Post on 19-Jun-2015
Dr Stefan Gaßmann, Dr Axel Hänschke
CAE @ Ford
2011 European HyperWorks Technology Conference
Bonn, November 8–9, 2011
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A few words about Ford
The Ford CAE landscape
The Challenges CAE faces
Opportunities that we should leverage
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Ford
Global Company
• Global
– 166,000 employees
– 70 plants
– 2 Brands: Ford, Lincoln
– Market Share 2010:
16.4% USA
9.8% South America
9.2% Australia
2.5% China, India
• Europe
– 66,000 employees
– 22 plants
– 1 Brand: Ford
– Market Share 2011 YTD:
8.4% EU19
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Global Engineering
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Köln
Germany
Shanghai
China Cuautitlán
Mexico
Chennai
India
Dearborn MI
USA
Broadmeadows
Australia
Camaçari
Brazil
Dunton
UK
Global Manufacturing
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Saarlouis
Germany Chongqin
China
Dearborn MI
USA
Pacheco
Argentinia
Example: C Car
Valencia
Spain
St Petersburg
Russia
Pretoria
South Africa
Santa Rosa
Philippines
Hanoi
Vietnam
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Global Process
• Global
Product
Development
System
(GPDS)
“We have implemented a global product strategy that calls for product
excellence through leadership in design, safety, fuel economy, driving
quality, interior comfort and convenience features and technology –
particularly infotainment,” said Derrick Kuzak, group vice president, Global
Product Development. “This strategy aligns the global product and
technology plans and all vehicle programs around the attributes that
distinguish all Ford vehicles globally in a crowded marketplace.”
The strategy also included the development of a global DNA – a standard
for the way a vehicle should feel, sound, drive and even smell. “Defining a
global DNA ensures the development of vehicles that are ‘unmistakably a
Ford,’” said Kuzak. “It also ensures consistency of engineering and
development within the Ford team and among our supplier partners.”
A global standard also was established for the way Ford products and
components are made. “We all need to be on the same page so that it’s very
clear what our processes and deliverables are and how we communicate
our needs with one another,” said Raj Nair, vice president, Engineering,
Global Product Development. “If we’re trying to reinvent the process every
single time, we’re losing valuable time that could be spent engineering new
vehicles.”
Global Product
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CAE
CAE Toolset
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CAE Toolset
• Finite Element tools with Pre- and Post-Processing
– General purpose: Abaqus implicit, explicit, MSC Nastran, Radioss
implicit, explicit, etc.
– Crash: Radioss explicit, LS-Dyna
– CFD: PowerFLOW (aero), RadTherm (heat protection), Fluent
(cooling, clima, water manaagement), OpenFOAM under review
– General Pre- and Post-Processing tools: ANSA, MetaPost, Animator,
etc.
• Multibody Simulation tools with Pre-and Post-Processing
– ADAMS, ADAMS-Car, MADYMO
• General Purpose Simulation Environments
– MatLAB SimuLINK
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Altair Products in Use
HyperWorks (V10, near future V11)
• HyperMesh (general Pre Processing)
• HyperCrash (Pre Processing for Crash)
• Radioss explicit (Crash and Occupant simulation)
• Radioss implicit (Optistruct, Topology Optimization)
• HyperView/HyperGraph (general Post Processing)
• MotionView / MotionSolve (Open MBS simulation
environment, for kinematic and dynamic simulation)
• HyperStudy, solver independent environment for DOE‘s and
Optimization
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Siemens Teamcenter for Simulation
TC Sim
• Drive the Assembly Process from PLM System
Pre-Processor Solver
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Concept Modelling Method
• Principle types of Modelling – Geometrical representation
• SFE CONCEPT Model Library
Mapping Area
Platform Major Assembly
& Fully Assembled Top Hat Structure
Platform Assembly
Mid Floor Area and Rear Structure
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Challenges
‘Concept’ CAE
• Parametric tools (such as SFE Concept), CAD and CAE are
not seamlessly integrated – as enabler for ‚CAE drives CAD‘
• Existing surrogate CAD models and analyses are often not
easily and efficiently retrievable
• Organisational differences between ‚pre-program‘ and
program teams require tools and/or processes for hand-over
with minimal loss
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Verification CAE
• CAE always traces CAD development by a few weeks –
‘CAE cycle time’
• CAE typically requires high maturity of CAD – surface quality,
detail, geometric compatibility, welds & connectors
– Repair work required for / through CAE
• CAE requires ‘non-geometric data’ such as masses and
inertia, spec and material data that are often stored in
multiple databases
• Where process fails, surrogate data are often not easily and
efficiently retrievable
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Material Data
• CAE requires measured and validated material properties
– Difficult to keep pace with developing ‘new’ materials
• Ford has in house Material database
– Drives necessity to import data from material vendors
• Translation of data into ‚material cards‘ for multiple CAE
codes mostly manual
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CAE Confidence vs. Test Confidence
• CAE models are generally recognised as ‚approximation‘ of
final vehicle, prototypes are usually not
• Quantification of delta Test / CAE expected from CAE –
Quantification of delta prototype test / production vehicle
uncommon
• CAE analyses are typically run at ‚nominal‘ – Tests are often
run at unspecified ‚variability‘ condition
• No metric available to describe overall ‘quality’ of CAE model
– beyond meshing criteria
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Robustness
• Robustness vs. human influence
– Distributed teams for model build, assembly and analyses
– Multitude of software settings (‘header set’) require detailed guidelines
• Robustness vs. solver & infrastructure
– Can results be reproduced on differing hardware or with later software
versions?
– Reduction of noise/scatter of model results in crash analysis
– Translation and migration where different solver are used
• Robustness vs. variability
– Time and resources (people, hardware, licenses) often prevent to fully
exploit variation analyses
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Opportunities
In the Next Release …
• New functionality, additional features and bug fixes are
expected
But also consider
• Ease of Use – for new and distributed resources
• Robustness – against non-optimal input data
• Robustness – against user influence
• Automation – to incorporate material data and properties
• Automation – to update the model after CAD updates
• Automation – to allow for MDO and DoE with less resources
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CAE Life Cycle
• Provide End-to-End Lifecycle
– CAE BoM creation — meshing — model build — analysis results —
CAE sign-off
• Consider early phase without full CAD / BoM
– Vehicles are initially created in conceptual (CAE) tools and mature
into CAD driven by CAE
• Allow for integrated data sharing
– Multiple brands — Efficient reuse of data — suppliers — off-shore
work
• Move from CAD/BoM and Test/Analysis based proposals to
truly integrated approach
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Tool Capability
• Integrated data flow from conceptual design & CAE into CAD
tools
• Extend CAE Confidence / Capability into new physical
phenomena
– Focus on where TGW are in our vehicles
– Consider new vehicle technologies
• Reduce need for multiple niche products
– Quickly integrate specialty tools into large packages
• Develop approaches for intuitive presentation / immersion of
results
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Turn-Around Time
• CAE is fast enough to drive and/or enable decisions in all
phases
• CAE is off the critical path in the development process
• Key requirements
– CAE Lifecycle solution
– Efficient retrieval / reuse / creation of CAE models
– Fully automated mesh generation – model build – analysis
– Software optimisation for compute environment
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Thank You Dr Stefan Gaßmann | sgassman@ford.com | +49.221.9034728
Dr Axel Hänschke | ahaensch@ford.com | +49.221.9033441