The Virtual Prototyping Magazine Lighter is Better How Virtual Prototyping Helps Smaller Companies Develop Lighter and Greener Products special report SL Rasch Relies on Virtual Performance Solution to Achieve Architectural Excellence Register: www.esi-group.com/CompositesSeminar2015 Contents Editorial 04 special report Lighter is Better: How Virtual Prototyping Helps Smaller Companies Develop Lighter and Greener Products Fouad El-Khaldi Industry Strategy & Innovation 09 customer success General Manager, Casting Simulation Helps Honda Cut Die Design Trials ESI Group Significantly Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe Increases its Competitiveness with IC.IDO SL Rasch Relies on Virtual Performance Solution to Achieve Architectural Excellence Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) today are unaware AEROCAMPUS Aquitaine Adopts IC.IDO to Offer of the value Virtual Prototyping software can bring to their Virtual Reality to its Trainees University of Ulster Relies on PAM-STAMP to Develop business. Common perception may be that the technology Innovative Manufacturing Processes for an Aeronautic is too complex or too expensive and, thus, accessible only Part to larger organizations. This is a misconception today: the Inegi Uses ProCAST to Manufacture Hip Prostheses technical and financial barriers preventing small companies Cost Effectively from switching to numerical modeling are disappearing (page4). Comil Ônibus Reduces Distortion by 75% Using Weld Planner Simulation Software Technology is part of our daily lives and simulation is everywhere – from childhood games to models of our planet 16 corporate success Earth, our weather and our economies. Today, graduating Saving Lives with Virtual Prototyping engineers enter the workforce equipped to develop computer 18 product success models using simulation software. Employers can build Visual-Environment 10.0 Delivers Key Improvements on this expertise and subsequently assure that engineers for Computational Fluid Dynamics and maintenance operators alike are trained in the latest Introducing the New IC.IDO 10 technologies and enjoy successful and rewarding careers. In this edition of ESI Talk we report (on page 12) such an 20 corporate evolution at Aerocampus Aquitaine, Europe’s largest training Looking Back on ESI Global Forum 2014 center for aeronautic maintenance. Students are trained in ESI Wins a Prize Recognizing its Growth Over the Past the latest aircraft maintenance procedures using Virtual Reality 3 Years installations to visualize and interact with virtual engines and 22 events other aircraft equipment. Computer hardware and the IT Save the Date! infrastructure necessary to conduct such simulations are increasingly affordable, while “software on demand” and Cloud 23 financial Computing make even the most advanced simulation tools Sales for the 3rd Quarter of 2014 accessible. Nomination of Two Independent Directors Using simulation software to build models and virtual prototypes is proving to be cost and time-effective in esi talk is issued bi-annually by ESI Group All PAM - and SYS - product names as well as comparison with conventional methods, and helps companies Executive Editor: Amy de Rouvray other products belonging to ESI’s portfolio, Editor-in-Chief: Celine Gallerne including OpenFOAM® are tradenames or get new products “right first time”. Design errors detected [email protected] trademarks of ESI Group, unless specifically ESI Group Marketing mentioned. All other trademarks are the early in the development cycle can save companies costly Parc d’Affaires SILIC property of their respective owners. 99, rue des Solets - BP 80112 All text and images included in the articles are 94513 Rungis Cedex - FRANCE iterations (representing millions of Euros). Read our Special the copyright of the companies presenting their Tel: +33 (0) 1 41 73 58 00 applications and simulation tasks. Fax: +33 (0) 1 46 87 72 02 Report (p 4-6), on how smaller companies are using virtual www.esi-group.com [email protected] Photo credits: Expliseat, Euros, Acoudesign, Design: Herbatnik Studio Honda of America, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power prototyping to design and manufacture highly innovative parts ISSN 12105-1739 Systems, SL Rasch, Aerocampus Aquitaine, Print: Groupe Dupli-Print University of Ulster, Inegi, Comil, Renault, and components with minimum initial investment and in the 2 Rue Descartes ZI Sezac - 95330 Domont Audi AG. Dépôt légal: Janvier 2015 G.OM.15.23A shortest amount of time. issue 45 : winter 2014 3 special report Lighter is Better How Virtual Prototyping Helps Smaller Companies Develop Lighter and Greener Products Pressure to reduce weight has been guiding innovations must be carefully investigated to avoid design errors and in the mobility sector for decades. Today lightweight costly surprises. manufacturing is crucial to reduce fuel consumption, But product testing has a cost – a cost that can prevent CO , and greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond automotive 2 smaller businesses from entering the game. This is where and aerospace, other sectors such as electronics or ESI comes into the equation: by proposing reliable Virtual architecture are also exploring the use of lightweight Prototyping software and services. Enabling engineers materials to achieve greater efficiency, save costs or to get their products right the first time, ESI relieves simply make ground-breaking designs possible. small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the high initial investment formerly required to test and certify a Whatever the industry, lighter alternatives are product. constantly being made available – benefiting from ultra-high strength steel, aluminum, and composite ESI’s simulation solutions empower smaller businesses to materials, to name a few options. These innovative develop the right simulation and optimization strategies lightweight materials need to be thoroughly evaluated and thereby develop, certify and launch their new to avoid product failure, gain certifications required for products faster – and secure revenue earlier. commercialization, guarantee product usability, comfort We feature in this article several compelling examples of and durability. The manufacture of lightweight parts, their companies who, despite a troubled economic climate, physical properties, performance and usage in different managed to get ahead of their game and deliver truly environments under normal or accidental conditions fantastic innovations, thanks to Virtual Prototyping. 4 special report Expliseat releases the world’s lightest aircraft seat French company Expliseat used ESI’s Virtual Seat Solution to develop the revolutionary Titanium Seat, the lightest seat ever certified by both the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). ”Virtual Seat Solution has helped us reduce drastically the development time usually required to design an innovative product, and has allowed us to increase the business value of our company in record time!” Dr. Vincent Tejedor, Chief Technical Officer of Expliseat Thanks to Virtual Seat Solution, Expliseat was able to develop fully virtual seat prototypes; easily conducting many iterations without the need to build numerous (and costly) real prototypes. The company was also able to develop and test newly patented technologies that are used to absorb the shocks felt by aircraft passengers inflight, and thereby increase their comfort. Available for Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 aircraft, the new Titanium Seat weighs only 4 kilograms, a 50 percent weight saving compared with today’s lightest models (8 to 10 kilograms). It fulfills the many requirements of an economy class seat: light weight, sleek design, excellent ergonomics, ease of personalization, safety, and From top to bottom: Expliseat Titanium Seat: real seat, real prototype and virtual prototype. durability. The super-lightweight seat respects all EU and US safety standards and is now approved for flight on EUROS manufactures its first ever board any airline in the world. The seat allows airlines to benefit from an estimated 3 to 5 percent fuel saving – 80-meter long composite rotor blade a considerable gain for our environment and representing To achieve lightweight wind blades, the wind industry $ 300,000 to $ 500,000 savings per aircraft per year. generally favors composite materials – a choice hard to The contribution of numerical simulation is best reconcile with increasing length requirements. expressed in the words: German company EUROS manufactures its long composite rotor blades by Vacuum Assisted Resin ”Virtual Prototyping is a proven industrial approach to Infusion (VARI). Recently, the company needed to develop pre-certify the manufacturing process and performance a specific process to enable the manufacturing of an of an innovative product, such as our Titanium seat. 80-meter long wind turbine rotor blade, the biggest they Our experience working with ESI’s Virtual Seat Solution had ever made. confirms the efficiency of this solution in speeding up innovation.” Usually, this would have required several infusion trials. Dr. Vincent Tejedor, The costs of each trial are high and increase quickly with Chief Technical Officer of Expliseat blade length and design complexity, as does the process development time. issue 45 : winter 2014 5 special report In view of the challenges, EUROS decided to introduce To undertake the complex vibro-acoustic analysis simulation as a means to better understand the VARI needed, Acoudesign chose VA One; software from ESI process