Automotive

Development to quickly take a product from conceptual phases through to full production.

Typically used to analyse various dynamic, high energy or highly non-linear events, highlighting the effect on components, assemblies or the entire product. This helps our customers save costs on prototypes and testing, reducing environmental impact, and reducing the time to market.

Typical examples of this are:

Crash Safety

Used to develop the vehicle structure to meet customer, industry or legal targets for various crash scenarios – To ensure the occupant survival space, absorb energy to reduce the impact’s severity or protect critical components such as high voltage batteries or high-pressure hydrogen vessels.

Occupant Safety

Used to analyse the impact on vehicle occupants during a collision. This includes an in-depth investigation of components such as seatbelt systems, dashboards, airbags, interior trim and seating.

Pedestrian Safety Simulation

This simulation is used to design and optimise vehicle components which directly impact pedestrian safety during a collision. This includes the analysis of the vehicle’s front end, front hood, windscreen and vehicle ornamentation components.

This is used to highlight and eliminate weak points, reveal weight optimisation opportunities, minimise the number of physical tests and reduce warranty claims. We perform analysis from individual abuse tests through to full-life fatigue.

We use the latest simulation tools to predict what the occupants will experience with regards to feel and noise (for example Road Load Vibrations, squeak & rattle and aeroacoustics), then develop the product to minimise or eliminate anything deemed undesirable.

To calculate the fluid and heat flow over or through a vehicle or component (e.g. external aerodynamics, power train heat management, climate/HVAC systems, brake cooling, defrosting / de-icing of windscreens, contamination simulation and water fording).

The simulation of kinematic mechanisms is typically used for the development of vehicle suspension systems (vehicle dynamics)– optimising hard points, spring, damper and bush rates to balance the often conflicting requirements of comfort and control. MBS is also used for many other applications from powertrain NVH, to developing hood hinge mechanisms.

The examination and analysis of complex systems, where many components and sub-systems interact (link to 1D thermal simulation). For example, the control of the cooling system by the electrical system, where separate systems interact and have many different scenarios to check and ensure optimal and efficient performance.

Making a component fulfil its objectives without unnecessarily exceeding them at the expense of weight or cost. Optimisation can consider the material, shape and size of the component and can be optimised to minimise mass, peak stress etc. And can consider manufacturing constraints as well. We can perform Multi-Disciplinary Optimisation (MDO) where the optimisation considers many often conflicting requirements from NVH, strength, durability etc to determine the optimum design and compromise between the requirements.

This is the process of joining two or more different types of simulations together so that, for example, the output from one simulation can be applied to another and vice versa. This is often seen with a CFD model coupled with a structural model – The pressure from a CFD model is applied to the structural model, resulting in the deformation of the component – the deformed shape is then fed back into the CFD model, which could change the fluid flow and hence the pressures and so forth. Another example is an MBS model coupled with a structural model or a particle model.

This process allows for detailed comparisons with competitors’ full products, vehicle components, and sub-systems. This speeds up product development whilst reducing costs through highlighting how competitors overcame similar engineering challenges with their products. Unlike other benchmarking services, we provide a CAE model of the benchmark vehicle, allowing you to run all of your tests on the competitor product to allow direct and detailed comparison to your product, and to identify the targets that your competitor is working to.

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