design wind tunnel testing,” says Lenzmeier. “For and manufacture these ducts,” Janow says. composite tooling, we jump at the oppor- Lenzmeier concurs: “You can cut out half tunity because it helps us get to market the time versus problematic traditional faster.” techniques using Realize Shape.” Design of the air ducts takes advantage of additional NX tools, including assembly design associativity and the NX re-use library. “With the re-use library, we can re-use the time and effort we put into a previous design as a template for new designs,” says Lenzmeier. “We have right and left-hand symmetrical models of the ducts in the library. We use WAVE link ref- erence features based on the suspension packaging constraints, and re-associate them with the template features on the library model. It’s as easy as saying ‘stay away from this, connect to that.’” “ When you create the cage, you can move the nodes around to create this quality, flowing surface that is beneficial for airflow, and can be used directly in downstream processes.” Alex Lenzmeier Design Engineer Roush Fenway Racing Photo credit: Action Sports Photography Reverse engineering swapped on and off the car.” From analysis Virtually all NASCAR performance advan- of wind tunnel data, promising concepts tages come through aerodynamics engi- are assigned to design engineers to make neering. “Aerodynamics is everything,” them manufacturable and get them to the says Janow. “Weight is important, but the track as quickly as possible. The use of biggest driver for performance, the num- reverse engineering is often the most effi- ber one thing that has the most return on cient way to get them into production. investment, is aero. We’re always trying to find the balance between downforce and “If we develop a new widget in the wind drag.” tunnel that can have some performance gain on the track, we can scan the widget Testing of prototypes in wind tunnels is a and import it as a faceted body into NX,” key process in refining aerodynamic says Janow. With the Convergent designs. At Roush Fenway Racing, a dedi- Modeling™ technology of NX, engineers cated group of aerodynamic specialists test can directly work on the scanned data. clay or sheet metal designs in the wind “We can actually do work on the faceted tunnel. “We’ve put most of our resources body, rather than just using it as a refer- into full-scale tunnel testing,” Janow ence to basically remodel the component,” explains. “Prior to every test, there are a says Lenzmeier. “If we don’t have to re- couple of weeks of preparation, making all model the component and go straight of the prototype components that get from the scan with a little cleanup, it certainly saves time.” Continuously changing regulations One of the facts of life for NASCAR racing teams is continuous changes in rules and regulations. NASCAR restrictions include dimensional tolerances, such as ± 0.150 inches on body surfaces. The specifications allow teams to make changes prior to the event, requiring close attention to details. “Every year, you get new rules,” says Janow.” One year you might be able to pull Solutions/Services NX siemens.com/nx Teamcenter siemens.com/teamcenter Customer’s primary business Roush Fenway Racing boasts Photo credit: Action Sports Photography eight championships in NASCAR’s top three divisions air from under the hood, and the next year With a central repository for all design, and has established itself as a you can only pull from nose ducts, so you simulation and manufacturing informa- dominant force in the sport. have to change your configuration. One tion, Teamcenter helps Roush Fenway www.roushfenway.com year you might be allowed to run five-inch Racing control versions and revisions and diameter inlets, and then the next year manage the development processes in they make a new maximum of four inches.” rapid-pace engineering. The team always Customer location works from the latest CAD models, and Concord, North Carolina Collaboration with Teamcenter changes made by each team member are USA Collaboration using Teamcenter is one of communicated immediately to others. the most important aspects of operating in a compressed time cycle involving ever- Engineers can use Teamcenter to auto- changing rules and designs. “When I matically create bills of materials (BOMs) started working at Roush Fenway Racing in for vendors and purchasing agents for all 2001, all the designs were stored in local car subsystems, eliminating errors from file structures, whether on individual desk- outdated spreadsheets or manual copy- tops or in a shared folder,’ says Janow. and-paste. Purchasing agents and the “Once we implemented Teamcenter, it was quality department are all Teamcenter like flipping a productivity light switch, for users, and Teamcenter is the standard obvious reasons. Now we can collaborate, platform for communicating with engi- have several design engineers working neering on BOMs, project status and simultaneously and we can even work drawings. from home seamlessly.” “ When I started working at Roush in 2001, all the designs were stored in local file structures, whether on individual desktops or in a shared folder. Once we implemented Teamcenter, it was like flipping a productivity light switch, for obvious reasons.” Mike Janow Design Manager Roush Fenway Racing Siemens Digital Industries Software Americas +1 314 264 8499 © 2020 Siemens.

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