Mechanical Technology April 2016

⎪ Computer-aided engineering ⎪

Best-ever simulation-driven design suite released

On March 8, 2016 in Troy, Michigan, Altair released HyperWorks ® 14.0, its latest open architecture CAE simulation platform, which is to be showcased at Hannover Messe 2016 on April 27. MechTech summarises some of the new features.

H yperWorks is a compre- hensive, open-architecture, multi-physics CAE platform that uses pre- and post-CAD simulation to develop products with enhanced performance – weight and materials optimised components, for example, that make use of advanced technologies such as 3D printing for rapid development and significantly reduced times to market. Founded by James R Scapa, George Christ and Mark Kistner in 1985 as an engineering design consultancy, Altair’s early successes included contracts for GM and Ford for the design of their vehicle platforms and truck chassis systems. The company created its first design software product in 1990, the flagship CAE modelling tool HyperMesh ® , a market-leading, multi-disciplinary finite element pre-processor for large complex models. In 1993, Altair released the first commercial version of OptiStruct ® , a structural analysis solver for linear and nonlinear problems under static and dy- namic loadings. This software tool is still the market-leading solution for structural design and optimisation. The first version of the HyperWorks CAE suite was released in 1999, with its innovative pay-per-usage licensing model. The suite concept brought togeth- er multiple software tools with specific functionality, with users being given the opportunity to only pay for the tools they use. Both the common platform idea and the licensing model were novel at that time and have enabled the company to thrive in the 21 st century. Today, Altair specialises in the de- velopment and broad application of simulation technology to synthesise and optimise designs, processes and decisions. Privately held with more than 2 000 employees, The company is

headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA and operates from more than 45 offices in 22 different countries. Customers cur- rently include more than 5 000 corporate clients across broad industry segments. HyperWorks 14.0 The latest release of Altair’s HyperWorks open architecture CAE simulation plat- form includes several new products, feature enhancements, updated func- tionalities, and licensing methods to help users towards better designs, including: expanded optimisation and nonlinear solver capabilities; accelerated meshing, assembly, and graphics; and several new software tools that have been added via the Altair Partner Alliance. Key highlights OptiStruct’s capabilities have been elevated to include more nonlinear analyses, new contact and optimisation algorithms, and numerous improvements in solution speed. Also, a breakthrough solution for the design and optimisation of lattice structures has been developed to support additive manufacturing. “With OptiStruct 14.0, it is now possible to run larger, full vehicle NVH (noise-vibration-hardness) models for more accuracy without the errors gener- ated by our existing NVH solver on the same computer,” says Tae-Won Park of SsangYong Motors. HyperMesh has a new part and as- sembly workflow that promotes flow of data directly from product data manage- ment (PDM) data structures. Combined with the new high-velocity graphics engine tuned to handle even the largest models, HyperMesh 14.0’s performance is up to 15× faster for large FE models with solid elements and up to 60× faster for geometric models, while using less hardware memory. “The new HW 14.0 graphics engine

is nothing short of amazing. We can achieve much better performance, even with low-end graphics cards,” says Patrick Bandeira of Prodrive, Aston Martin Racing. “With this release of HyperWorks, we’ve introduced parts and assemblies in HyperMesh that directly correspond to those in the CAD and PDM world,” adds James Dagg, chief technical officer of User Experience at Altair. “The new assemblies are extremely flexible, allow- ing for modular modelling where entire subsystems can be replaced or updated automatically, keeping the CAE model synchronised with the design.” Multiscale Designer, a practical tool for the seamless integration of modelling, simulation, testing and optimisation of engineered products using complex mate- rials is now part of the HyperWorks suite. FEKO, the best-in-class software for electromagnetic simulation related to antenna design and placement, electromagnetic compatibility, radar cross-section, and other applications is now fully merged into HyperWorks with added features to reduce modelling and computation time. And integration with HyperStudy has been added for advanced optimisation. MotionSolve now provides improved 3D rigid-to-rigid contact and advanced co-simulation capabilities, and the au- tomotive multi-body simulation library has been expanded for full vehicle simulations. An alternate solver-licensing scheme HyperWorks Unlimited Solver Node is

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Mechanical Technology — April 2016