Altair > Case Studies > Streamlining Truck Component Testing at IVECO Australia with HyperWorks and Altair Partner Alliance

Streamlining Truck Component Testing at IVECO Australia with HyperWorks and Altair Partner Alliance

Technology Category

Other - Battery
Sensors - Haptic Sensors

Applicable Industries

Agriculture
Automotive

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Manufacturing Process Simulation
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

System Integration
Testing & Certification

About The Customer

IVECO Australia is a manufacturer and distributor of light, medium, and heavy commercial vehicles for the Australian road transport industry. The company, formerly known as International Harvester and International Trucks, has been a part of Australia's way of life since 1902. IVECO is wholly owned by CNH Industrial, a global leader in capital goods that implements design, manufacturing, distribution, commercial, and financial activities in international markets. IVECO Australia manufactures ACCO, Powerstar, Stralis AS-L and AD/AT models, and bus chassis at its plant in Dandenong, Victoria. It also imports its Daily light commercial range, Eurocargo, and Stralis ATi models from IVECO plants in Europe and South America. IVECO Trucks Australia employs 600 people Australia wide, and the investment in the Australian truck market creates local employment for thousands more people in related industries, from operations to component suppliers.

The Challenge

IVECO Australia, a manufacturer and distributor of commercial vehicles, faced a challenge in reducing the size, weight, and solving time in Finite Element Analysis (FEA) while improving the durability of components. The company had to conduct physical durability testing, which often led to redesigning components that failed during the test. This unnecessary design loop extended the target release date and increased the idle time of trucks during repairs. The company sought to validate components through FEA to eliminate this design loop during physical durability testing. The challenge was to predict the durability and test pass rate of components before creating a prototype, while also meeting strict cost and weight targets. The battery box, mounted on the truck chassis, was particularly susceptible to mechanical vibration, which could cause structural damage and hamper battery life.

The Solution

IVECO adopted HyperWorks on the recommendation of their first CAE employee and later discovered that their global parent companies, CNH Industrial and FCA Group, were already using HyperWorks extensively. The company has been using simulation modeling for over eight years, which has helped them cut down on testing time as many design concepts can be analyzed before a prototype is made. IVECO uses Altair HyperWorks and nCode DesignLife for fatigue analysis. HyperMesh has helped them mesh intricate and complicated models and handle larger models with ease. Stress analysis for fatigue is done in OptiStruct and then the models are imported into nCode DesignLife to calculate the fatigue. For the battery box, a mesh model was created in HyperMesh and then modal analysis was performed in OptiStruct to evaluate the battery box design. The final design was then evaluated for fatigue using dynamic analysis with nCode DesignLife.

Operational Impact

The use of HyperWorks and nCode DesignLife resulted in an improved battery box structure for IVECO. The software suite has saved IVECO a lot of time as they can now validate several concepts before they are released for physical testing. The company enjoys utilizing the Partner Alliance to access software from multiple partners without leasing or buying them. This has helped IVECO to enhance their virtual simulation capabilities without investing exclusively for these tools with long term commitment. This has also helped them to reduce the design cost and lead time, enabling them to bring their products faster to the market with greater confidence. In the future, IVECO plans to explore more advanced options to simulate FE models in HyperMesh and achieve additional time savings using advanced options in nCode DesignLife for fatigue analysis. They also plan to explore OptiStruct optimization for structures.

Quantitative Benefit