Laser Beam Melting (LBM) technology allows for the creation of complex metallic parts without material waste, finding applications in industries such as aerospace. However, the process is essentially a micro welding process, and thermo-mechanical phenomena play a significant role. The heat from the melting material must dissipate, and the force from the contraction of the weld paths must be compensated. To maintain temperature and keep the part attached to the build plate, additional support geometries are added to the part. This not only increases material usage but also necessitates additional post-processing. The process stability is heavily dependent on the support structure. If the supports are not strong enough or do not conduct heat effectively, the quality and shape of the part can deviate from the desired result. Cracking of supports during the process can lead to process abortion, potentially doubling the costs per part, especially for parts being printed for the first time.

DSA, an ocean engineering consultancy and software company, faced a significant challenge in creating high-quality hydrodynamic meshes and models for ship and marine structures. The task of creating high-quality meshes is a complex one in CAD software, as the mesh often isn't well conditioned for hydrodynamic solutions which require a closed surface for resolving hydrodynamic effects such as nonlinear hydrostatics and BEM solution. To build an accurate ship hydrodynamic model, ShipMo3D, one of DSA's software, requires the development of a mesh of the vessel hull. This could be achieved either through the creation of hull lines or through importing an OBJ mesh file created using third-party software. However, both these methods were time-consuming and often resulted in less than optimal meshes.

Trèves Products Services & Innovation, a leading Tier-1 supplier of noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) reduction parts, was facing a challenge in reducing part design and lead time. The traditional approach required expensive and time-consuming physical testing with real parts to account for their multi-layer arrangement and varying thickness. The input parameters for these models also needed to be readily available. Furthermore, the models had to be comprehensive in scope and easy to implement. With the upcoming reduction in pass-by noise emission limits from 70 to 68 dB, expected in 2024, the ability to accurately predict noise levels became essential. The challenge was to replace physical testing with numerical modeling to meet customer expectations and regulatory requirements.

The shift towards e-mobility has put immense pressure on the automotive industry to develop more sustainable and affordable transportation solutions. This has led to a rush to electrify products and compete with e-vehicles that match the performance of internal combustion engine models. EVR Motors Ltd., an Israel-based company that designs and develops cost-effective radial flux Permanent Magnet (PM) electric machines, faced a unique challenge. For several decades, motors for electric vehicles have been optimized using the same topology, called Radial Flux Permanent Magnet Motor topology (RFPM). However, EVR chose to take a different approach. Instead of optimizing existing technology, they decided to invent a new topology and develop a completely new type of motor for the electric vehicle industry called the Trapezoid Stator RFPM topology. As the base of EVR topology is different from other well-known motor topologies, the use of multiphysics and optimization tools was highly important. Therefore, the team needed a reliable, robust simulation tool.

CEA Tech, a technology research unit for the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, is a global leader in miniaturization technologies. As a research and development center, they develop advanced technologies that require a robust computing infrastructure. They use various process design kits (PDKs) from multiple foundries for R&D designs, which include complex digital systems on a chip (SoCs), RF circuits, and analog and mixed-signal chips. EDA licenses are used throughout the design flow, with compute jobs varying in terms of run time and memory footprint. The design flows for circuits in advanced nodes are complex, making it critical to manage licenses and job scheduling to shorten the design cycle. CEA Tech needed to improve license utilization and ensure that licenses are freed quickly to be made available to queued jobs.

Bush Bohlman & Partners, a structural engineering design firm, was tasked with the structural analysis and timber design for the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) student plaza. The structure was to serve as a pedestrian and public transport user gateway for the institute, and needed to establish a strong campus identity with a biophilic design and demonstrable support for sustainable building practices. The hybrid mass timber structure consisted of a Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) canopy, CLT columns, and steel columns. The pedestrian comfort walkway needed to meet sustainability, reliability, and structural design requirements. The structure involved a pitched roof, skylight openings in the roof CLT panels, and supporting columns constructed from CLT and hollow structural steel. The engineers needed to maintain a current structural model, apply local timber design codes, and analyze the complex two-way bending behaviour of the cantilevering roof panels and irregular column layout.

The automotive, heavy equipment, and aerospace industries face a significant challenge in verifying vehicle requirements, developing design parameters, and providing real-time project status to management. The traditional method of capturing requirements in a Word document is time-consuming and inefficient. Furthermore, the process of verifying these requirements using corporate fuel economy prediction software and cell equations is complex and requires a high level of expertise. Additionally, setting body bending and torsional mode natural frequency targets to meet program objectives is a critical task that requires precision and accuracy. The challenge also extends to the use of a coarse geometry model for dynamic finite element analysis, which requires the transmission of requirements and work requests to the CAE Team. Once completed, the results need to be returned and the status automatically updated, a process that can be prone to delays and inaccuracies.

Elastic couplings, frequently used in industries like automobile, power, and manufacturing, present a unique challenge due to their nonlinear characteristics, relative rotation, and large cycle number of the radial load. These peculiarities do not allow the usage of the superposition principle of loads, meaning that every possible combination of loads (axial force, radial force, and torsional torque) must be separately considered. This results in a large number of load cases and consequently a large number of strength assessments. The simple assessment of the superimposed stress states, resulting from a single unit load, would lead to false results, possibly showing a higher component strength than in reality, which could result in a failure of the part. Therefore, all load combinations must be simulated and subsequently assessed against the fatigue strength accordingly.

Mabe, a Mexico City-based home appliances manufacturer, recently launched a high-end washing machine that generates over 20 signals to measure various parameters such as water temperature, water levels, vibration, torque, noise, pressure, rotor position, etc. This smart, connected product allows Mabe's product team to analyze real-time streaming sensor data to understand in-service use-cases and predict potential failures. It also enables them to aggregate and analyze data collected from many in-service machines over long periods of time to inform next-generation design improvements, material selections, and supplier options for subassemblies and components. However, Mabe faced a challenge in efficiently and automatically managing the vast amount of data, including its velocity and complexity.

Unilever, a global leader in the consumer goods industry, was seeking ways to maintain its innovative edge in the male grooming market. The company was particularly focused on differentiating its Lynx (Axe) brand from competitors. The challenge was to adopt a simulation and analysis approach for designing a new deodorant packaging concept. However, Unilever lacked an in-house team of analysis engineers and needed a development partner to assist with the design and testing of the new can.

The Electric Storage Company, a Northern Ireland-based firm, manages electric power in households from renewable sources using battery storage and IoT technologies. Their clients range from large industrial operations like Belfast Harbor, Titanic Studios, and the Harland & Wolff shipyards to residential customers, including those living in public housing projects. The challenge lies in managing a variety of base load and intermittent renewable power sources. This requires the ability to ingest, process, and analyze high-frequency information from the grid and thousands of devices. The company needed real-time insight into energy markets, the grid, battery systems, and generation facilities, as well as customer-level power consumption patterns. Understanding consumption and generation trends was crucial to optimize power routing and battery storage and ensure that power sold back to the grid or on the open market fetched the best possible price.

The aerospace industry is constantly seeking ways to improve the design and manufacturing process of aircrafts. The challenge lies in reducing the weight of components and structures for greater fuel efficiency and passenger comfort. The adoption of advanced materials such as laminated composites is a key strategy in achieving these goals. However, the design and modelling process of these composites can be complex and time-consuming. Additionally, the industry faces the need for modern structural modelling and automated design processes, as well as the need for accurate stress, mechanism, and vulnerability simulation. The industry also needs to meet strict safety and performance requirements while achieving time efficiency, cost reduction, and quality improvement.

ACENTISS, a company that provides engineering services for structural design, stress and fatigue competencies for metallic and composite structures, was tasked with the development of ELIAS, an all-electric technology demonstrator airplane. The project, named EUROPAS, required the development of a full electric reconnaissance system, datalinks, and a ground control station. Additionally, ACENTISS had to design the structure of the wings and the landing gear. The challenge was to create a lightweight plane that could fly long distances, while also keeping development time and costs to a minimum. To achieve the optimum balance between weight, strength and performance, and to reduce design iterations with the real-world prototype, ACENTISS needed to leverage computer-aided engineering tools, particularly for the structural layout of the composite wings and the kinematics of the landing gear.

Steve McGugan, an award-winning industrial designer based in Denmark, faced the challenge of designing and modeling complex products using 3D modeling and design tools. With over 30 years of experience in various areas of product design, Steve needed a flexible and efficient 3D modeling software that could run on his Mac computer. His initial CAD-based platform of choice was a solid modeler, which he used for many years. However, about a decade ago, he found it was no longer flexible enough to meet his demands. The market was saturated with many Windows-based machines that he felt lacked aesthetics. He needed a solution that would not only meet his design needs but also align with his aesthetic preferences.

Amcor Rigid Plastics, a leading product supplier for various packaging segments, was facing challenges in maintaining a balance between packaging performance, environmental impact, and shelf appeal while keeping costs to a minimum. The company was under pressure to create more environmentally friendly products. Amcor was also looking for innovative and lightweight container designs that would be aesthetically pleasing and easy to handle for the consumer without compromising on quality, performance, or safety. The company was using Altair’s HyperWorks suite to create accurate finite element models of the concept designs from the CAD teams to assess their performance in the virtual world. However, they wanted to explore ways to accelerate the engineering and analysis tasks associated with the development of new packaging products. The virtual test process used to investigate the performance of new packaging designs under various loading and impact scenarios was consuming a large amount of the simulation team’s time.

HardMarque, a digital design and manufacturing studio, was faced with the challenge of reimagining the current piston design process. The goal was to manufacture a piston that was not only lighter than the current versions but also equally as strong. This was a significant challenge as it required a balance between weight reduction and strength maintenance, which is a critical factor in the performance and efficiency of automotive engines. The challenge also extended to the integration of the new design with additive manufacturing equipment, a process that required precision and compatibility with the chosen material, titanium.

SEGULA Technologies, an international engineering consultancy, faced a significant challenge in managing and monitoring a vast variety of commercial software licenses across the enterprise. As an engineering service provider, the company extensively uses computer-aided engineering (CAE), computer-aided design (CAD), and other commercial development software. The usage of these software tools varied, with some being used more frequently than others. However, all tools could be utilized on certain projects. The company needed to efficiently manage the peaks and valleys in software usage. Prior to implementing a solution, each business unit gauged its software requirements based on subjective data, leading to inefficiencies and potential overuse or underuse of licenses. The company sought a solution to optimize software usage, improve decisions on software renewal and acquisition, and better manage its IT budget.

Euro-Pro, a rapidly growing consumer products manufacturer, faced a challenge in its product development process. The company's product development was heavily reliant on physical prototype testing, which was time-consuming, costly, and often failed to provide a comprehensive understanding of product behavior during tests such as drops or impacts. The company wanted to increase the use of simulation to conduct more in-depth analysis of scenarios that were difficult or impossible to test physically, such as internal structural failures. The goal was to identify the root cause of product failures more accurately and provide better guidance to the engineering and product design teams. The company also aimed to test materials prior to their introduction on future generation products, with the hope of positively influencing the overall product portfolio direction in terms of market appeal, quality, reliability, and durability.

Scania, an international manufacturer of commercial vehicles and engines, was faced with the challenge of speeding up their design and development processes to produce lighter yet structurally and functionally efficient component designs. The automotive and commercial vehicle industries face many challenges when bringing a new product to market, including CO2 emission regulations and customer demands for more efficient vehicles. There is also high competition and pricing pressure in this market, forcing development teams to speed up their development process to achieve a shorter time to market. Scania's traditional process involved physical testing of prototypes, which led to many iteration loops between design and engineering departments, slowing down the development process.

Weld distortion is a significant issue in sheet steel product manufacture, especially in the automotive sector where tolerances are tight and complex high-performance components are the norm. The contraction caused by the welds cooling leads to distortion substantial enough to require additional processes to recapture the lost geometry. The sequence in which a part is welded largely affects the distortion of the part as the stiffness changes significantly depending upon which welds have already been executed. Gestamp Tallent Ltd, a world-class designer, developer, and manufacturer of cutting-edge automotive products, faced the challenge of accurately predicting weld distortion and optimizing the weld pattern to reduce it. They used the BMW MINI front subframe tower to demonstrate the weld distortion optimization approach. The tower is particularly susceptible to distortion due to its tall and thin dimensions.

Scania CV AB, a leading manufacturer of trucks and buses, was facing a challenge in accurately simulating squeak and rattle noise within a truck cabin. Squeak and rattle are two phenomena observed when two parts of an assembly are in relative motion due to a specific excitation load. In the automotive industry, these phenomena are studied to reduce cabin noise and improve ride quality and comfort for occupants. Historically, Scania’s Cabin Development Department did not perform this kind of simulation. The team had to rely on tolerance calculations and the choice of materials to reduce the risk of squeak and rattle. When first prototypes became available, iterations were made to fix and correct the final design to solve the noise issues. To reduce development time and cut down on iterative changes, a solution was needed that enabled a simulation-driven design process during the early stages of the cabin development cycle.

The challenge faced by Peter Macapia, the acclaimed architect behind LabDORA, was to change perceptions and convictions about how buildings could look and how they impact their environment. He sought to explore new frontiers in architectural design that simultaneously employed principles of architecture and engineering to produce entirely new insights and types of structures. Macapia's early work was based on research started in the 1960s and ‘70s in Japan, which had produced genetic-type algorithms for structural morphology. However, these early computational methods were primitive in their applicability by today’s standards. Macapia's perception of what was possible in his field changed significantly in 2010 when he was introduced to solidThinking Inspire while preparing a course for the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles.

Beta Epsilon, a design company specializing in racing cars and engineering services for automotive racing car providers and racing companies, faced a significant challenge in their development process. The company was responsible for a wide range of engineering tasks, including the meshing of parts and full vehicles, the FEA analysis of components, crash test simulation, optimization, and CFD analysis. In the design of a complete racing car, the engineers design and optimize every single part of the vehicle, simulate crash tests, simulate the CFD performance of the car, and push the test for FIA homologation before they or the customers start the production or build a prototype. To handle all of these tasks, Beta Epsilon needed a flexible and cost-efficient access to several CAE tools, some of which were used more frequently than others. However, due to the need to minimize development cost to offer their customers services at competitive prices, it was not feasible to invest in every single full license of each required tool.

Sundog Eyewear, a company committed to providing high-quality, innovative eyewear, faced the challenge of transitioning from a traditional 2D sketching process to a modern 3D modeling approach. The company needed to capture all the details of a production design, which was difficult with their existing 2D sketching process. The challenge was to find a tool that could help them visualize new products with realistic renderings, explore styling alternatives, and export the digital model. The tool also needed to be user-friendly and compatible with the Apple machines the company was familiar with. The Creative Director of Sundog Eyewear, Michal Hrk, who had years of experience in advertising and graphic design but no formal 3D modeling experience, was tasked with finding a solution.

Monash Motorsport, a student-run organization based at Monash University, has been consistently improving the performance of their race car since their first Australian SAE Student Racing competition in 2000. The team was facing new weight and performance challenges at the end of 2013. They aimed to develop faster, lighter, and more innovative race cars while keeping development time and costs under control. The evolution of 3D printing presented a new technology that could help them build even lighter cars. However, it also created new development challenges since the 3D printed components are only as good as their design. The team had to conduct an optimization to find the ideal material distribution in the components while taking into account the additional manufacturing constraints of the additive manufacturing technology.

MAHLE, a leading automotive systems supplier, faced a challenge in making their simulation results reporting consistent, thorough, and simpler to perform. The company conducts simulations for pistons, connecting rods, and pins, with pistons representing the majority of the group's work. The complexity of pistons, which must withstand high temperatures and huge inertia loads, introduces many variables into the design process. Six different engineers were creating slightly different reports, leading to variations in how the simulation story was being told to customers. The main question to be answered by the simulation is whether the piston will survive the engine test. These tests are quite expensive, and a pre-production piston needs to be tested before it is put into the engine to save physical testing costs and to enable more design iterations. The complexity of the evaluation is further increased by factors such as lightweight pistons, high-efficiency engines, highly-loaded four-cylinder engines, more variability, and different materials.

AAM, a global automotive supplier of driveline and drivetrain systems, was faced with the challenge of redesigning an automotive carrier with less weight and material usage than the original. The company, based in Detroit, Michigan, with offices in 13 different countries, specializes in the design and manufacturing of axles, chassis modules, driveshafts, transmission parts, and metal-formed products. The challenge was to create a lightweight design that would not only improve performance but also increase efficiency and fuel economy, which are particularly important in the automotive market.

Lockheed Martin, a global security and aerospace company, was faced with the challenge of managing high-performance computing (HPC) resources in multi-level security environments. The company configures systems for the government using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 cross-domain system (CDS) configurations for multi-level security (MLS). This configuration allows users and data at different security levels to share the same resources, which is particularly useful for the U.S. military and intelligence communities. However, because users at different security levels share the system, Lockheed Martin needed to deploy a resource scheduler capable of operating in an MLS Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment. This would enable the greatest flexibility in setting queue and job priorities, providing automated accounting information, and offering many other capabilities to help each user complete their runs in the appropriate time and with the appropriate priority.

Northwestern University's Integrated DEsign Automation Laboratory (IDEAL) was tasked with implementing a series of engineering design courses. The challenge was to incorporate computational design methods like modeling, simulation, and optimization, which are increasingly important in engineering design decision making. The process of creating and evaluating design alternatives often involves selecting a preferred design from many alternatives, a task that can range from difficult to impossible without the aid of computational methods. Therefore, it was crucial for engineering design students to be exposed to computational tools that would allow them to make sound design judgments when completing their design projects. The courses also needed to incorporate the application of design decision methods to industrial problems, providing engineering students with the experience needed to approach real-world design problems later in their careers.

The case study highlights three main challenges faced by companies in managing their Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) data. The first challenge is the need for a central location where all CAE users can manage their data within an enterprise for easy retrieval and full traceability from CAD to CAE, and all versions of CAE to the final report. The second challenge is the lack of standardization in methods used by different engineers, the loss of knowledge when employees leave, and the manual nature of the processes. The third challenge is the difficulty in tracking versions of CAD and CAE models and distributing project data globally, especially for companies with multiple development organizations in different geographic locations.