auto industry with cae value

Automotive

We work side-by-side with our clients to shorten development time using the following deliverables:

  • High-fidelity modeling of chassis and powertrain dynamics
  • Multi-objective Design Optimization (MDO) - using Design Exploration to generate balanced solutions meeting desired performance for attributes such as noise, vibration, harshness (NVH), handling, ride, driveability, durability, and more.  
  • Automation of simulation processes to increase efficiency
  • Tire measurement for Durability, Handling and Ride applications
  • Driving Simulator hardware, software and services
  • Mechatronics simulation with connected mechanical and ADAS models
  • Process assessments to identify bottlenecks, define roadmaps, and maximize return on Computer Aided Engineering activities.

 

6 Use Cases for CAE Simulation in
Electric Vehicle Drivetrains


As electric vehicles take over a larger share of the automotive market, OEMs and suppliers alike need to make use of every tool at their disposal to improve the performance of their vehicles. At present, no tool is more essential than CAE simulation when it comes to helping manufacturers test the design of EM components and how they contribute to the structure, efficiency, and performance of a vehicle.

While a lot of attention is often focused on battery performance in EVs, the electric drivetrain also presents completely new engineering challenges that require extensive simulation in order to understand how interconnecting systems affect each other. From our experience working in the automotive industry, we have identified six key areas where simulation helps EV engineers improve drivetrain performance. Let’s take a closer look.

 

1. NVH

In automotive engineering, reducing NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) is essential to providing a comfortable passenger experience. Combustion engines are significantly more noisy than electric motors, which might lead some to believe that NVH reduction doesn’t require the same level of care and attention. However, the noise of the combustion engine masks a lot of NVH issues that would otherwise be problematic. With the engine noise gone, passengers are more likely to notice outside noises, as well as sounds from the gearbox or coolant systems.The issues are similar for vibration. A vehicle that moves and shakes is disquieting to passengers, and gives an impression of low quality. While passengers expect vibration from a combustion engine, electric vehicles will still experience vibration conditions when they are on the road. These can be more noticeable to passengers, leading them to feel less satisfied with the vehicle.

These factors are what make NVH simulation in electric vehicles so important. CAE simulations can show how disparate parts work together to contribute to passenger experiences of NVH. These can then be remedied in the design.


2. Electric Motor Performance

Electric vehicles have typically lagged behind those with internal combustion engines (ICEs) in terms of power and performance. This has been a barrier to wider adoption, as improvements in motor and transmission performance have come at a tradeoff to battery longevity. However, newer EV technologies have increased the efficiency of electric powertrains, allowing them to compete with and even outperform their ICE counterparts.

Multiphysics simulations have been integral to these improvements, and can help automotive manufacturers develop even better designs. This can be particularly important in optimizing motor efficiencies with gear ratios, to improve performance on highways or during uphill driving.

3. Thermal Management

Proper thermal management keeps components operating at optimal efficiency, which results in less drain on the battery and greater range for the vehicle. Thermal management systems in electric vehicles are more complex than their ICE counterparts, as batteries must be either cooled or heated depending on operating conditions, and because EMs don’t generate any waste heat that might be used to warm the cabin.Analyzing the way motors, inverters, generators, and batteries work together to consume energy is an important part of thermal management. Simulations can be used to model the entire vehicle to better integrate these systems for more efficient use.

4. Lubrication

Electric vehicles require different lubricants than ICEs. Without fossil fuels and with fewer moving parts, these systems run cleaner, meaning the engine oils will collect fewer contaminants over time from burning fuel. However, EV motors operate at very high speeds, and still require both oil and coolant. And, while EV transmissions are different from ICEs, they do still require lubrication for the gear reducer.

Thus far, there is no one solution to which lubricants should be used for different EV transmissions. While some manufacturers use traditional transmission fluid, others are relying on grease bearings with oil lubricants. CFD simulation can help engineers understand which lubricants work best based on their design choices.

5. New Materials

A key strategy for improving fuel efficiency in electric vehicles is to reduce the weight of the vehicle itself. Increased strength and stiffness can also improve the responsiveness and speed of electric motors, leading to better operating conditions. However, for a manufacturer to move from traditional metals to new, lightweight alloys, they must be able to ensure that these new materials can withstand the strains of use within an electric vehicle.CAE simulation can show how these new materials behave when used in EV driveline components, from the motor to the gearbox to the structural housing, so that manufacturers can continue to find new and more effective materials for their vehicle designs.


6. Durability

The reputations of automotive manufacturers are made or broken on the reliability and longevity of their products. Premature failure of components leads to lost trust among consumers, as well as extra expenses for manufacturers in case of a large recall.

Using CAE simulation, engineers can create models to run fatigue tests and predict failure conditions for every component in the EV driveline. These simulations can help manufacturers determine repair schedules and write better warrantees for their vehicles.

CAE VAlue can support your simulation needs for electric vehicle drivetrains.
CAE VAlue offers CAE simulation support for OEMs and suppliers in two key ways. First, we are value-added resellers (VARs) of VI-grade simulation apps and driving simulators, Siemens Simcenter HEEDS and Amesim, SES-Agile Tire, and our own ParaMount bushing simulation tool. For manufacturers who hope to expand their CAE departments we offer support for using this software to set up custom workflows.

As CAE consultants, we bring our multidisciplinary expertise to the table, helping our clients find solutions to complex problems. We can perform CAE simulations for our clients, increasing the capabilities for those who do not have CAE engineers on staff, and expanding the capacity for those who need extra assistance during peak production times.

If you are looking for a CAE partner to help test designs for EV components, contact us

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What’s New in HEEDS 2022.1

04 July 2022
Software Updates


With more complex workflows seen across the HEEDS customer base, the release of HEEDS 2022.1 focuses on helping engineers stay organized.

Creating process automation workflows
that involve complex branching and looping
is now more efficient and better structured

 

heeds screenshot on laptop

 

 

Model the complexity – Ensuring decision confidence

Ensuring Knowledge Longevity and Collaboration of Engineering Methodologies and Workflows

add annotations and comments in process view canvas on heeds

 

Engineers can now add annotations and comments directly to the process view canvas of a workflow. This enhances team collaboration and retains knowledge of methodologies when passing complex workflows across teams. You can now document any user-defined descriptions or comments associated with any part of the workflow. It is now possible to assign annotations to analyses, connections, groups, and loops. They also can be floating to help with describing processes and methods involved in the automation.

 

Furthermore, documenting your process automation workflows has been enhanced and streamlined by moving the location of the process comments to the right-hand side of the process view canvas, found just below the connections panel. This capability adds text formatting, hyperlink capabilities as well as embeddable images and enables you to fully document your process. 

 

Explore the possibilities – Enabling insights

Boosting Capabilities for Dynamic Script Based Tagging


Script-based tagging in HEEDS now supports the full power of the Python programming language. You can now use all standard Python imports within script tagging. This allows for greater flexibility in locating and marking tags dynamically via if-then-else statements, regular expressions, etc.

When locations of tagged input and output parameters are not fixed for every design, script tagging specifies locations in an ASCII file. This is relative to consistent elements in the file, e.g. headers, line numbers, labels, etc.

 

Go faster – Achieving speed and agility

Enabling Traceability for Workflows and Systems Engineering

 

HEEDS 2022.1 can now connect from external data sources. This allows engineers to create and link parameters that have been defined previously, and elsewhere in Excel or MBSE tools. A new Data Connection tool is available on the Study tab where parameters and constraint requirements from data sources like TXT, CSV, XML, JSON and MagicDraw models. enabling traceability for workflows and systems engineering


In addition, HEEDS users can quickly export a table of study results to help verify and validate design requirements with the addition of the Reports toolbar group in the Run tab of HEEDS MDO.

 

Stay integrated – Connecting all activities

Enhancing HEEDS Connectivity to your Workflow Simulation Tools

This release of HEEDS expands the portal offering with new interfaces. The existing portals also have new improvements. Upgrades to Simcenter Prescan and MATLAB portals now pave the way for upcoming and exciting functionality.

 

heeds interface with over 60 CAE and CAD portals

 

For the Chemical Processing Industry sector, a new Aveva Pro/II portal is now available to automate Pro/II simulations via HEEDS. The addition of this portal makes it easier for optimized trade-offs of plant layout and performance to be discovered.

Both NX CAD and Simcenter 3D portals now support running designs within a single session. This reduces overhead and provides a faster turn-around time for designs within a study.

There are over 60 direct interface portals and the ability to connect to any internal, commercial 1D, 2D and 3D simulation tools as well as cost estimating tools. HEEDS continues to advance Multi-Disciplinary Process Automation, Design Space Exploration and Optimization across companies.

With design space exploration at the forefront of an organization’s innovative drive, entire product lines can see a transformative and dramatic change in performance. All enhancements and updates to HEEDS 2022.1 increase usability, connectivity, and productivity. You are more in control of the design process, the interpretation of results, and the insight and knowledge gained, to discover better designs, faster!

 

Learn more about HEEDS
HEEDS is a powerful design space exploration and optimization software package that interfaces with all commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools to drive product innovation. HEEDS accelerates the product development process by automating analysis workflows (Process Automation), maximizing the available computational hardware and software resources (Distributed Execution), and efficiently exploring the design space for innovative solutions (Efficient Search), while assessing the new concepts to ensure performance requirements are met (Insight & Discovery). Read more here.

Republished from Siemens blog
©Siemens - all rights retained by Siemens

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