Newsletter EnginSoft 2013 N°4

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Newsletter Simulation Based Engineering & Sciences Year

A CAE based procedure to predict the low velocity impact response

n째4 Winter 2013

The Fundamental Role of Simulation-Based Approach in New High Technology Product Development

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Parametric CFD analysis of an EMbaffle Heat Exchanger

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Warm Hydroforming Process Of Aluminum Alloys Using LS-DYNA Advanced shape for robotic torque sensor

CAE Conference: 1000 engineers at the annual event on simulation Evaluation of Grinding Repair through modeFRONTIER RSM and ANSYS Mechanical

Formiamo i protagonisti dell'innovazione

CONSORZIO TCN Tecnologie per il Calcolo Numerico CENTRO SUPERIORE DI FORMAZIONE

Competenze sempre più elevate e aggiornate giocano un ruolo decisivo per la competitività delle imprese e la qualità del lavoro Il Consorzio TCN offre attività di Alta Formazione per ingegneri. Per il 2014 sono previsti: • Un’ampio catalogo di corsi a calendario ricco di proposte formative per la diffusione delle discipline che afferiscono alla simulazione numerica • Percorsi formativi personalizzati, costruiti sulla base delle specifiche esigenze dell’azienda • Formazione Continua per accrescere le proprie competenze, nel contesto aziendale o professionale,

finanziati dai Fondi Paritetici Interprofessionali • Un portale dedicato alla formazione a distanza per l'ingegneria

Alcune tematiche proposte nei corsi: meccanica della frattura, acustica, progettazione a fatica, tematiche legate all’attrito e usura, meccatronica, dinamica dell’impatto, data mining, analisi dinamica con applicazioni agli elementi finiti...

FLASH For many of us, this time of the year is a time for reflection. We think about our values, our goals and how we can fulfill our dreams. The same applies to our careers and businesses. Values like responsibility and sustainability never change, they are the foundations for innovation and entrepreneurship.

While the year turns to an end, EnginSoft looks back on the recent International CAE Conference which brought together an expert audience of about 1000 delegates from around the globe. We are all driven by the same motivation, our belief in numerical simulation and its tremendous impact on successful product development and research - Today and in the future.

For the 2nd time, the Conference also hosted the International CAE Poster Award, a competition that recognizes the outstanding work with CAE technologies by teaching and research bodies and students. We are delighted to present the awarded posters in this Newsletter.

This Edition also informs us about Selex, a Finmeccanica Company and international leader in electronic and information technologies. Luigi Paris, head of mechanics & PCB, updates us on the importance of simulation and human engineering skills. EMbaffle describe their parametric CFD analysis with ANSYS Workbench and ANSYS CFX. Politecnico di Bari illustrates FE investigations with LS-DYNA for the warm hydroforming process of aluminum alloys.

Moreover, we hear about a CAE-based procedure for a composite CAI specimen, and how the coupling of LS-DYNA and modeFRONTIER supported the work of the Italian Aerospace Research Centre.

SACMI is an international group that manufactures machines as well as complete plants for the ceramics, packaging, food and plastics industries. Their case study focuses on the evaluation of grinding repairing operations. SACMI also introduces us to the company’s customized fatigue solution: ACT, the ANSYS Customization Toolkit.

EnginSoft Nordic reports about high fidelity simulation while Mentor Graphics and EnginSoft Italy outline the successful implementation of a Design of Experiments approach in Flowmaster.

Further articles that the Editorial Team has collected for our readership cover the latest achievements in robotics, in urban design and system engineering, as well as in injection molding simulation at the company INglass.

Our Software News discuss the latest capabilities of the ClinicOptimizer by Lionsolver, the ANSYS Mechanical Release 15, MAGMA, SW Forge, ESAComp 4.5, Scilab and Rocky, a powerful DEM package marketed by Granular Dynamics International.

The MUSIC and WIN-shoes Projects along with Engin@Fire, our joint venture with IDESA S.r.l, present some of our corporate news in this last edition of the year 2013.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers, readers and partners for their loyalty, their business and the excellent knowledge exchange through the years. It gives all of us at EnginSoft great pleasure to wish you and your families a healthy, very happy and prosperous New Year!

Stefano Odorizzi, Editor in chief

3 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

Flash

Sommario - Contents CASE HISTORIES

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The Fundamental Role of Simulation Approach in New High Technology Product Development

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Parametric CFD analysis of an EMbaffle Heat Exchanger

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A CAE based procedure to predict the low velocity impact response of a composite CAI specimen

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Finite Elements Investigations About The Warm Hydroforming Process Of Aluminium Alloys Using LS-DYNA

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Advanced shape for robotic torque sensor

Evaluation of Grinding Repair through modeFRONTIER RSM and ANSYS Mechanical ACT (ANSYS Customization Toolkit) SACMI customized fatigue solution Accurate Thermo-Fluid Simulation in Real Time Environments

High Fidelity Simulation of turbulent reacting flows

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SOFTWARE UPDATE

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ESAComp 4.5: new simulation capabilities for a wider customer base Urban design and system engineering: risks and opportunities

Engineer your fire!

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Rocky Discrete Element Method Package

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TESTIMONIAL

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INGLASS: oltre la camera calda

RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

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WIN-shoes: When Innovation makes Shoes

Contents

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CLINIC OPTIMIZER Interactive visualization for your personal and intelligent choice of medical treatment

MUSIC Project – First Review Meeting

CAE CONFERENCE

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International CAE Conference 2013

CAE Conference 2013: will ANSYS Mechanical Release 15 satisfy technical user expectations?

Discussion and final considerations at the ANSYS Mechanical meeting Scilab at the International CAE Conference 2013: what a great session!

CAE Conference 2013 sessione MAGMA: un grande successo

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The International CAE Conference 2013 welcomed participants from Japan

Forge NxT: l’Italian User Meeting raddoppia

CAE POSTER AWARDS

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Stenting in Coronary Bifurcations: Image-Based Structural and Hemodynamic Simulations of Real Clinical Cases

CAE Poster Award 2013

Design by Optimization of a Controllable Pitch Marine Propeller CFD characterization and thrombogenicity analysis of a prototypal polymeric aortic valve Thermo-Fluid Dynamics model of two-phase system

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alloy-air inside the shot sleeve in HPDC Process Stenting in Coronary Bifurcations: Image-Based FEM Analysis, Modelling and Control of a Hexacopter

EVENTS

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WEBINAR CFD e supporto fluidodinamico

Corsi di addestramento software 2014 Perché la simulazione al computer sia davvero utile ai processi progettuali e produttivi dell’industria, occorre potersi fidare dei risultati che essa produce.

E la correttezza dei risultati dipende sia dalle scelte fatte nella predisposizione dei modelli - in relazione al problema che si vuole trattare ed alle caratteristiche del software utilizzato – che dalle modalità di controllo dei risultati. Non si tratta di un passaggio scontato: da un lato l’aspettativa dell’utilizzatore dei software quanto a soluzioni semplificate sul piano formale è pressante, e dall’altro la complessità dei problemi che possono essere trattati – sia sul piano delle dimensioni dei modelli, che delle fisiche che possono essere rappresentate – è sempre crescente. Ne consegue un contesto in cui, nel caso di software commerciali, il ‘fai da te’, anche nel caso di utilizzatori con una buona preparazione culturale, può essere rischioso e, quanto meno, espone a perdite di tempo ineconomiche e, a volte, frustranti.

E’ per questo che EnginSoft, da sempre, considera l’addestramento all’uso delle tecnologie software il servizio più importante da offrire ai propri clienti, ed impiega, nei propri corsi, i migliori specialisti di cui dispone al proprio interno e nella rete dei propri consulenti. Addestrare all’uso di un software, una volta capite le scelte relative all’architettura del sistema e all’interfaccia utente, significa prestare attenzione alle problematiche applicative. Un software ‘general purpose’ per l’analisi meccanico-strutturale permette di affrontare lo studio di un componente massivo, ma anche di valutare la risposta sismica di un edificio, o di ottimizzare il comportamento di un elastomero in grandi deformazioni: situazioni, tutte, che richiedono modelli specifici, e la capacità di dominare analisi specifiche, sia sotto il profilo concettuale, che sotto quello numerico. Così un software per la simulazione dei processi che si manifestano nella colata di un metallo, richiede una precisa definizione di proprietà termo fisiche dei materiali, nella forma adatta allo schema numerico assunto, non sempre intuibile con ragionamenti di buon senso.

Perché, allora, perdere tempo in tentativi, e rimanere con il dubbio che quanto si sta facendo non sia corretto? Molto meglio chiedere all’esperto come utilizzare correttamente la tecnologia, e come realizzare i propri modelli, acquisendo rapidamente, e con sicurezza, le conoscenze necessarie a lavorare bene nel proprio settore. L’offerta EnginSoft di corsi di addestramento software è molto ricca.

La si può consultare su www.enginsoft.it/formazione. Vale la pena considerare questa opportunità: essere addestrati correttamente paga!

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - Winter 2013

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The EnginSoft Newsletter editions contain references to the following products which are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners: ANSYS, ANSYS Workbench, AUTODYN, CFX, FLUENT and any and all ANSYS, Inc. brand, product, service and feature names, logos and slogans are registered trademarks or trademarks of ANSYS, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries. [ICEM CFD is a trademark used by ANSYS, Inc. under license]. (www.ansys.com) modeFRONTIER is a trademark of ESTECO Spa (www.esteco.com) Flowmaster is a registered trademark of Menthor Graphics in the USA (www.flowmaster.com) MAGMASOFT is a trademark of MAGMA GmbH (www.magmasoft.de) FORGE is a trademark of Transvalor S.A. (www.transvalor.com)

5 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

Contents

Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Trento n° 1353 RS di data 2/4/2008

All pictures are protected by copyright. Any reproduction of these pictures in any media and by any means is forbidden unless written authorization by EnginSoft has been obtained beforehand. ©Copyright EnginSoft Newsletter.

CONSORZIO TCN www.consorziotcn.it • www.improve.it

The Fundamental Role of Simulation-Based Approach in New High Technology Product Development Selex-ES is a company distinguished by its high-technology methods and products. To be successful in this leading-edge environment, Selex-ES must carefully define its optimal design strategy, making best use of the available tools and approaches. In particular, the Finite Element Method is a central component of this whole process, playing a fundamental role from the initial scoping and costing of the project, through its technical design and on to the evaluation of product performance. This article considers specific examples to demonstrate how the various stages of the Selex-ES process are strengthened by the utilization of such simulation methods.

Introduction Simulation is nowadays strongly connected to new product development in most high-technology industries; a trend accelerated by the growth in high-performance computing and improvements in simulation tools made possible by innovations in computer hardware, software and the conceptual understanding of the underlying physics of the simulated processes. As a result, simulation technology is now deeply-rooted in all our product development: in fact, it constitutes an essential component of our tenders, is central to our design process and in many cases may be embedded in our product itself or form part of our end-user technical report.

The support of simulation in the preparation of tenders Companies such as Selex-ES will often use simulation support during the preparation of Technical Tenders. At this stage it is extremely important to evaluate the relationship between technical performance requirements and global design costs. In many cases simulation support helps the Bid Team to correctly estimate the necessary costs in order to satisfy the technical requirements. In extreme cases, the simulation approach may be able to identify economic and technical reasons that

Case Histories

can produce an insight into whether the project is worth pursuing due to high cost of delivering the stated technical requirements.

The support of simulation during preliminary design phase A simulation-driven approach is usually fundamental to the preliminary design phase. It is an important process in the thorough definition of all the technical requirements to each subsystem that forms part of the final product. Making good quality early design decisions for each subsystem is central to the management of the design process, enabling the early identification of issues that, if missed, could result in corrections later in the design process: typically, the later an issue is identified, the more expensive will be its correction. For example if early simulation is used to correctly calculate the thermal or structural

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n째4 - 6

requirements between a mechanical box and the PCB of an item of electronic equipment intended for an avionics application, accurate final results can be forecasted. If a methodical simulation approach has been defined, this typically leads to better project decisions at this stage than the alternative approach of solely relying upon experience-driven ideas of “best practice.” The figures illustrate the results from some preliminary Finite Element models aimed at identifying any critical issues related to the thermal requirements between the mechanical chassis and the PCB substrates.

The support of simulation during detailed analysis Detailed Design is characterized by a huge use of simulation in various different fields: • Thermal • Structural • Fluid-dynamic • Electromagnetic The goal of all these calculations is to address the mechanical packaging of the product; providing the designer with the necessary guidance to: a) Achieve the requested technical requirements. b) Prepare for the experimental tests that will be necessary to verify the simulation results, having in mind the reduction in cost of this essential phase of the project – typically, experimental test will be costly and should not be more extensive than strictly necessary.

Fig. 1 - Electronic Equipment :Thermal Map on external surface

Fig. 2 - Temperature increase of inside air

The support of simulation during the engineering test phase At this stage, the physical properties and behavior of the test equipment itself becomes very important and so its various attributes (stiffness, mass etc.) must be accurately represented in the simulation environment. For example, in a durability (shaker) test it will be necessary to represent: • The anchorage chassis to the shaker table.

• The presence of any air channels (assuming the product is tested in a wind tunnel).

• The movement of the shaker table.

All these activities are carefully represented by simulation to verify that the best (most representative) simulation and, therefore, test results are obtained.

Conclusions Today, the simulation approach has come a long way and it is not possible to develop a new product without efficient calculation support. Today’s rapidly-developing software tools are optimized to make the best use of our rapidly-advancing computational hardware. However, it is also necessary to have in the company a human technical team able to manage this computational power and ensure that it is able to contribute optimally to product knowledge and performance at all stages of product development.

Fig. 3 - Temperature increase of Metallic part of Power Supply

Luigi Paris, Selex-ES For more information: Roberto Gonella, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

7 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

Fig. 4 - PSD - Endurance Analysis - Excitation along X Results along Y

Case Histories

Parametric CFD analysis of an EMbaffle Heat Exchanger Heat exchangers play an important role in the process industry, not only for conditioning the process streams but also for attaining a favorable heat economy. Several types are now available on the market, but most common are the shell-and-tube heat exchangers.

They are used for many purposes, e.g., heating and cooling, (re) boiling and condensing. Many varieties in size, shape and orientation exist, depending on the service to which they are applied.

Over the past few decades several techniques were developed to enhance the heat transfer coefficient and reduce operating costs.

On the tube-side, inserts or fin tubes can be used to enhance turbulence (improving the Heat Transfer Coefficient), or simply to extend the heat transfer surface, in order to get more compact and efficient heat exchangers.

On the shell-side, several enhanced technologies are nowadays available (EMbaffle but also Twisted Tube, Helix, RODbaffle, etc…), although conventional segmental designs still dominate the market.

EMbaffle® Technology EMbaffle® Technology was invented in Shell Global Solutions International B.V. in 2002 and several patents have been granted all over the world in the last decade. It is a shell-and-tube heat exchanger technology where tubes are supported by expanded metal baffles (Figure 1). These EM baffles are not solid plates like common segmental baffles, but open grids made of sheets of expanded metal in which the openings have a characteristic diamond shape with specified tight tolerances.

Unlike segmental baffle exchangers, in an EMbaffle the flow direction is longitudinal (Figure 2), so that dead zones are completely avoided (reducing fouling tendency) and shell-side pressure drop is low. As the grids are placed at relatively short separations and the tubes are fully supported by each grid (figure at the top of the article), tube vibration is also prevented.

Case Histories

Fig. 1 - EMbaffle heat exchanger outline

Fig. 2 - EMbaffle longitudinal flow example

In several applications tube vibration is a crucial issue, as it can cause tube failure and therefore reduce the lifetime of the exchangers.

The combination of longitudinal flow and better tube support makes EMbaffle the best solution every time tube vibration is governing the design of the exchanger. Moreover, the presence of the grids increases the turbulence and the low pressure drop allows more compact designs, leading to an enhanced heat transfer coefficient.

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 8

EMbaffle® Technology is currently applied in several industrial applications, such as: • Gas-to-gas applications (Gas fields, LNG, etc.).

• On-shore and off-shore processing.

• Refining and petrochemical.

• Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) applications.

Parametric Model In order to better understand the local behavior of the shell-side fluid approaching the metal grids at different operating and process conditions, a parametric 3D numerical CFD model of a representative portion of the heat exchanger was implemented by EMbaffle in collaboration with EnginSoft. The model was built in ANSYS Workbench and ANSYS CFX was used as the CFD solver. A representative portion of the whole EMbaffle bundle was selected as the minimum repeatable geometry to be modelled (Figure 3).

Table 1 - Geometric parameters of the numerical model

Fig. 5 - Grid picture showing some of the geometric parameters

Fig. 3 - Minimum repeatable geometry extracted from the full bundle

Due to its fabrication process, the grid shape results in a quite complex geometry (Figure 4).

In order to simulate it in a realistic way, several parameters related to grid shape and tube dimensions were set in the model. By means of other parameters it is also possible to modify the baffle spacing (distance between two consecutive grids) and the number of grids. In Table 1 all the geometrical parameters of the model are summarized and briefly explained, while in Figure 5 the most relevant ones are showed.

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Fig. 4 - Grid section

Analysis Cases As a deeper knowledge of the local phenomena is indeed important in order to optimize the design of the heat exchanger, specifically for some ranges of Reynolds number or “particular fluids”, this CFD work was planned to study the local interactions between the shell-side medium and the grids at different operating and process conditions.

Starting in 2002, experimental tests with pilot EMbaffle heat exchangers had been performed. Results of the tests carried out by two internationally recognized institutions (HTRI and TüV NEL), were used to develop the general correlations that are nowadays applied to design an EMbaffle heat exchanger. Some of the test cases used by HTRI to develop the EMbaffle correlations were then selected to guarantee a proper validation of the CFD model.

In the present paper, a liquid-to-liquid case with n-pentane flowing shell-side and water flowing tube-side is examined. Two analysis cases with the following turbulence models were set: • Analysis Case 1: Shear Stress Transport for both shell-side and tube-side fluids; • Analysis Case 2: Baseline (BSL) Reynolds Stress for the shell-side fluid and Shear Stress Transport for the tube-side fluid.

Case Histories

Table 2 - Boundary conditions

Fig. 8- Results comparison table

Fig. 6 - 3D streamline of the shell-side fluid approaching the grid

Results In the Figure 6 the behavior of the shell-side fluid approaching the grids is shown.

As it may be seen, there is an increase in the fluid velocity when it crosses the grid; however, just after the grid itself the presence of a vortex region governs the development of the turbulence and so the enhancement of the performance. The same phenomenon can be more clearly observed in Figure 7, where the streamlines in a longitudinal vertical section are shown.

The comparison between the experimental data and the two CFD Analysis Cases is summarized in Figure 8. It is possible to notice that the exchanged duty in the CFD cases is significantly lower than the one retrieved from the experimental tests; the mismatch is 23.4% for the first analysis case and 20% for the second.

Even if a small improvement is registered when using the BSL Reynolds Stress approach, results show that the applied turbulence models are not yet able to match the real experimental data, both for the turbulence and for the overall heat transfer coefficient.

Fig. 7 - Streamline plot on a vertical plane

Case Histories

Conclusions and future developments The aim of the work was to study the local interaction between the shell-side medium and the grids at different operating and process conditions. Results show for both analysis cases that the CFD model is too conservative with respect to the real performance of the exchanger used for the tests. As we are still in a validation phase of the model, further analysis still needs to be performed.

After this, we will use the CFD model as a tool to better design the EMbaffle exchangers for some particular applications. For example, we could use it to investigate the optimum baffle spacing in terms of minimum pressure drop and maximum heat transfer coefficient. More generally, such models should permit us to address the effectiveness of a selected grid when applied to specific fluids properties.

Francesco Perrone, Marco Brignone, Marco Rottoli - EMbaffle For more information: Michele Andreoli, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

EMbaffle® is a world leader in innovative heat transfer solutions that offers global industry clients significantly improved operating efficiencies with reduced energy consumption, emissions and costs. By combining technical innovation with extensive operating experience the company provides practical solutions that are showing tangible benefits for refining, chemical and solar power plant units worldwide. Patented EMbaffle® heat exchanger technology offers a step change in shell and tube type heat exchanger design.

Expanded metal baffles (tube supports) create an open structure allowing for longitudinal flow at the shell side. Stagnant or ‘dead zones’ found in traditional segmental baffle heat exchangers, which tend to foul rapidly, are not present in EMbaffle® heat exchangers. Tube vibration is also eliminated due to the longitudinal flow characteristics and pressure drop is lowered.

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 10

A CAE based procedure to predict the low velocity impact response of a composite CAI specimen The residual strength, in particular the compression strength after damage due to low velocity impact, is one of the most critical issue for composite laminates. Indeed, composite structures submitted to low energy impacts reveal a brittle behavior and can undergo significant damage in terms of matrix cracks, fiber breakages and delaminations. Such damage is particularly dangerous because it may be undetectable by visual inspection and can drastically reduce the pristine mechanical characteristics of the structure. Generally the behavior of composite materials with respect to this issue is experimentally evaluated by the standard CAI (Compression After Impact) test. For this reason, in order to simulate the impact event, an LS-DYNA FE model of this test was developed and coupled with modeFRONTIER. The integrated procedure allowed to obtain a better understanding of the influence of some numerical parameters on the simulation results (sensitivity analysis), moreover the configuration which provided the best agreement with the experimental data (optimization analysis) was computed.

Test Case Description Experimental impact tests were carried out according to the ASTM D7136 regulations to assess the capability of the procedure for investigating the impact event. A rectangular plate (150 mm x 100 mm) was impacted at an energy level of 50 J by a hemispherical steel impactor with a diameter of 20.0 mm and a mass of 8.64 kg.

The material of the plate was a laminate composite with a symmetric lay-up of 28 plies [45/-45/45/-45/0/0/90/0/0/45/-45/0/90/0]s.

The plies were stacked and cured in an autoclave and the resulting average cured plate thickness was 5.012mm. The specimen was held on a rigid fixture with a cut-out by means of four rubber clamps.

The impact support fixture is shown in Fig.1. The contact force, the impactor velocity and displacement were recorded during the tests.

Ultrasonic c-scans were performed after each test to measure the damaged area.

11 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

Fig. 1- Impact support fixture

Fig. 2- FE model

LS-DYNA FE model As the plates’ length and width dimensions were large compared to their thickness, a 2D modelling approach was chosen. In particular, layered shell elements with an element length of 3mm were used.

LS-DYNA’s linear-elastic composite shell material model (MAT54) was adopted, based on the failure criteria by Chang FK and Chang KY. The separation of adjacent plies due to normal or shear loads, referred to as delamination, absorbs impact energy and decreases the laminate stiffness and therefore needs to be covered by the model as well. Because delamination cannot be represented inside the continuum shell elements, the laminate was divided into a

Case Histories

Fig. 3- Sketch of the modeFRONTIER – LS-DYNA workflow

certain number of overlayed sub-laminates connected by tiebreak contacts which were allowed to separate during the simulation according to a specified failure law. The influence of varying the number of layers of shell elements with these interleaved tie-break delamination contacts was investigated, using models with 2, 3, 7, 17, and 28 layers. A model with just 1 layer of shell elements without delamination was also investigated.

The most realistic description of the phenomenon was provided by a model with 17 layers: in this model, adjacent plies with a difference in orientation lower than 90° were grouped into a unique layer of shell elements. This was chosen for further investigations.

The impactor was modelled as a spherical rigid body with conventional shell elements and the material model MAT_RIGID. An initial velocity of 3.36 m/s was imposed on the impactor using the PART_INERTIA card. A very fine mesh was adopted in order to correctly compute the contact force between the impactor and the plate. The FE mesh used in the model is shown in Figure 2. Finally, an automatic surface-to-surface contact with the option SOFT=0 was defined between the composite plate and the rigid impactor.

slimt in the MAT54 card) and the degradation factor for compression failure (variable slimc in the MAT54 card). Each time a new combination of their values was proposed by modeFRONTIER, the LS-DYNA input file was updated and a new LS-DYNA analysis performed in batch mode. The output of each simulation was then post-processed and the results of the analysis evaluated. The outputs used in this study were the contact force time history, the plate deflection time history, the absorbed energy and the damaged area size. Three of these output were evaluated directly in LS-DYNA (contact force, plate deflection, absorbed energy), while the damaged area was evaluated using ANSYS FE by means of an APDL macro. These numerical results were compared to experimental data during the post-processing phase and the relative errors were computed. Such errors, which will be indicated respectively as “err_f_min”, “err_d_min”, “delta_ energy” and “min_del_area” were thus the objective functions to be minimized. In the block labelled “DOE” (which stands for “Design of Experiments”) the user can generate an initial population of designs, each possessing a different combination of input variables. Starting with the results obtained from these initial designs, the “Scheduler” block iteratively generates completely new designs with the aim of achieving the defined goals using various optimization algorithms.

In order to study the interaction between the input variables and the four chosen objectives a statistical analysis was performed by evaluating an initial population of 81 designs generated by using the Full-Factorial method with 3 levels for each variables. The scatter matrix chart, which is a very useful tool to analyze the data of a statistical analysis, is shown in Figure 4a).

It was found that the variable slimt is the more significant input variable (high correlation with the 4 objectives). All parameters were found to affect significantly the damaged area objective. All objectives are positively correlated, indicating that the objectives were not conflicting.

A multi-objective optimization analysis with the algorithm MOGAII was then performed. The optimization strategy evaluated 137 designs (the initial 49 Full Factorial designs followed by 88 designs specified by the MOGA-II algorithm), leading to several candidate

modeFRONTIER – LS-DYNA process integration In order to better understand the influence of such parameters on the simulation results, a sensitivity analysis was performed by coupling the LS-DYNA FE model with modeFRONTIER, a process integration and design optimization tool. modeFRONTIER is able to explore the design space (i.e. the permitted values of free parameters) and find configurations which satisfy several objective functions.

The integration of the LS-DYNA FE model described above into the modeFRONTIER environment is roughly described by the workflow in Figure 3. The blocks on the top define the input variables for which a suitable range of variations was set. These input variables included: the damping constant (variable sf in the DAMPING_PART_MASS card), the shear strength for tiebreak contact (variable sfls in the tiebreak CONTACT card), the degradation factor for tensile failures (variable Fig. 4 - a) Scatter matrix chart; b) 4D Bubble Chart

Case Histories

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 12

optimal solutions. These can be easily detected in the 4D bubble chart of Figure 4b, where each solution is represented by a coloured bubble of a particular size. A good configuration which minimizes all four objectives should therefore be blue, have a small diameter and lie towards the bottom left of the chart. Design 189 (indicated by the red arrow) was considered to be a good compromise in achieving these goals.

The correlation between the numerical results obtained with this configuration and the experimental data, in terms of damaged area size, contact force, deflection, absorbed energy time histories and force versus displacement trend, are shown in Figures 5, 6a, 6b, 6c and 6d, respectively. The comparison shows that the fitted simulation results and experimental data to be well-correlated.

Conclusion An LS-DYNA – modeFRONTIER coupled procedure was proposed to simulate low velocity impact on composite plate. The procedure allowed the study of the influence of some numerical parameters on the simulation results and identified a configuration which provided the best correlation between the numerical results and the experimental ones in terms of contact force, deflection, absorbed energy time history and damaged area envelope.

The procedure took advantage of modeFRONTIER’s automation capabilities, allowing the calculations to run automatically and unattended for 24 hours each day until completed. Once validated on an experimental database, the procedure will permit the study of a range of factors (material properties, boundary conditions, stacking sequence etc.) on the impact resistance of a component. Hence, damage resistant structures can be designed by reducing the number of expensive experimental tests.

The Aerospace Company: CIRA CIRA was created in 1984 to manage PRORA, the Italian Aerospace Research Program, and uphold Italy’s leadership in Aeronautics and Space. CIRA is a company with public and private sector shareholders. The participation of research bodies, local government and aeronautics and space industries sharing a common goal has led to the creation of unique test facilities, unmatched anywhere in the world, and of air and space flying labs. The CIRA is located in a 180-hectar area in the immediate vicinity of Capua, in the province of Caserta, north of Naples. Its has a staff of 320 people, most of which are engaged in research activity within domestic and international programs.

Fig. 5 - Correlation between the numerical and experimental results in terms of damaged area size

Rosario Borrelli, Stefania Franchitti, Francesco Di Caprio, Umberto Mercurio - Italian Aerospace Research Centre Vito Primavera, Marco Perillo EnginSoft

For more information: Vito Primavera, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

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Fig.7 - Correlation between the numerical and experimental results in terms of a) contact force time histories; b) absorbed energy time histories; c) deflection time histories; d) force versus displacement trend

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Finite Elements Investigations About The Warm Hydroforming Process Of Aluminum Alloys Using LS-DYNA The present work investigates the Warm Hydro Forming (WHF) process of an AA6xxx series alloy (AA6061-T6) using a numerical-experimental approach.

As concerns the experimental activity, tensile and formability tests in warm condition were carried out to identify the mechanical properties: flow stress curves, Forming Limit Curves (FLCs) Fig. 1- Experimental equipment: a=tensile, b=formability and c=press and anisotropy values according to temperature and orientation respect to the rolling direction were obtained. In addition WHF tests were carried high drawing ratio and capability to create complex shapes; however, out using hydroforming facilities of the laboratory of Advanced it is used for small specific productions due to high cycle times and Forming and Manufacturing (http://afmlab.poliba.it); the following initial economic investments. The Warm Hydroforming (WHF) uses process parameters were investigated: maximum oil pressure heat to increase formability of Al alloy. The higher temperature acts (pmax), Blank Holder Force (BHFmin and BHFmax) and working at the crystallographic level activating additional sliding planes and temperature. As concerns the numerical activity, Finite Elements increasing formability. The effect is remarkable even if moderate simulations were focused on the best modeling of the WHF process: temperatures are adopted. models were tuned in order to fit experimental results; in particular In the following sections the results from numerical simulations, different values of the coefficient of friction (COF) and various aimed at modeling the WHF process, are detailed. The FE models yield criteria were assumed for fitting experimental data in terms of were created using material data from preliminary experimental thickness reduction on the formed component. The Forming Limit tests, which allowed to determine the mechanical properties of the Curves (FLCs) adoption, since determining the sheet formability, investigated alloy (AA6061-T6). In addition, results from WHF tests allowed to identify the critical areas (possible cracking or wrinkling). allowed to tune the FE model by fitting the experimental thickness The post-processing was made by LS-PrePost. distribution on formed parts.

Introduction Low density, high strength and stiffness are some of the features that make Al alloys interesting enough to replace some mild steels in automotive and aerospace fields. Hydroforming is an alternative stamping process where the “punch� is replaced by a fluid under pressure, usually oil, that has physic-chemical characteristics such as not to degrade at high temperatures. Actually, this technique is largely accepted by the industry for the benefits associated with it:

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Experimental Tests The experimental tests were carried out with two objectives: (i) the mechanical characterization according to temperature and orientation (with respect to the rolling direction); (ii) the WHF process investigation in order to have a real thickness reduction along a preferential path to be used for calibrating the coefficient of friction for numerical analyses. The investigated blank had an initial thickness of 0.5 mm. Tensile tests were carried out using

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 14

Fig. 2 - Material data obtained by tensile and formability tests

a standard 20 ton electromechanical INSTRON machine equipped with the heating device shown in Figure 1a: it is composed by 9 radiant heaters positioned all around the specimen and managed by a PID controller in order to reach and maintain the target temperature (+/- 1%); the front opening allows the optical measurements system ARAMIS to acquire the complete strain field using the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique: in such a way the Lankford’s coefficients of the alloy were obtained, since tested specimens were extracted along three different orientations: the rolling one (α=0°), the transverse one (α=90°) and the intermediate one (α=45°).

Formability tests were carried out using the Nakajima equipment shown in Figure 1b, assembled on the same tensile test machine. It allows to heat the specimens by the hemispherical punch and to acquire the strain field by the sensors of the DIC system. WHF tests were carried out by the 500 kN electro-hydraulic press machine (http://www.gigant.it) shown in Figure 1c; it is equipped with a heated die able to reach the maximum temperature of 300°C, an oil pressurizing unit able to work (using heated oil) at the maximum pressure of 350bar. The information obtained from the mechanical characterization have been summarized in Figure 2 in terms of flow curves (a), anisotropy values (b) and Forming Limit Curves (c).

NUMERICAL MODELING Model Set Up The commercial FE Explicit code LS-DYNA was used for numerical simulations. The blank geometry and the die shape utilized for simulations are shown in Figure 3.

The blank was divided into two parts: the internal one, which is subjected to oil pressure and the external one (in contact with the blankholder) on which the closing force (or BlankHolder Force, BHF) is applied. Due to the symmetry, only half

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of the blank was modeled in order to reduce computational costs; in addition also a mass scaling technique was adopted.

The blankholder and the die were modeled as rigid parts (*MAT_20 in LS-DYNA) while the blank as deformable; different yield criteria were used to model the material behavior; in particular, the following anisotropic yield criteria, in plane stress condition, were taken into account: Hill 1948 (*MAT_122), Barlat 1989 (*MAT_36) and Hill 1990 (*MAT_243). Both Lankford’s parameters (R00, R45 and R90) and plastic flow curves along the investigated orientations (0°, 45° and 90°) were used for determining the parameters of the adopted yielding models. Also the isotropic yield criterion (*MAT_18) was used for comparison purposes.

In this work the following process parameters were adopted (for both experimental and numerical tests): Temperature (T): 110°C; BHF: from 63 (BHFmin) up to 89 kN (BHFmax) by a linear profile; maximum pressure (pmax): 48 bar by a linear profile. Such process parameters were implemented through the LSDYNA cards *LOAD_RIGID_BODY and *LOAD_SHELL_SET for BHF and pmax respectively (the adoption of the working temperature was simulated using the material behavior specific of that temperature).

Step Analysis and Post-Processing The COF value was evaluated by minimizing difference between thickness data along the longitudinal middle path (axis of symmetry) of the component. In particular, an optimal value was determined for every yield criterion investigated in the present work by comparing thickness results from numerical simulations with correspondent experimental data obtained using the DIC system Aramis. The

Fig. 3 - Die and sheet design

Figure 4 - Numerical and experimental thickness distributions along the symmetry path

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Fig. 5 - Flatness values calculated using different yield criteria

Fig. 6 - Simulation results in terms of major and minor strains of all sheet elements compared to the experimental FLC

graph in Figure 4 summarizes numerical results (in terms of thickness profiles along the symmetry path) obtained using the investigated yield criteria: Barlat’89 and Hill’90 (R = f (ε)) appears to be the ones which allow the best fitting of experimental data. In particular, the Hill’90 criterion is able to fit better the left part of the experimental curve (characterized by smaller strain levels) while the Barlat’89 criterion allows to fit better the right part of the curve (the one concerning the deepest part of the component). Also an additional parameter was investigated for checking the robustness of numerical models: the Flatness (it is as the ratio between the length, LC, of the symmetry path in contact with the die and the length, LD, of the bottom part of the die). The Figure 5 shows the flatness values calculated using models adopting different yield criteria: using as reference the experimental value of 0.2141, the Barlat’89 allowed the best approximation.

In order to predict critical areas characterized by an elevated risk of ruptures or wrinkling, material FLCs (which represent the limit values of major and minor strains) were implemented in the numerical models. The experimental FLCs shown in Figure 2 were used in LSPrePost as reference for the principal strain values calculated in the FE analyses for all the sheet elements. The Figure 6 shows results obtained using anisotropic Barlat89 model with COF equal to 0.068.

It is possible to note that none sheet element exceed FLCs curve,

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therefore risks of rupture are not highlighted. The quality of formed component is quite good, recording a severe thinning in correspondence of deepest part of the component. The map of the quality areas is corroborated by that of the thinning.

Conclusions This work shows the LS-DYNA capability to simulate the WHF process and the importance of the extensive alloy mechanical characterization. The implementation of the anisotropic yield criteria as Hill’90 or Barlat’89 seems to be the best way to fit experimental data as the thickness reduction. It is important to underline that it is necessary to determine an appropriate COF in order to fit experimental thickness data. The management of the experimental FLCs in LS-PrePost provides an easy way to show the results and to identify dangerous areas.

V.Piglionico, G.Palumbo, A.Piccininni, P.Guglielmi - Politecnico di Bari A.Taurisano - EnginSoft For more information: Antonio Taurisano, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 16

Advanced shape for robotic torque sensor New development in robotics has required the use of flexible joints. The success or the failure of that structures, heavily influences the robot motion cause of the interaction with the control system. Nowadays the control force is undergoing a rapid development and torque sensors represent a crucial measurement system for it. The solution presented, thus, is a new optimized torque sensor design that not only fits perfectly with the current mechanism assembly, but also it guarantees the required mechanical properties of the joint. The use of the CAE technique allows the possibility of test several solutions before reaching the final one.

Introduction In recent years, robotics is moving away from the rigid joint to look forward the design of fully sensorized joints. Generally, in a force control loop, these ones allow the motor to tune the torque applied to the end effector. There are several reasons which have prompted this improvement. The application of flexible joints: 1. make safer the hand to hand collaboration between robots and humans; 2. allows the storage of the energy due to an impact for avoiding structure high damages; 3. increases the precision in a manufacturing process.

Figure 1 - (a) HyQ robot, (b) Torque sensor position

Figure 2 - Flexible joint schema

The object of our work is a flexible joint for the HyQ (the Hydraulicallypowered Quadruped designed in the Italian Institute of Technology), shown in Fig. 1. HyQ weighs about 80 kg, is 1 m long and 1 m tall with fully stretched legs. That platform is designed to perform high dynamic task like jumping, running, climbing, etc. The actual version, of the robot, is able to perform both indoor than outdoor

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operations like: walking up to 2m/s, jumping up to 0.5m, balancing the ground disturbance. In the future that robot can help man in several dangerous situations like earthquake, fire, etc.

The fully sensorized joint (Fig. 2b) schema is shown in Fig. 2. It will be installed between the motor (Fig. 2a) and the harmonic drive (Fig. 2c). This last component will address the torque to the HyQ leg.

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Joint torque requirements The deformation could be measured in different ways as follows: electrically, based on electromagnetic phenomena, digital processing or optically. In this case we used the electrical one with strain gages; they are glued on the specific position on the structure that deflects under the applied torque. This deflection must be within the material elastic range to avoid hysteretic phenomena. If the yield point of the material is overpassed, in fact, it will be impossible to get the true value of the torque transmitted by the motor: most of the load applied will be absorbed by the material plastic deformation and the stress-strain relation will be non-linear.

In this case, the flexible structure is a 1 degree of freedom (DOF) torque sensor whose deformations are estimated by positioning strain gauges. The design boundary conditions, as happen for each measurement tool, depend on the admissible stiffness k, (k=torque/deg). That parameter can influence the reaction time of the control system: the decrement of the stiffness induces a loss in the system accuracy. In the case presented, the maximum dynamic torque transmitted by the motor was around 140Nm and the related angle is around 1 deg.

The strain gauges measurement technique is based on the principle of the local deformation. It means that it is important to concentrate the maximum strain of the body in a specific area, where the sensors will be positioned. This value, lower than 0.06%, produces a suitable input for the strain gauge within the linearity that is 0.15%.

The aforementioned surface must be accessible and planar. The accessibility is useful to guarantee the correct positioning of the sensor: it needs the cleaning of the surface, the bonding of the film and sufficient space for the cables. The planarity, instead, is important to avoid offset and drift phenomena that can arise in case of curved surfaces.

The movements of the leg can be both in the clockwise direction than in count clockwise, for this reason it should be better having the same calibration factor in both directions. That will be an easy integration of the structure in the control system.

Results The final shape was obtained by an optimization process divided in four case studies. Every single case study was composed by two different steps: the initial shape was obtained according to the applied design rule. Then it was optimized thanks to modeFRONTIER simulations, Fig. 2, in order to determine the best performances. This procedure was looped till these performances matched the torque sensor requirements.

Figure 4 - Constraints

As it is obvious, the torsion is the basic phenomenon of torque sensor concept. That leads to think that the circular shape can produce the maximum deformation in safe conditions. Thus the first idea would have been to design a hollow cylinder to be installed between the harmonic drive and the shaft motor.

However, following this way, it was not possible to match the requested deformation. Then other designs were investigated and all the structural capabilities of each solution were tested by numeric simulation developed in Workbench. The specifications imposed to use Ergal as building material. The element chosen for the mesh was solid186, because it guarantees the best refinement.

Two different constraint conditions were tested, to simulate the reciprocal displacement between the two sides. In case of Fig. 2a, the torque sensor is fixed to the harmonic drive and the torque is applied by the shaft motor. The case of Fig. 2b represents the inverse.

Based on the aforementioned criteria, the first solution investigated is shown in Fig. 4a. The maximum stress, arose close to the

Figure 3 - modeFRONTIER schema

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Figure 5a - 1st solution investigated

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The shape of the third solution has followed the torsional flow stress. The structure was more robust than in the previous cases to guarantee the elastic response of the body. The deformable components, the two horizontal links in Fig 4c, were subjected to a pure tensile stress. The strain was bigger than the previous times and allowed the reaching of the design specifications.

The robustness has allowed to remain in the elastic field of the material. However, even if the positioning strain gauges surfaces were planar, they were inaccessible for film bondage and the cable working space.

Figure 5b - 2nd solution investigated

Figure 5c - 3rd solution investigated

The last solution investigated, grew up from the failures of the previous one. The robustness and the idea to get the deformation thanks to a pure tensile stress were saved. The main work was focused in the increase the empty space close to the planar surface to guarantee a successful strain gauges position. That solution covered almost everyone the required tasks. The exception was represented by the bi-directionality. To solve that problem, the suggested solution was to use two different calibration factors according to the clockwise or anti-clockwise movement.

Conclusions The application of the CAE technique to the design process of the torque sensor allowed the reduction of time and costs. In fact, the physical prototype was machined only when the numerical simulation results has fitted the design requirements.

M.D’Imperio, F.Cannella, J. Goldsmith, C. Semini and D.G. Caldwell

Figure 5d - 4th solution investigated

connection between the inner circular section and the linear beam, exceeded the yield point of the material. The area where the maximum strain was located was not planar and the reached value of deformation was not sufficient for the strain gauges measurement. However that shape guaranteed a bidirectional behaviour. Considering this solution did not match several requested specifications, it was abandoned.

The second structure has been designed more robust then the former one, to have stresses reduction. Despite that improving, some problems of the previous solution still existed. The only one solved was the value of deformation, it was within the measurement range of the strain gauges. At the end, even that second solution was deleted.

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Figure 6 - Physical torque sensor

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Evaluation of Grinding Repair through modeFRONTIER RSM and ANSYS Mechanical SACMI is an international group manufacturing machines and complete plants for the Ceramics, Beverage & Packaging, Processing and Plastics industries. This world-wide group comprises about 70 companies.

The case study under investigation is about the evaluation of the Effect of Grinding Repairing Operation through a user friendly tool based on modeFRONTIER’s Response Surface Methodology (RSM) capabilities.

The grinding operation is one of the methods used by SACMI to repair the surface of its cast iron structural components when affected by unacceptable defects like porosities or inclusions. The grinding repair alters the component geometry, the stress field and the fatigue parameters of the studied component. The usual way to evaluate the effect of the grinding operation in terms of grinded component fatigue life is a new simulation followed by a fatigue analysis where the model geometry has to be modified according to the grinding operation. The aim of the present study is the creation of a user friendly and fast analytical Excel Worksheet to replace the modeling, simulation and fatigue analysis of the ground component, utilizing modeFRONTIER and its Response Surface Model capabilities.

Two different parametric models have been built in order to consider two different geometric topologies in the same project and to fill the whole grinding tool field of application. The CAD models and the related FE models have been integrated into modeFRONTIER directly with two Workbench nodes. The fatigue analysis follows SACMI inhouse procedures and rules and is implemented in an Excel node at the end of the project flow. The final outputs are given to the users in terms of Safety Factors and come from the integration between three different RSMs obtained with modeFRONTIER and some analytical calculations.

Having been validated, this tool is currently used in SACMI to evaluate the effect of the grinding repair operation and allows a significant saving of time and cost.

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Introduction Cast iron components are affected by different kinds of superficial defects connected to the casting process, such as slag inclusions, porosities and shrinkages. Depending on their type, dimension and position, such defects may not be acceptable in terms of component wear resistance. In these cases the component has to be repaired. One repair option is grinding the defect to remove it. A standard flowchart to evaluate the acceptable of such a grinding repair consists of an FEM and fatigue analysis of the re-ground component. This approach is accurate but time consuming: it can be used to verify the repair and not to manage it. A different approach is proposed here: it is based on a “grinding metamodel” created with a modeFRONTIER RSM. Thanks to this approach the flowchart reduces to one simple and fast step utilizing a user-friendly tool in the form of an excel GUI. The analysis time is reduced from hours to minutes. modeFRONTIER is used to manage the RSM, ANSYS Mechanical to compute FEM

Fig. 1 - Standard and proposed Workflow

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analysis and a Microsoft Excel algorithm focused on cast iron SACMI structural components to compute fatigue analysis.

The main aim of this study is to obtain a robust and user-friendly tool to enhance productivity of the SACMI Imola S.C. Ceramic Engineering Department.

Fig. 2 - Geometric topologies of the dig The fundamental steps to obtain the proposed tool are investigated in the next sections and include the creation of an appropriate RSM metamodels, the construction of a user-friendly evaluation tool and validation with some test cases.

Metamodel based on Response Surfaces A metamodel based on Response Surfaces (RSM) is an analytic model that approximate the multivariate input/output behavior of complex systems, based on a limited set of computationallyexpensive simulations. RSM was first introduced by Box and Wilson in 1951, who suggested the use of a first-degree polynomial model for approximating a response variable. The sequence to create a metamodel in engineering can be summarized in four steps. Model formulation: identifying the problem’s input and output parameters;

after the creation of the metamodel (i.e. surface treatments, surface roughness, probabilistic factors and the presence of lubrication). The outputs of the metamodel should then be two response surfaces: one for the stress intensification factor and one for the volume effect. To obtain these, some preliminary aspects should be analyzed.

Geometry of the dig. The geometry of the dig influences both the RSM outputs. Two different topologies of dig were considered and represented in Figure 2: one obtained from a spheroidal cutting tool with the center outside from the original external surface (1) and the other with a conical cutting tool with rounded tip (2). This choice comes from the awareness that the only two manageable and relevant dig dimensions are the radius at the bottom of the dig, R, which corresponds to the grinding tool radius, and the dig’s depth, b. These two are two input parameters for the RSM. Stress field. The model should take into account all the possible stress fields. Considering the typical depths of grinding digs, a linearized stress field is a good approximation. Under this assumption the generic stress field is obtained by the linear superposition of a purely normal load and a purely bending load. Once the reference axial

Fig. 3 - ANSYS WB project and ANSYS Mechanical environments

Design selection: using a DOE tool to specify the variable settings at which to run the disciplinary models and acquire response data. RSM fitting: having chosen a particular type of RSM, its parameters are adjusted to best match the data obtained during design selection. RSM Assessment: specifying and evaluating the performance measures that will be used to characterize the fidelity of the fitted RSM. The RSM can be then used for various purposes such as the prediction of the responses of unevaluated designs, optimization, trade-off studies or the further exploration of the design space. modeFRONTIER contains powerful tools to create, manage and export Response Surfaces Models.

Concepts behind the metamodel The metamodel’s aim is to evaluate the consequences for component resistance of geometry changes introduced by a grinding repair. The geometry of a grinding repair influences two different fundamental aspects of the component fatigue analysis: the stress field and the volume effect. It is known that both these aspects strongly affect the resistance of a cast iron component. The other factors which influence component resistance are not connected to the grinding repair geometry so they are introduced directly in the Excel tool

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load is fixed, the generic load is completely defined by the bending moment (i.e. the bending moment parameter is the exponent of the applied moment magnitude, a, so M=1∙10a). The response surface of the stress intensification factor is a linear combination of two different RSMs: one obtained from the pure axial load and the other from the pure bending load.

Mono-axial load.The FEM model is characterized by a mono-axial load even if a general load field could be multi-axial. This assumption has been evaluated by a preliminary sensitivity analysis with multi-axial loads. Without this simplification of the FEM model, the metamodel would become hard to manage in terms of user inputs required.

Scalar intensification factor. The use of a scalar intensification factor to obtain the new stress field with the dig starting from the original one implies that the principal vector directions do not change among the two geometric situations.

ANSYS Workbench project The parametric ANSYS WB project is made of three ANSYS Mechanical static structural environments. They all share the material, geometry and model data. The parametric geometry has been created in Design Modeler. The first static structural environment is a linear static

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Fig. 4 - modeFRONTIER workflow

analysis with the reference pure axial load and symmetry boundary conditions. The second is a linear static analysis with the pure bending load with magnitude defined by the input parameter a and symmetry boundary conditions. The third is a dummy static analysis for volume effect evaluation during fatigue analysis.

modeFRONTIER RSM Defining a correct initial DOE (Design of Experiments) is fundamental to obtaining a good Response Surface. Since the model is not very expensive from a computational point of view while the inputs ranges are quite large, a large population has been used (almost 300 design points).

The purpose was to comprehensively cover the full design modeFRONTIER Workflow space especially in the most common grinding repair The whole process to create the ranges. Two different DOE algorithm have been chosen: the Incremental Space Filler algorithm was used in the first Response Surfaces of the grinding repair has been completely automated stage, starting from few design points of SOBOL, to cover the full design space and then in the second stage the through modeFRONTIER. In particular it effectively evaluates fatigue analysis of SOBOL algorithm only was used to increase the number the repaired component model through of design points in some specific domain areas where a better resolution of the RSM was required. Figure 5 shows the following steps: the DOE design points in a scatter 3D plot. After running the DOE sequence the design points were split in two, 1. Choose the geometric topology through a switch node. forming training and validation sets. The first is used to 2. Launch an ANSYS WB project to create the RSM and the second to validate it: a good RSM Fig. 5 - DOE design points, 3D scatter plot perform static structural analysis. (trained on the training set) should be a good predictor of 3. Launch an Excel Worksheet with the validation set. The high number of design suggests the macro to perform fatigue analysis. selection of a suitable RSM amongst approximating (not interpolating) 4. Export the relevant outputs. surfaces. Figure 6 shows the 3D surface graphs of the chosen response surfaces. They are obtained from Multivariate Polynomial Interpolation based on the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) algorithm. A 5th Figure 4 shows the modeFRONTIER Workflow. On the left, the two degree polynomial was used for kt_axial and kt_flex responses while possible routes (1 or 2) that the flow can take are highlighted, a 4th degree for Volume Effect. Using modeFRONTIER RSM evaluation depending on the geometric input values, b and R. On the right, the tools one can get an average relative error less than 1% and a maximum inputs (blue) and the outputs (brown) of the metamodel are circled relative error of 10% for all the three surfaces. Using the Chauvenet and the Excel node is squared in green. criterion few outliers were found and neglected during the RSM creation.

Fig. 6 - Response Surfaces (Design points in black)

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Fig. 7 - Excel evaluation tool GUI

Grinding evaluation tool The RSM metamodel described above was then packaged in a userfriendly tool. It runs in Microsoft Excel since this is a well-known and widely available item of software which incorporates its own GUI creation environment. Furthermore, modeFRONTIER offers a direct export of its response surfaces to Excel. The tool GUI as it appears to the user and the evaluation tool workflow are summarized in Figure 7 and Figure 8 respectively. The tool workflow is briefly summarized here.

The user puts the main inputs values: geometric inputs (b and R) and original stress field inputs in terms of Safety Factors without considering the volume effect, SF@Vref. The Safety Factor, SF, is one of main outputs of a fatigue analysis, it is proportional to the ratio between the reference stress limit, σlim and the equivalent stress, σe: SF proportional σlim/σe. The quantities σlim and σe depend on the fatigue approach followed during the analysis. In particular the one used here is an in-house multi-axial approach focused on typical hydraulic press structural components. The tool gets the information of the original stress field through the equivalent stress which contains the information of the full stress tensor. In particular the user input is the Safety Factor which is inversely proportional to the equivalent stress since it is directly available among the classical fatigue outputs.

To make the tool more user-friendly, the user need only supply one scalar stress value and not a complete stress tensor. However, this implies the following approximation: the stress gradients are assumed to be the same before and after grinding repair. In particular the tool

Fig. 8 - Excel evaluation tool workflow

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needs the SF on the surface, SF@Vref_sup, and at b depth, SF@ Vref_b, at the defect position.

The tool evaluates the stress field gradient (parameter a) from SF@ Vref_sup, SF@Vref_b and b. The tool evaluates the volume effect through the Volume Effect RS from b and R. The tool evaluates the stress intensification factor through kt_axial and kt_flex RS from a, b and R. The user provides the additional input parameters which influence component resistance (material, surface treatments, surface roughness, probabilistic factors and the presence of lubrication) for which the tool utilises its internal database to compute the consequences. The relative dimensional changes during grinding are the only information required by the tool since it reads SF and returns SF. The tool evaluates and returns the minimum SF combining the information from the stress intensification factor, volume effect and the additional inputs.

Evaluation tool validation The complete tool has been validated with a comparison between its results and the ones obtained with the standard grinding evaluation workflow for a set of available test cases. As shown in Figure 9 all the tested cases give results within a ±5% band of the reference results.

This reveals a high confidence level for the completed tool.

Conclusions A new approach and tool to evaluate grinding repair has been obtained thanks to RSM. The modeFRONTIER software appears to be a very efficient tool for the creation and management of such RSMs, and the integration of at least three different software packages (Design Modeler, ANSYS Mechanical and Excel) and two different geometric topologies. Deriving the tool requires some effort to produce the modeFRONTIER workflow, execute the analyses and process the results. However, once the RSMs are derived and incorporated within the tool, the analysis is very much faster than the previous approach, taking minutes rather than hours. Furthermore, the approximations that are used have been shown not to generate unacceptable errors, with validation demonstrating robust results.

Riccardo Cenni, SACMI Imola For more information: Francesco Franchini, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

Fig. 9 - Validation results

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ACT (ANSYS Customization Toolkit) SACMI customized fatigue solution ACT overview ACT is a completely new and fully documented customization environment available since version 14.5 of ANSYS Workbench.

It allows legacy ANSYS MAPDL expertise to be reused in order to produce straight-forward customized solutions for the ANSYS Workbench Mechanical environment. The developed customized items can easily be used by any CAE analyst without the need to possess MAPDL legacy expertise.

SACMI customized fatigue assessment Having to deal with about 20,000 tons of Ductile Cast Iron (DCI) per year, SACMI has developed its own methodology for the fatigue assessment of this material. The core of the methodology is a probabilistic, multiaxial and volume dependent local stress approach. The inputs needed, for each node are the stress tensors at the two relevant stages of the working cycle and the associated volume. The outputs are probability of failure, safety factor and extension and the severity of some typical DCI defects. The latter can be used either in the design or in the Quality Assurance phase.

ACT implementation In order to have the SACMI fatigue assessment implemented as a user-friendly tool inside ANSYS Workbench, EnginSoft developed an ACT extension able to guide the user from the initial settings down to the results visualization.

The procedure is dived into three different steps accessed from a custom toolbar developed using the ACT customization framework.

• Exporting the data for Excel: from the first button on the toolbar, a customized post-processing item is added to the ANSYS Mechanical module tree. It lets the user define relevant parameters for the fatigue assessment such as the surface finishes throughout the component and the time steps to be considered. During solution, an automated procedure is

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started in order to export stress tensors, volume and surface finish at each node in csv format.

• Performing the fatigue calculations and exporting data to WB: a proprietary Excel file developed by SACMI is opened by the second button on the dedicated toolbar. It reads csv files previously generated and allows the user to set up other relevant model parameters and to then perform the fatigue assessment. As a result, a set of outputs are generated for each node, from the safety factor to the allowable residual stress state. These data are then exported in a fashion suitable to be imported back into ANSYS Workbench.

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• Visualizing the results in ANSYS Workbench: ACT takes care also of the last part of the process via the third and final button on the toolbar, which automatically imports the fatigue results and displays them on the original model, using the External Data tool available in ANSYS Workbench. The user therefore has access to all the usual features to probe the results, slice the model and so forth.

Conclusions Thanks to the specific customization capabilities available with the ACT framework, it has not only been possible to completely embed a complex procedure inside the ANSYS Workbench environment, but to also give it many added values, including: • Units automatically managed by ANSYS Workbench.

• Relevant geometry selections managed via the standard ANSYS Workbench features.

• Everything “behind” the procedure hidden from the end-user, making the capabilities available to a wider set of users who need not be aware of the details of the methodology.

• The solution should not be vulnerable to future updates of ANSYS. Matteo Cova, SACMI For more information: Francesco Micchetti, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

SACMI is an international group manufacturing machines and complete plants for the Ceramics, Packaging (including Beverage and Closures&Containers), Food and Plastics industries - markets in which it is a recognized worldwide leader. Its strength lies in the application of innovative technology, the outstanding position of the Group on international markets and its commitment to research and development and providing customers with top-flight quality and service.

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Accurate Thermo-Fluid Simulation in Real Time Environments The need for comprehensive and repeatable system-level testing of embedded systems can present major economic and technical challenges to systems and test engineers. It often involves combining real hardware components with a software simulation model to perform hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation and testing. This technique is essential in evaluating and verifying systems that cannot easily or safely be tested in a real operating environment and where testing extends to failure mode analysis of the system.

The HIL simulation concept has many applications from a relatively simple AC temperature controller to a more complex system such as an aircraft re-fuelling system. HIL simulation requires real time interaction with the software simulation model that represents part of the system environment under test.

The progress in numerical simulation methods and high-performance computing provides thermo-fluid system engineers with greater power to gain insights into their systems’ performance through the exploration of multiple system configurations. In many cases, complex simulations are not able to run natively in real time, which makes the software solution unsuitable for coupling with a HIL environment. Therefore an alternative approach is needed.

This paper describes the Design of Experiments approach used in the Mentor Graphics 1D thermo-fluid simulation software Flowmaster V7 to address the issue providing simulation results in real-time. Mentor

Graphics has collaborated with EnginSoft in order to implement the creation of Response Surface models within the Flowmaster GUI. This framework allows for the creation of meta-models of a full simulation model to be exported as C code or as MATLAB™ S-Functions suitable for use in a HIL environment or as the backend code to a runtime model of the system. The latter when implemented as a portable runtime version with a dashboard interface provides a useful tool allowing non-experts to review the results of a simulation model analysis and understand a system’s behavior more easily.

Meta-Models and the Design of Experiments Approach Using Flowmaster V7, engineers can employ a Design of Experiments technique to perform a series of simulations that can be used to create a response surface that interpolates all intermediate points. This surface represents a model of the original model; in other words, it is a meta-model that can be used to analyze the global problem over a defined range of input conditions. The meta-models are created from parametric studies in which one or more input variables are varied in combination to determine the effects on selected output parameters.

The advantage of using the Design of Experiments technique is that fewer calculations need to be performed to produce a well-distributed set of simulation results. The Fig. 1 illustrate the C Code generation and real time integration workflow in Flowmaster V7.

Fig 1 - Real-time integration workflow in Flowmaster V7

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Constructing a Meta Model Constructing a useful meta-model starting from a reduced number of simulations is not a trivial task. Mathematical and physical soundness, computational costs, and prediction errors are not the only points to take into account when developing meta-models. When using meta-models, engineers should always keep in mind that this instrument allows a faster analysis than the complex engineering models, but interpolation and extrapolation introduce a new element of error that must be managed carefully.

These are the steps to using meta-models for engineering design, starting from a validated system model: • First, formulate the problem and identify the problem’s parameters; this may include specifying the names and bounds of the variables that will be part of the design.

• If the original simulation is computationally intensive and the use of the meta-model is necessary, choose the number and type of designs for which it is more convenient to run the original simulation model.

• Use output responses to build meta-models.

• Validate the meta-models.

Fig 2 - Flowmaster V7 Response Surface with Hardys Radial Basis Function • Finally, use response prediction for determining new conditions.

(RBFs) are used in the software because of the high tractability for The number of input parameters times the number of simulations these models. Moreover, empirical evidence shows that such models forms the table of the training points used to construct the metagive good predictions even with the reduced number of training points. models. If the training points are not carefully chosen, the fitted model RBFs are simply linear combination of radial functions centered at can be poor and influence the final results. experimental points xi: Generating Inputs for the Meta-Model In Flowmaster V7, a “Latin Square” method is used to generate unique combinations of distributed points in the domain.

Latin Square is a Design of Experiments algorithm based on Latin Several different radial functions Φ are available in the literature; squares, mathematical objects first investigated by Euler starting from however, we opted for a subset of functions: Gaussians, Duchon’s 1782, in which numbers are never repeated in columns and rows. The number of generated designs is n2, where n is the number of different Polyharmonic Splines, Hardy’s MultiQuadrics, and Inverse levels that we want to consider for the input. This approach produces a MultiQuadrics (IMQ). This list guarantees a good degree of freedom balanced list of experiments, where all points should be run the same for interpolating several different problems. number of times for each one of the n levels.

The final number of required simulations is thus independent from Evaluating and Assessing the Meta-Model the number of input variables; this represents an enormous advantage Assessing the meta-model involves evaluating the performance of the compared to other factorial methods generating regular grids. In fact, models, as well as the choice of an appropriate validation strategy. when n is the number of levels for the m input, full factorial requests Validation is a fundamental part of the modeling process. Engineers n to the power of m points and this number grows exponentially may use residual charts and other statistical information at their accordingly to the number of variables. For example, with three disposal for evaluating the accuracy of the meta-models. This is variables and five levels, 25 points are required using the Latin Square necessary to understand the behavior of the model, improve it when method, compared with 125 points using a full factorial approach. necessary by adding additional simulations, or redefine the region of Creating this kind of experiment allows engineers to populate the input interest. data grid in the software with sets of unique values over a specified range simply by entering the lower and upper bounds for each defined The maximum absolute error may be used as a measure to provide parameter. information about extreme performances of the model. The mean absolute error that is the sum of the absolute errors divided by number Fitting the Meta-Model of data points may even be used; it is measured in the same units The output responses from running the simulations with these inputs as the original data. RBFs fit exactly the training points so we need are used to fit a meta-model. Meta-model fitting involves specifying a smart approach to check the goodness of the model. The error is the type and functional form of the meta-model and then saving, estimated with the “leave one out” technique in which one point is evaluating, and comparing different responses. Radial basis functions left out of the training and kept as a measure of the error. In turn,

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each point of the experimental set is excluded from the interpolation and used to evaluate the residuals. This approach provides a good estimate of the global error.

Exporting the Meta-Model The meta-model is used to predict responses at untried inputs. Having derived the meta-model that defines the system response, the last step is to export it to C code or MATLAB™ S-Functions. These forms are both suitable for use in a real-time environment. The C code also can be used to derive a runtime model with a dashboard interface.

The dashboard interface would provide the facility of being able to enter input values within the range of the model and immediately see the output results allowing sharing and use of the model results with non-experts.

Application Example The main application areas for hardware-in-the-loop simulation are in the design of Electronic Control Units where the controller is connected to a real time simulator. This provides a way of testing control systems over the full range of operating conditions including failure modes both cost effectively and safely. Application examples come from a range of industries such as Automotive, where HIL real time modelling is used in the design and evaluation of electronic control systems optimised for hybrid and electric vehicle applications and in the design of vehicle AC and cooling systems. It is also applicable to the Aerospace industry for the design of aircraft refuelling systems.

The example network shown below in Fig 3 is a simplified automotive engine cooling system, where the engine is represented by a heat source transmitted into the cooling system via a thermal bridge component. The flow passes through a heat exchanger and there is a bypass line controlled by a set of globe valves that represent the thermostat.

The primary circuit consists of a pump, a heat source, a set of globe valves, a cross-flow heat exchanger and a pressure source

Fig 3 - Simple Automotive Cooling System

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that pressurizes the system. The bypass line includes a globe valve, component C4, which controls the amount of fluid that passes through the heat exchanger by modulating between position 0 and 1. If the valve is in position 0, then a quantity of flow will pass through the bypass line and if the valve is in position 1, then the entire flow passes through the heat exchanger.

In this study, we want to characterize the cooling system network performance for a range of pump speeds, air flows over the radiator and engine heat outputs. We also want to include the effects of various valve positions for the bypass line from fully closed to fully open.

Fig 4 - Experiment input values

The following four input parameters are defined for the network.

• [Pump Speed] Mixed Flow Pump, C16 • [Air Flow] Flow Source, C14 • [Engine Heat Output] Heat Flow Source, C1 • [Valve_C4] Valve Opening, C4 The output parameters are defined as: • Top Hose Temperature (Thermal Bridge C2, Node 2) • Pump Flow Rate (Mixed Flow Pump, C16) In Flowmaster V792, we can generate the inputs to the required simulations using a Latin Square algorithm. This method provides a good distribution of results values within the domain that are suitable for creating a bounded response surface model.

The normal procedure would be to use Latin Square to generate input values based on the bounds entered for each of the defined input parameters. However, as the model is to include valve states, from fully open to fully closed, any corresponding single response surface

Fig 5 - Response Surface View

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 28

would show large errors due to interpolation across the open/closed valve boundary conditions. To overcome this Flowmaster V7 allows discrete values to be used for any input parameter, in this case the valve, and combines the Latin Square values with each of the discrete values. A response surface can then be generated using any two inputs parameters, an output parameter for each discrete value of valve opening.

Fig 6 Deviations of Response Surface for the flow rate through the pump

provided which will automatically determine and display the best fit RBF. The result of applying a RBF to the simulation results is shown in Fig. 5.

The Deviation Details tool provides an immediate and simple evaluation of the goodness-of-fit of each response surface on the basis of its deviation. As shown in Fig 6 and Fig 7 the best response surfaces for the flow through the pump and through the heat exchanger are those computed with Gaussian RBF while the best response surface for the temperature in the primary circuit is the one computed with Hardy’s MultiQuadrics.

Each combination of results for the defined inputs, each output at a defined valve position and a selected radial basis function can be saved as a meta-model. The metamodels can be exported as C code or as MATLAB™ S-Functions either of which is suitable for use in a real-time simulation or as the backend to a dashboard interface.

Conclusion The collaboration between EnginSoft and Mentor Graphics has resulted in the implementation of a Design of Experiments approach to response surface modelling in Flowmaster V7. It provides for the creation of meta-models within the Flowmaster GUI based on Latin Square Experiments that can be exported as C code or as MATLAB™ S-Functions suitable as the backend code to a runtime model of the system or for use in a HIL environment.

The ability to characterize a system’s behaviour in exported code opens up a wide range of possibilities, such as creating a simple dashboard that allows non-expert users to understand and predict system performances, inserting the code into a hardwarein-the-loop logic, or embedding the code into other codes for co-simulations.

Silvia Poles, Alberto Deponti - EnginSoft Frank Rhodes - Mentor Graphics

Fig 7 Deviations of Response Surface for temperature downstream of heat source

Here a Latin Square of ten levels is considered which generates 100 simulations i.e. n2 simulations, where n is the number of different levels. Using four discrete values for the valve component C4 of 0, 0.3, 0.6 and 1 will produce a total of 400 steady state simulations.

For this model the following values are used.

Once the 400 simulations are completed, response surfaces for each output variable can be created using the following radial basis functions: 1. Gaussian 2. Duchon’s Polyharmonic Splines 3. Hardy’s MultiQuadrics 4. Inverse MultiQuadrics This list of radial functions guarantees a good degree of freedom for interpolating several different types of problems. An option of ‘All’ is

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For more information: Alberto Deponti, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

Reduce the development time and costs of thermo-fluid systems Flowmaster is the leading general purpose 1D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solution for modeling and analysis of fluid mechanics and pipe flow in complex systems early in the development process. It helps systems engineers to simulate pressure surge, temperature and fluid flow rates system-wide and to understand how design alterations, component size, selection and operating conditions will affect the overall fluid system performance accurately and quickly.

Flowmaster is supported in Italy and South Europe by EnginSoft.

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High Fidelity Simulation of turbulent reacting flows What are High Fidelity Simulations?

High fidelity simulation (HFS) involves the use of very large computing capabilities to resolve directly most of the physical phenomena under consideration, hence reducing the impact of the modelling in the results. For fluid flow simulations, it implies resolving a large fraction of the turbulent kinetic energy spectrum in order to limit the eventual uncertainty contained in traditional models. In other words, we use well-resolved Large Eddy Simulation and capture the large dominant turbulent vortices.

When chemical reactions occur in the turbulent flow, high fidelity simulations are required to deal with a complex (at least not oversimplified) reaction scheme (typically at least 20 species for simpler systems) covering the relevant range of time scales.

Why High Fidelity Simulations?

The growing availability of high performance computing (HPC) opens avenues for significant changes and improvements in Computer Aided Engineering practice within industry. While socalled production CFD is an established tool with a short leadtime, high fidelity simulation (Large Eddy Simulation based) has previously been outsourced to universities or research institutions.

This distinction is no longer valid, since HPC and HFS are use during the industrial design process. The challenge is therefore to integrate judiciously high fidelity simulation into the work flow as a complement to existing tools. One may identify three occasions where high fidelity simulations is of value for the product development process. Firstly, it is able to generate databases for the validation and calibration of simpler (sometimes steady-state) models that will be used in production CFD. Secondly, HFS is used for trouble-shooting investigations where the production CFD tools have failed to prevent malfunction or have overlooked important parts of the physics. Thirdly, HFS is of value for getting a more advanced understanding of the fluid system with the aim of improving operations or identifying limits in terms of critical operating points.

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When to do High Fidelity Simulations?

Based on the points developed in the previous subsection, the product development process benefits from HFS when dealing with a novel design or operating conditions that lie outside the established region of confidence of simpler tools. It is, in fact, a central tool in innovation-driven tasks where traditional compromises are to be challenged – hence also challenging traditional simulation tools.

In addition, HFS is a valuable tool in the later development phase for validating the design before the production of a prototype – in other word, during the preventative trouble-shooting phase. HFS is well-suited for use prior to expensive experimental validations, test campaigns or costly prototype manufacturing.

How to do High Fidelity Simulations?

A key issue in HFS is the high resolution required to capture accurately the physics under consideration. It necessitates a fine numerical mesh and high order numerical solutions (no numerical diffusion, for example). The mesh quality itself ought also to be high (preferably cubic cells) in order to make the very best use of this high spatial resolution. Matching the spatial resolution, it is also necessary to utilize high order time integration techniques along with small time steps (Courant number below 0.3). An estimate of the computational resources required will depend on the model size and in particular the smallest / fastest physical scale to be resolved. More importantly, unlike production CFD, HFS places strong demands on expertise of the engineers and project manager in charge.

Simulation of a piloted premixed jet burner (PPJB) Firstly, we exemplify the use of HFS through the simulation of a piloted methane jet flame. It consists of a round methane/ air premixed jet (equivalence ratio 0.5) issuing in vitiated gas (temperature 1500K) at a bulk velocity of 50 m/s. The jet of diameter D is surrounded by a stoichiometric pilot (temperature 2336K) securing a stable flame thanks to the very hot gases contacting

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 30

Fig. 1- Instantaneous temperature, OH mass fraction and CO mass fraction fields for the PPJB. The premixed jet (equivalence ratio 0.5) is injected in the center surrounded by the stoichiometric pilot

the premixed jet. It contains all the physics involved in pilot stabilization in industrial burner and was well characterized using state of the art laser diagnostics at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Sydney. It is therefore a suitable but severe test for advanced simulation strategies. HFS was performed using a 21-species and 84-reactions skeletal mechanism describing methane combustion.

Figure 1 presents three longitudinal cuts depicting different scalars. The temperature field shows clearly the location of the pilot and penetration of the fresh mixture jet. The effect of the pilot, in terms of promoting reactions, is also seen in the OH field with a thin but intense layer of OH in the shear-layer. Further downstream, the effect of the pilot fades and the reaction layer is intermittent with alternating thin band and large pockets of CO. The statistics of CO are therefore a good indicator of the flame dynamics and are examined in Figure 2. The peak value is located in the shear-layer where the jet contacts the pilot and the vitiated gas. The peaks merge at the tip of the jet – about x/D=25. As expected, the RMS value exhibits a large peak (up to 50% of the mean) in the shearlayer. HFS captures accurately the peak CO value both in term of mean and RMS – with differences of the order of the experimental uncertainty. It indicates that the dynamics of the reaction layer are simulated both qualitatively and quantitatively. Discrepancies are only seen close to the pilot and are in fact due to the inflow

boundary conditions of the pilot. In fact, the lack of detailed experimental characterization of the inflow boundary conditions is presently the larger source of uncertainty and limits the predictions with HFS. A conclusion is that HFS is a powerful technique where modeling assumptions have a lower impact on the results than user expertise or uncertainties over the boundary conditions.

Simulation of ozone assisted exhaust gas cleaning with detailed chemistry A second example focuses on cold plasma treatment of exhaust gases for NOx removal. The apparatus resembles the experiments of Stamate et al. and is presented on Figure 3. It features a set of coaxial cylinders used as reactor shells with the exhaust gas injected on the left hand side. The purpose is the conversion of NOx molecules (mostly NO and NO2) to N2O5 by reaction with ozone (O3) generated by a cold plasma. The complex chemistry depicts the oxidation of NO into NO2, of NO2 into NO3 and also the formation of N2O5 from NO and NO2. In fact, the complex chemistry is described by 13 species and encompasses 31 reactions.

HFS is used presently to resolve the large coherent structures in the counter-flow problem. Both the ozone and exhaust gas jets exhibit irregular and large scale patterns – although they are statistically axi-symmetric (on average). Figure 3 also presents the mass fraction fields of key species. Whereas O3 presents sharp gradients,

Fig. 2 - Time averaged and RMS carbon monoxide profiles at different axial locations (x denotes the axial coordinate) – comparisons between high fidelity LES and experimental data

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Figure 3 -Instantaneous fields in the gas treatment reactor; left: visualization of the exhaust gas and ozone jets core; right: mass fraction fields for O3, NO2 and N2O5 in a longitudinal cut

NO2 and N2O5 have smooth gradients. This arises from the variety of chemical time scales under consideration, with very active species such as O3, being consumed in a small volume around the nozzle, while slower reactions proceed in the whole reactor volume. HFS offers the possibility of capturing both time scales, as well as the complex, multi-scale interaction with turbulence.

High Fidelity Simulations today in industry High fidelity simulation is already an engineering tool as it has been integrated into the product development chain. Suitable applications typically have a very high physical test cost which advocates – and makes attractive - massive parallel computing as an alternative. Historically, the first sector to use HFS has been the gas turbine and aero-engine industry. Here, combustion chambers are subject to instabilities arising from coupling between inherently unsteady swirling flows, flame dynamics and the thermo-acoustics of the chamber. For military applications, after-burners are also sensitive components that are potentially unstable. For these two applications, only HFS is able to capture the underlying mechanisms and give engineers the knowledge required to improve the systems.

Besides combustion modelling, aero-acoustics is also best captured by HFS. Two common applications are the noise created by a jet engine exhaust and, more recently, by vehicles. Another field where HFS is of value is the study and design of liquid atomization – for example, for fuel injectors in piston engines or gas turbines. No doubt that it is only a start and that several other industrial sectors will follow.

Conclusion High fidelity simulation is a powerful tool for handling very accurately non-linear and chaotic systems such as turbulent reacting flows.

Thanks to the increasing availability of computational resources, it is now mature for integration in the product development process with spectacular achievements as illustrated above. It gives rise, however, to some important new questions regarding data management and system definition / knowledge. Very large volumes of data (terabytes) can easily be generated, which must be managed and interrogated, and a high degree of knowledge

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of the system boundary conditions and physics is demanded. At present, there is no accepted best-practice for answering these two questions and the success of HFS lies in the expertise and experience of the user.

Acknowledgments The author thanks Dr. Matthew J. Dunn, University of Sydney, for making the experimental data available and for fruitful discussions on limitations and meaningfulness of comparisons between experimental and HFS data.

For more information: Christophe Duwig, EnginSoft Nordic info@enginsoft.se Image at the top of the article: separate sources of Fluorescein (green) and Rhodamine (red) are injected on the axis of a water turbulent jet (blue), in its downstream far field. Images from the Paper: “The mixing of distant sources” by Mihkel Kree, Jerome Duplat - Aix Marseille University and Emmanuel Villermaux - CEA/UJF-Grenoble

Figure 4 - HFS of a swirling flame: visualization of the flame surface colored by the streamwise velocity, ref. Iudiciani /et al/ 2011 /J. Phys.: Conf. Ser./ *318* 092007

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 32

Rocky Discrete Element Method Package The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is a relatively new technique which is gaining great popularity with the advancements of computer technology.

This approach is used for the simulation of granular materials, which consist of a large number of solid particles. Continuum equations for this type of material are very difficult to derive for a general flow case. To avoid this problem, the Discrete Element Method relies on the simulation of the motion of every solid particle in the system of interest. The interaction of granular particles with each other and system boundaries are traced at every time step of the simulation.

Rocky is very powerful DEM package marketed by Granular Dynamics International, LLC. It is a shared-memory parallel software which allows the fast solution of granular mechanics problems. It has several capabilities that are unique in the commercial DEM world; these capabilities include true non round particle shapes, the ability to simulate breakage without loss of mass and volume, the simulation of shape change for boundary surfaces due to wear, amongst others. The package is extremely popular in the mining industry and is gaining popularity for other applications related to solid particles flows.

Brief Description of Discrete Element Method The Discrete Element Method deals with simulations of the flow of granular materials, consisting of many solid particles. Examples of these material types include sand, ore, grain and so forth. These materials are very common in engineering applications and the ability to predict their flow characteristics is an extremely important task. However, unlike deformable solids and fluids, attempts to derive accurate equations of flow and motion in continuum form failed. These equations have been found for only two extremes – the first one is static situations (the elasticplastic or rigid-plastic approach in soil mechanics) and rapid granular flow (this is a mathematical abstraction which is not applicable for particle flow with realistic energy dissipation and under the influence of gravity).

Unfortunately most of flow regimes for granular materials lie between these two extremes and accurate continuum solutions for them are not available. The Discrete Element Method is relatively new technique which deals with this problem by “brute force” - namely by simulating every particle of the granular material in the flow subject to contact and external

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Figure 1. A picture of a conveyor transfer chute simulated by Rocky DEM package and examples of particle shapes available in Rocky

forces. With this approach one does not need to know the equations of state and motion of granular media; only contact interaction laws are needed and a variety of reliable contact models exist for this purpose.

Apart from that the other important advantage of DEM compared to continuum approach is that information is obtained on the particle scale.

Sometimes this particle-scale information is essential: for example, the prediction of particles breakage when energy applied to every particle in the system has to be calculated.

While the idea behind DEM is extremely simple, its implementation is not straightforward. The technique relies strongly on computer power and efficient modern parallel programming techniques; without them a DEM program will run for very long time and will be impractical for engineering applications. Recent advances on these fronts have made DEM a good practical tool for engineering simulations.

Software update

History of Rocky DEM Package Rocky is a relatively new DEM package: the development of the code started less than four years ago. However the code is based on the success of in-house DEM solutions developed by Conveyor Dynamics, Inc. from 1995. These in-house codes did not have any user interfaces; therefore the interface for Rocky is relatively new but the solver is very mature. The first version of the code released in summer 2011 was designed for the simulations of transfer chutes only; later, the code interface was updated to add grinding mill simulations. Starting from Rocky 2.0 released in the middle of 2012 the code has been developed and marketed as a general-purpose DEM code. The code is now being developed by Granular Dynamics International, LLC in collaboration with the Engineering Simulation and Scientific Software Company (ESSS).

Figure 2. Simulation of particles flow inside grinding mill. Over a million of particles were used in this simulation

Unique Capabilities and Example of Applications There are number of DEM codes in the market these days and a user now has a choice of DEM packages - both commercial and opensource. Compared to these packages, Rocky has several capabilities that are unique in both the commercial and open-source world. We are going to describe here only the most important ones; descriptions that will necessarily be brief in view of the space available in this paper.

First of all, Rocky was developed with actual practical engineers in mind. The information a user will obtain from the software is not Figure 3. Prediction of wear of a grinding mill lifters inside Rocky. Presented on the left-hand just a collection of pretty pictures and movies but parameters that are side of the picture is slice of the mill with new lifters and on the right-hand side the same slice important for the engineers. These parameters are power draw on all at the end of wear simulation process moving bodies, shear and impact wear parameters, forces, flow rates and so on. The models that are incorporate with the software are realworld physical ones: they are extensively tested both internally by the company on many consulting projects and through our collaboration with universities worldwide. We believe the ability to predict the realworld rather than virtual-world result is the most important characteristic of the software.

The other important feature of Rocky package is the ability to simulate true non-round particles. Other DEM codes rely on clusters of spheres for this purpose, but in Rocky the shape you see on the screen is the actual shape being simulated. This allows us to simulate shapes that are closer to reality and also properly simulate breakage of the particles (which is another unique feature of Rocky) without the loss of mass or volume that is unavoidable with spherical clusters. Some examples Figure 4. Simulation of particles breakage inside concept of a new grinding device of particle shapes that could be created and simulated in Rocky are (CAHM -Conjugate Anvil and Hammer Mill). presented on Figure 1. Also shown in this figure is very typical example Breakage simulation is another important feature of Rocky due to be of a Rocky application, simulating the performance of a transfer chute. A released in the next version. The breakage model in Rocky combines transfer chute is a gravity device very widely used in mining industry for models from the mining and gaming industries for the prediction of sharp changes of the direction of material conveyance. particle energy, strength and fragment generation during the breakage Figure 2 presents another example from the mining industry, the event. An example of the model application is presented on Figure 4 simulation of a full grinding mill. This particular simulation has over a this is a new conceptual device (Conjugated Anvil and Hammer Mill) million particles and over seven hundred thousand boundary elements, being developed by Conveyor Dynamics, Inc. for particle comminution which is considered to be quite large by DEM standards. Rocky is an processes in the mining industry. efficient shared memory parallel code and can handle this simulation Starting from Rocky 2.2.0 the software can be coupled with the ANSYS quite quickly.

Structural and ANSYS Fluent packages. The coupling is one-way at this Figure 3 presents one more unique feature of Rocky, the ability to simulate stage, with work now in progress to provide two-way coupling in the near physical wear of the boundaries. The software collects shear work applied future. The forces applied by particles to the boundaries can be exported by particles to the boundary and removes boundary volume proportional into the ANSYS structural package and the resulting deformations can be to this wear work. This feature is extremely useful for predicting the calculated. An example of this type of simulation is presented on Figure 5. characteristics of particle flows where they are affected by boundary For this case, a simulation of the motion of particles on a vibrating screen changes due to wear.

Software update

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first coupling approach is validated against experimental data obtained at TUNRA laboratories (University of Newcastle, Australia) for airflow around a transfer chute and the agreement with experimental data was excellent.

The parent company responsible for the development of Rocky is in the mining industry, with a natural consequence that the majority of its users have also been in this sector. However during recent months the software has been gaining popularity in other industries such as agriculture (for example, the corn flow simulation of Figure 6), pharmaceuticals (where Rocky is being used for tablet coating simulation), materials handling, the construction industry (see Figures 7 and 8 – the simulation of soil flow around a conveyor frame and the simulation of a truck loading station) and many others. There is really no limit to the range of industries to which Rocky may be applied - it suitable for any case where the motion of many solid particles has to be accurately predicted.

Figure 5. Simulation of particles flow on vibrating screen in Rocky (top) and screen deformations simulated in ANSYS Structural package (bottom); the nodal forces predicted by Rocky DEM were exported into ANSYS

was carried out and the nodal forces applied by the particles were exported to ANSYS Structural to permit the screen frame deformation to be calculated, in addition to the results obtained from Rocky package alone (such as screening efficiency and screen wear characteristics).

The coupling with ANSYS Fluent can be done for both the particles driving the flow of fluid (such as the airflow created around transfer chutes frame caused by falling ore particles) and the fluid driving the flow of particles. In the first case, the continuum parameters of particle flow are calculated inside Rocky on the Fluent mesh and provided via User-Defined Functions to the Fluent solver. In the second case, Fluent case and data files are read directly into Rocky and forces applied by the fluid to the particles are calculated inside the DEM package. The

Conclusions Presented in this paper is a very brief description of the Rocky Discrete Element package. This package is an extremely powerful tool for the simulations of the flow of granular materials.

The package can be very useful for engineers and researchers from a variety of industries.

Figure 6. Simulation of corn flow with Rocky DEM package

Figure 7. Simulation of soil flow around shifting conveyor frame

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Future Plants for Software Development Rocky has historically benefitted from very rapid development. However, even this pace is about to see a very significant increase! Granular Dynamics International, LLC is joining forces with the Engineering Simulation and Scientific Software Company to develop and marked the software. The new version of Rocky 3.0.0 due to be released early next year will feature an advanced new interface with many new features available for the analysis of particles flows. The two-way coupling with ANSYS software has also been planned for the near future. We are also working actively on the improvement of Rocky’s speed to enable even larger problems to be handled, tracking many millions of non-round particles in a reasonable amount of computer time.

Alexander V. Potapov Granular Dynamics International, LLC

Figure 7. Simulation of soil flow around shifting conveyor frame

Software update

ESAComp 4.5: new simulation capabilities for a wider customer base The new ESAComp 4.5 version, to be released at the end of this year, proves again to be an effective and cross field tool for preliminary analysis of composite materials, suitable to a wider and wider customer base.

One of continuously updated features is the ESAComp material Data Bank: more than 50 fiber-reinforced material systems have been added, of which most include information related to the mechanical behavior in different environmental conditions as well as statistical data. Furthermore, exploiting the experimental data Fig. 1 - Modal analysis on a panel reinforced on both faces provided by the major material suppliers, the effects due to physical properties’ statistical distributions can be evaluated through ESAComp probabilistic analysis tool.

The other upgrades concern numerical analyses: during the setup phase the user can see a model preview in order to control the current configuration; after simulation he can save the results for panel and cylindrical shell analyses keeping the solution for later reference without having to redo it. Furthermore an easier comparison is possible among the behaviors of the same structure under different load conditions, changing lay-ups or varying stiffener configurations, with the possibility to Fig. 2 - Integration between ComposicaD and ESAComp for the winding process simulation see the results through a tree-view. Beam stiffeners of different types and dimensions can be combined and placed on an efficient and economical way for reliable process in terms of both sides of the panel/cylinder at the same time, which increases design simulation, verification and manufacturing. The design the versatility of the modules. study can be realized in ComposicaD™ for the winding process simulation, which is able to predict and map the fiber directions A completely innovative feature is the analysis of vessels: Componeering has integrated ESAComp tightly into the design on the vessel’s ends, then the candidate design is exported to ESAComp, where the FE analysis is performed. The transferred files process of composite pressure vessels combining the dedicated include the FE model and laminate layups for the different sections features developed in some numerical environments, as ComposicaD™ and ACP; this new ESAComp application provides of the vessel, while material properties for FEA are introduced in

Software update

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ESAComp. Once the solution is run, it is possible to realize very detailed post processing and design verification.

The growing awareness and interest on analysis tools available in ESAComp is confirmed by the consistent presence of EnginSoft and Componeering in the most relevant international technical events: it is clearly proved that the design and simulation tools are nowadays essential for the industrial competitiveness.

The new features and upgrades available in ESAComp 4.5 are developed to meet more and more users’ requirements coming from any market level and to make the tool intuitive and accurate at the same time.

Fabio Rossetti, EnginSoft André Mönicke - Componeering Inc. Fig. 3 - Post processing of the composite pressure vessel Through-the-thickness evaluation of IRF

For more information: Fabio Rossetti, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

Fig. 6 - Geometry preview available during the analysis setup Fig. 4 - Post processing of a composite pressure vessel – Inner Strain

www.esacomp.com The software ESAComp

Fig. 5 - Structural analysis on a cylinder with 2 types of stiffeners

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ESAComp is a software for analysis and design of composites. Its scope ranges from conceptual and preliminary design of layered composite structures to analyses of details.

ESAComp is a stand-alone software tool, but thanks to its ability to interface with widely used finite element software packages, ESAComp fits seamlessly into the design process.

The comprehensive material database of ESAComp forms the basis for design studies.

ESAComp has a vast set of analysis capabilities for solid/sandwich laminates and for micromechanical analyses. It further includes analysis tools for structural elements: flat and curved panels, stiffened panels, beams and columns, bonded and mechanical joints.

Software update

Urban design and system engineering: risks and opportunities One could say that culture or human civilization started with cities: populations adopted spontaneously organization and processes, developed technologies to build cities where basically exchanging goods, practices and ideas and offering protection were the ground for economic and social development. During this historical process, and particularly in recent years, the urban fabrics, already marked by the complexity of all human organizations, became more and more technically complex. Mankind recently developed, beyond Cartesian thinking, specific disciplines to approach the more technically complex systems that were to be designed and manufactured such as airplanes, spacecraft etc. The new paradigm, that any elements of a system can’t be designed properly if someone loses the link to the system itself and even to the exterior of the system, looks particularly relevant in the field of urban design. Indeed the more advanced technologies have been introduced in urban systems in a sectorial approach losing then the necessary transverse approaches and generating unwanted side effects. Therefore systems engineering and architectures looks very promising but unlike industrial systems one shall not forget that urban systems exist whether designed or not as highly dynamic systems operated by existing or future populations. Evolutions are taking places even in their boundaries (cities consume lands of adjacent territories) and in their functions (a shipbuilding port may evolve into a new technological centre of production). Two key principles should then be ensured by stakeholders wishing to develop new tools adapting industrial systems design to urban systems design: the first is to organize the accessibility for all stakeholders, the urban political governance and the urban technicians of course but also for the populations, residents or not and the second being to develop observation systems to monitor progress and provide understanding tools of the evolving complexities to help stakeholder adjusting their policies. A third one should be added, more technical, but is mainly the necessary technological conclusion of the first two: the toolbox

Software update

needed must be open i.e. interoperable in between all sub-systems and solutions, and ever evolving as cities are not built for a certain duration but possibly for eternity!

Advancity The subject of sustainable cities, at least in the perspective that is used in the French competitiveness cluster called Advancity can be structured in the following 3 axes.

The ultimate goal is to provide what we propose to call urban quality of life: it is made of attractivity, competitivity, safety, security, resilience, access to culture, to health, to information, to services and to mobility. This quality of urban life provides in turn a whole range of services to individuals and to business community to enjoy and perform their activities. This first axis is made mostly of service activities that take an ever larger share of the economic wealth of cities.

Then, and in order to support this goal, cities have to develop a full range of physical facilities and structures, very often organized in sub-systems, that must be environmentally efficient: lean resources, autonomy, less pollution, circular economy, CO2 neutrality, energy consumption, limited vulnerability etc. are a few of the criteria that must fulfill all the facilities such as public space, green and blue infrastructure, built environment, transport systems, street networks, houses, apartment blocks. Most of the economic value and expenses of the urban systems lie in this line of actions.

The third and last axis is the one of governance: it covers the whole range of activities from intelligence (all information to appreciate and understand the urban functioning) to designing and managing cities and achieving resilience. These activities are in the order of 10% of all other activities only but are extremely important as they have a

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with population, is key for the system of governance to take decisions. Designing cities systems requires in fact all of them, together and simultaneously addressed. Urban design is a set of management activities making sure that cities provide quality of life in the sense I used before: economical wealth, creativity, services, support, health etc. Under the strict constraint of environmental efficiency. We have then a system to consider and design activities to structure it: for sure, this is a topics for systems engineering.

very high leverage effect on the cities global wealth. These activities are at the core of our today’s topics.

This perspective being a conceptual view to structure actions, it is not adequate for organizing the works for sub-communities of stakeholders. We then structure the stakeholders in four groups: ecotechnologies (basic technology providers, water, energy, wastes sectors etc.) supply basic hardware solutions to the communities of ecoconstruction (buildings and infrastructures) and of ecomobility (transport systems, services to travellers). These two communities construct and operate the two main physical infrastructures of cities and the services thereof, themselves offering their system solutions to be integrated into a global sustainable city governed by municipalities with the assistance of architects and engineers. IST has a special place, transverse to all others. Information technologies are in no way specific to cities or to construction but they irrigate all segments and communities. One could even argue that they are becoming – in their basic function of treating and exchanging information – the new city engine on top of the mobility engine which was so far the only possibility to exchange goods and to encounter other individuals. But this would bring us too far and I won’t elaborate further.

Urban design activity Having so structured cities and stakeholders, let us turn towards the urban design activity. What is it made of? Without trying to be exhaustive, one may mention: drafting master plans, designing public spaces whereby urban planners and architects draw 2D plans to visualize cities spatial structure and activities.

Another activity is the administrative task of granting permissions to individuals to use land in a certain way predetermined by master plans. Designing cities means also constructing streets, large monuments and buildings, and collective transport systems. It is also supporting education activities, organizing social life and ensuring economical wealth. Last but not least, one can mention that having dialogues

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It is then just natural to consider cities as complex systems: within a given territory having certain boundaries – a large question Fig. 1 in itself – cities are a system (or a system of systems) made of human beings, interacting firstly in between themselves and with technical systems providing them with resources and services, so that they may perform their own activities. But cities interact also with the outside world. This picture is a very simplistic representation but everybody having some knowledge of systems architecture can understand and imagine how systems architecture can help in developing a proper description of such a complex system (Fig. 1).

If we now turn into some basic facts and figures, we can size issues and opportunities. Oil reservoir modelling is a very important activity for oil and gas fields’ developments. Reservoir engineers are an important segment of the key human resources being employed by oil exploration companies. I then thought that making comparisons between oil fields and cities may have some relevance to this question (Fig. 2).

At a rate of 100$ a barrel, and a cost of 2 to 3 000 €/m2 for the built environment, one can see that the asset value of a city of 1 million inhabitants is well above that one of an “elephant” oil field and that cost and revenues are an order of magnitude greater in the case of cities as in the case of oil fields. If you consider that oil fields

Fig. 2

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have a duration life of 20 years when cities view themselves as established for hundreds of years if not for eternity, we can see that we do not need to trigger a big improvement in efficiency of cities to justify even a small investment in design and modelling activities and tools. There can be several reasons to justify the fact that cities modelling developments are yet limited.

Among them, there are good arguments from a technical nature that support the fact that the technical challenges are enormous (Fig. 3).

The first thing to notice is that urban systems or cities did not wait for systems engineering to exist and develop. Cities concentrate activities of human beings since Neolithic age and did become more and more complex over time (in both human sciences and “hard” sciences approaches). They are extremely evolutionary by nature, in both their functions and pattern of activities (a commercial city can evolve into an industrial one, or an administrative city: look at the various facets of Rome, Berlin, Paris, Rotterdam, Bonn, Xi’An to name just a few), and in their boundaries: cities consume permanently their hinterland and one can’t now determine if there is a “legitimate” boundary between Rome and Ostie, or Dortmund and Köln. And these evolutions take place further to inhabitants and businesses taking decisions to come or to emigrate and not just to decisions by Mayors or elected representatives.

If now someone wants to apply systems engineering, he will have to develop a model – virtual representation of the reality with several simplifications – describing in a manner as close as possible to reality, not necessarily the whole city system but probably more likely a restricted view of it. He will use these models for planning and managing. In order to be successful, the main operational condition seems to me to be that the model system must still be operated under the control of informed people and business stakeholders. If this wouldn’t be the case, then we would see reality and models evolving separately in different directions: something like what would happen when driving learner wants to go left and the driving teacher wants to go right. The reverse engineering would have to be a recurring activity!

To sum up, the key points of attention should be: • Reverse engineering.

• Accessibility and transparency.

• Time is very long term.

• Models must be agile and evolutionary.

• Multidiscipline, multireference, multi-models must be native: for instance the built environment on the ground is referenced by the cadastre, but the underground environment does not bear any reference at all to cadastre; economics interact with population fertility and with ground water pollution and wastes production etc.

• Zooming in and out are entry tools in the models necessary to consider all scales.

Software update

Fig. 3

• Interoperability from stakeholders down to software and databases is a must.

• Data models and meta models are probably what is needed first to structure the works of stakeholders and what can be more generic from one model to another, from one place to another.

• Education of professionals and of population must go all along the technical developments.

In order to be successful in facing the challenges that I sum up again: • Time is infinite.

• Boundaries are subjective and issue dependent.

• Singularities will evolve.

• Phenomena are multiscales and multidisciplines (2D cadastre and GIS vs 3D geomodelling…, populations, économy) • Cities are archetypes of complexities.

• Interoperability in all dimensions.

I am of the opinion that the key success factors should be in adopting, at least, the following attitudes and lines of actions: • This can only be a collective venture: urban professionals; IT population and business stakeholders; research IT/hardware/ urban/social.

• The size of the issue, and the very collective nature of cities, requires collective funds raising tools.

• The knowledge to be developed is basically a collective property at global and meta scales.

• Business models should be a mix between open source and proprietary developments.

• Deliverables should address simultaneously tools for education and for professionals.

A possible route is that of the “open source” consortium, like GOCAD in reservoir engineering, even though GOCAD is not exactly open source, but just to take it as an example of how good are the tools that a truly collaborative attitude can deliver.

I hope this is a route business and research stakeholders in urban matters and in IST may take, sooner rather than later.

Vincent Cousin, Advancity

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 40

Engineer your fire!

In occasione della International CAE Conference 2013 è stata presentata Engin@Fire, una joint venture tra EnginSoft S.p.A. e IDESA S.r.l che si propone di operare nell’ambito della Fire Protection Engineering secondo logiche proprie della concurrent engineering.

Engin@Fire intende andare oltre la semplice collaborazione tra due imprese e, per questo motivo, a partire da gennaio 2014 avrà lo status giuridico di rete di imprese: un’azienda di fatto che sarà volta all’ideazione, allo sviluppo, alla realizzazione ed alla commercializzazione di soluzioni verticalizzate in settori applicativi fortemente legati alla sicurezza al fuoco.

La moderna Fire Protection Engineering (FPE) è di per se basata su concetti di progettazione integrata e mira a coordinare tutti i sistemi di protezione al fuoco (attivi e passivi, incluso lo studio delle vie e delle modalità di esodo) in una strategia generale di lotta al fuoco ma è generalmente praticata applicando in modo prescrittivo quanto previsto dalle normative di riferimento, un approccio che non garantisce una uguale efficacia (rapporto costi/benefici) nel passare da un caso industriale all’altro. Questo limite può esse-

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re superato adottando il cosiddetto approccio performance-based ed Engin@Fire, individuando il proprio payoff nell’acronimo F.I.R.E. (Fire Integrated Revolutionary Engineering), intende massimizzarne i benefici proponendosi (in virtù delle proprie elevate competenze in ambito FPE) come partner in grado di soddisfare ogni esigenza tecnico/normativa applicando una metodologia innovativa basata non solo sulla profonda conoscenza di standard e normative ma anche su capacità di Virtual Prototyping allo stato dell’arte e, quando necessario, sulla validazione sperimentale dei modelli e delle scelte progettuali.

Le esperienze pregresse di EnginSoft ed Idesa hanno messo in luce come le problematiche legate alla lotta al fuoco non possano essere affrontate da punti di vista singolari ma necessitino un criterio di integrazione tra più discipline (system engineering, CAE, compliance, etc.). Con queste premesse e con le competenze presenti in Engin@ Fire, le due società sono confidenti che il nuovo brand diventerà un punto di riferimento per la concretizzazione di questa metodologia di approccio nell’ambito della Fire Engineering.

Per ulteriori informazioni: Marco Perillo, EnginSoft m.perillo@enginsoft.it

Software update

INGLASS: oltre la camera calda Sin dalla sua fondazione, la filosofia della INglass è stata quella di investire nelle migliori tecnologie, ed in questa ottica abbiamo scelto ANSYS poichè, dalle analisi fatte della concorrenza, lo riteniamo essere la migliore soluzione per le nostre esigenze. La facilità di utilizzo delle ultime versioni ANSYS Workbench ci ha ulteriormente convinto di aver fatto la scelta giusta orientandoci verso le soluzioni ANSYS. Inoltre EnginSoft ha dato prova di essere un partner serio ed affidabile aiutandoci nella fase individuazione del pacchetto di licenze a noi più utile. Nel complesso siamo soddisfatti della scelta da noi operata grazie alla quale aumententeremo la qualità dei nostri prodotti.

Il gruppo INglass-HRSflow di San Polo di Piave viene fondato da Maurizio Bazzo nel 1987 con il nome di Incos, per la progettazione e la costruzione di stampi per il settore delle materie plastiche. Nel 1991 inizia a focalizzarsi e a specializzarsi negli Ing. Gianmatteo Bernardello stampi rotativi multi-colore e multi-componenti per fanaleria Responsabile Ufficio Tecnico Stampi - Inglass nel settore auto.

Nel 2001 nasce la divisione HRSFlow per la progettazione e la realizzazione di sistemi a canale caldo per lo stampaggio ad iniezione prodotto ai nuovi mercati emergenti ad alto potenziale di crescita, di materiale plastico. A partire dal 2004 ingenti risorse sono state dalla Cina, all’India, al Vietnam. dedicate allo sviluppo della tecnologia di inietto compressione per Nel 2010 viene diversificata ulteriormente la gamma di prodotto con la produzione di ampie superfici in policarbonato in sostituzione del l’introduzione della linea Multitech, dedicata allo stampaggio di comvetro nel settore automobilistico (Plastic Glazing). ponenti con pesi ridotti e spessori fini che appartengono a settori Nel 2007 l’azienda introduce un servizio in grado di ottimizzare il quali medicale/packaging/chiusure/automotive o in generale per tuttempo di raffreddamento degli stampi tramite un’analisi di Cooling e te le applicazioni che richiedono tempi ciclo veloci e rese estetiche l’eventuale realizzazione di inserti speciali ottenuti con la tecnologia molto elevate. del Selective Laser Melting, nota anche come fusione laser di polveri Nel 2012 INglass continua la sua crescita, aprendo nuove filiali tecmetalliche. nico-commerciali, dall’India alla Colombia, alla Romania, per fornire Nel 2009 si decide di accogliere una grande sfida sul mercato asiatiai propri clienti un servizio disponibile 24/7 in Europa, Asia, nelle co e viene inaugurato un nuovo stabilimento produttivo ad Hangzhou, Americhe, in Oceania e in Africa. nei pressi di Shangai. Il nuovo stabilimento che ha una superficie INglass si impegna a non essere un semplice fornitore di camere totale 12.200 mq. totali, di cui 9.600 dedicati all’area produzione, ha calde e stampi, ma un partner che segue il cliente durante tutto il chiuso il 2012 con un fatturato pari a 12,5 Mil Euro. Lo stabilimento in processo produttivo, fornendo soluzioni complete per la produzione Cina produce e progetta sistemi a canale caldo replicando il modello, di manufatti plastici. L’azienda, con il suo team altamente qualifila tecnologia e gli standard qualitativi della casa madre italiana. Il cato, non solo fornisce servizi di ingegneria per la realizzazione di mercato a cui si rivolge è quello asiatico, permettendo di fornire il manufatti plastici, ma mette anche a disposizione il suo know-how

Testimonial

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e le più avanzate innovazioni tecnologiche per seguire al meglio il cliente, dalle simulazioni iniziali allo stampaggio del prodotto finito, all’assistenza nel post vendita.

Gli sforzi sono diretti verso una costante ottimizzazione a livello globale dell’organizzazione interna per lo snellimento dei processi.

A tale scopo l’implementazione dei sistemi di automazione ci ha permesso di garantire riduzione drastica dei tempi di risposta, trasparenza e condivisione delle informazioni, a supporto del business nostro e dei nostri partners.

INglass lavora per migliorare il vantaggio tecnologico attraverso ingenti risorse dedicate alla ricerca e sviluppo per garantire al cliente ottime prestazioni in termini di qualità del pezzo stampato, risparmio energetico, riduzione scarti.

L’utilizzo di ANSYS Workbench nella progettazione L’utilizzo del software ANSYS WB prevede la verifica delle componenti dello stampo sotto l’effetto della pressione di iniezione e delle forze di chiusura esercitate dalla pressa. Normalmente INglass valuta la freccia della figura stampante che, se troppo elevata, può creare spessori della lente fuori tolleranza e conseguenti difettosità. In base al risultato dell’analisi viene valutato se e dove intervenire per supportare la figura e limitare il problema. Altra verifica svolta è quella delle tensioni su alcune parti dello stampo ritenute critiche, come le componenti dei movimenti, in cui la presenza di una cricca porta a costosi e lunghi interventi di sistemazione e dunque di fermo della produzione.

Seminario sull’ottimizzazione in Università di Genova Nell’ambito del Programma Accademico di EnginSoft per diffondere metodologie e tecnologie innovative presso Atenei e Centri di Ricerca Italiani abbiamo tenuto in Ottobre un seminario sull’ottimizzazione all’Università di Genova, con la collaborazione del prof.

Viviani del Dipartimento di Ingegneria navale, elettrica, elettronica e delle telecomunicazioni (DITEN).

L’ing. Urban ha illustrato a professori e ricercatori i concetti di base e lo stato dell’arte sulle metodologie di ottimizzazione messe a disposizione nell’ambiente modeFRONTIER evidenziando le potenzialità dello strumento nel combinare avanzate tecniche matematiche alla ricerca applicata nel campo dell’ingegneria. Durante l’intervento sono stati presentati alcuni casi applicativi industriali dimostrando come questi strumenti sono in crescente diffusione in progettazione, ricerca e sviluppo a livello mondiale. modeFRONTIER è una delle tecnologie di punta con cui aziende di livello internazionale ed EnginSoft concorrono ad ottimizzare i propri prodotti e processi.

Per maggiori informazioni Lorenzo Benetton - EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

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Testimonial

WIN-shoes: When Innovation makes Shoes WIN-shoes intende mettere a punto un sistema integrato ICT che permetta una totale rivoluzione nella organizzazione e gestione del lavoro nel mondo della industria manifatturiera toscana della calzatura.

In particolare, si intende mettere a punto una piattaforma integrata che permetta di informatizzare il processo di progettazione e prototipazione del comparto, ad oggi quasi totalmente artigianale, compiendo un efficace trasferimento tecnologico da settori dove sistemi CAS/CAD/CAE/CAM vengono già da tempo utilizzati. Come originale elemento di innovazione, WIN-Shoes intende inserire i parametri di comfort come elementi determinanti la progettazione del nuovo prodotto, prevedendo anche la messa a punto di un sistema automatico di rilevazione oggettiva del comfort di una calzatura tipo “calzino sensorizzato”.

Fig. 1 - Modello FEM di una calzatura “collaudato” da una modella virtuale

Ad oggi il processo di progettazione e realizzazione di una nuova calzatura è molto artigianale e “manuale”: WIN-Shoes si propone di innovare radicalmente questo approccio, mettendo a punto un sistema ICT che permetta di simulare virtualmente la realizzazione di una scarpa la più “confortevole” possibile, così poi da andare in prototipazione reale solo per assetti della scarpa già virtualmente ottimizzati, che saranno testati con innovativi sistemi sensorizzati (essi permetteranno al software di auto-imparare, mantenendosi sempre “aggiornato” rispetto alle soluzioni più promettenti e innovative individuate dalle aziende) riducendo tempi e costi di realizzazione.

WIN-shoes propone inoltre un modello organizzativo esportabile come elemento di innovazione del comparto: la costituzione di una RETE d’imprese, gestite per capitalizzare il know how aziendale e per fare dell’innovazione il motore a garanzia della competitività del comparto, grazie

Fig. 2 - Laboratorio di un calzaturificio

Research and Technology Transfer

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alle figure strategiche del manager di rete e del manager di innovazione.

Un laboratorio dimostrativo WIN-shoes sarà il luogo privilegiato per la formazione del personale sui nuovi strumenti ICT WIN-shoes e per la divulgazione dei risultati di progetto.

Elementi di Innovazione del progetto • Innovazione Organizzativa e gestionale di processo: il progetto “forma” e “informatizza” il partenariato rivoluzionando il processo di progettazione e prototipazione dei prodotti, dal disegno dello stilista ai file dei costituenti della calzatura.

• Innovazione Tecnologica di processo (progettazione e industrializzazione): creazione di una Piattaforma software di progettazione della calzatura: dai file ad una Calzatura Prototipale collaudata da una Modella Virtuale in grado di esprimere il COMFORT. • Innovazione nella Struttura organizzativa e manageriale di comparto: le aziende si associano per fare “struttura (viene introdotta la figura del manager di Rete”) e si adotta la Filosofia della “innovazione continua” (viene introdotta la figura del manager di innovazione).

• Innovazione delle Strategie di comunicazione e marketing: verrà creato un Laboratorio Dimostrativo WIN-Shoes dove si concilieranno tradizione artigiana e High Tech. Qui si potranno toccare con mano i prodotti della innovazione WIN-Shoes e saranno organizzati Corsi di progettazione e utilizzo della piattaforma WIN-Shoes Prodotti attesi dal progetto • Piattaforma informatica di progettazione e prototipazione della calzatura: tale piattaforma unitamente a device avanzati di prototipazione rapida permetterà operazioni di Virtual prototyping, Digital manifacturing, Controllo di processo e prodotto, nell’ottica di una riduzione del “Time to Market” e dei Costi.

• Laboratorio Dimostrativo WIN-Shoes, dove troveranno spazio e utilizzo la piattaforma ICT WIN-Shoes, stampanti 3D, scanner 3D, ecc….

• Calzino sensorizzato, che permetterà la rilevazione del comfort di una calzatura, in modo oggettivo e riproducibile.

Partner di Progetto Calzaturificio Everyn (capofila dell’iniziativa) Calzaturificio Maruska (partner) Tuscany Services srl (partner)

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Subcontractor Laboratori ARCHA Clinica Ortopedica dell’ Università di Pisa, U.O. Ortopedia e Traumatologia II- Università di Pisa Istituto di BioRobotica - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna EnginSoft Spa Il progetto WIN-shoes è co-finanziato dalla Regione Toscana POR CREO FESR 2007-2013 Per ulteriori informazioni: Angelo Messina, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

Fig. 3 - Operaio al lavoro in un calzaturificio

Fig. 3 - Architettura della piattaforma informatica

Research and Technology Transfer

MUSIC Project – First Review Meeting “MUlti-layers Control&Cognitive System to drive metal and plastic production line for Injected Components” Eibar (Spain) September 18th-20th, 2013 The first review meeting of the MUSIC Project was hosted in the new I4K – TEKNIKER building, in Eibar, where all partners gather to report on their activities to the European Officer and to the appointed European experts as project reviewers. Three “examiners”, related to both private companies and public institutions, were required to evaluate the project progress from a technical and scientific point of view in order to verify the project assessment and the results achieved along the first year of activity. This time frame is usually the most critical one, since the project ideas, estimations and plans have to be brought into real facts and actions, proving that the project approach is solid and the final targets are realistically achievable and very clear in mind.

The central topic of the MUSIC project, that of creating and using a cognitive system able to analyze, control and predict the quality of High Pressure Die Casted components as well as Plastic Injection Molded parts, has required, along this first year, a considerable research activity in order to provide a clearer view on needs and expectations of the industrial sectors, investigating the most common and significant defects and understand the corresponding priorities, in relation to cost and energy saving, higher quality and minimized scrap in HPD and PIM processes thanks to intelligent and agile manufacturing.

Work-packages 1 and 2, respectively mainly focused on product and process requirements and data acquisition&management have been successfully reported to the experts. The results of a survey concerning the HPDC sector, carried out in collaboration with the European StaCast Project (Grant n. 319188, FP7-NP-2012CSA-6), have been presented, as well as the planning of a similar activity to be managed with reference to PIM processes.

Starting from this primary research, the next step will be the development and integration of a completely new ICT platform,

Research and Technology Transfer

based on innovative machine learning system linked to real time monitoring, that will allow the active control of the quality of High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC) of light alloys and Plastic Injection Moulding (PIM) process.

The reviewers and officer clearly expressed the positive evaluation of first period and their great expectations for the project future evolution. We don’t forget our claim and we are proud to work so that MUSIC becomes a Symphony in Smart Factories.

The MUSIC Projects invites you to support its initiative concerning the survey related to the Plastic Injection Moulding sector.

Visit the MUSIC Project website for further information concerning the project and to fill in the questionnaire, that aims at interviewing the EU industrial world to better understand how project outcomes and expected impacts could provide benefits and improve knowledge to be competitively applied for all potential customers at different levels (SMEs, Industries, Academia). http://music.eucoord.com/news/body.pe All the collected information will be anonymously processed in view of the targets of MUSIC Project. The results of statistics elaboration of data will be made available to all the companies answering the questionnaire.

For more information, please contact us at survey. musicproject.fp7@gmail.com

MUSIC at the International CAE Conference The R&D area of the Conference hosted 14 running projects representing the different application sectors in which EnginSoft is operating, also thanks to European funding. It has represented an important opportunity to show the Project to a wide international and highly professional audience and some first prototypes were displayed.

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 46

CLINIC OPTIMIZER

Interactive visualization for your personal and intelligent choice of medical treatment Recently, the RWJF Hospital Price Transparency Challenge was released. The challenge aims at increasing the understanding and use of recently released hospital price data. The “visualization” category of the challenge encouraged submissions that allow users to better understand aspects of the data. ClinicOptimizer is a submission by Lionsolver Inc. It consists of an interactive visualization that lets a customer select the best clinic based on his or her condition and preferences.

Fig 1. The ClinicOptimizer software powered by Lionsolver Inc.

Picking a favorite hospital to be treated in after receiving a diagnosis is usually a difficult task. This is a very concrete example of multiple-objective optimization.

Ideally, one would like to maximize at least the following variables: 1. Cost of treatment 2. Quality of treatment 3. Proximity to home

Fig 2. The three charts above show how the cost (top), quality (middle) and size (bottom) of the clinics available for your treatment are distribuited across the nation

In practice, one is dealing with trade-offs.

Whilst ClinicOptimizer will not solve all the issues involved in this critical decision, it will provide a more quantitative input to the choice. The results are based on publiclyavailable information: improvements in the availability of such data (provided that privacy issues are appropriately addressed) will increasingly empower individual patients in their dealings with profit-seeking entities such as insurance companies and hospitals.

For more information: Roberto Battiti, Reactive Search info@reactive-search.com

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Fig 3. Ranking of preferred clinics according to the cost/quality tradeoff choosen by the user

In Depth Studies

International CAE Conference 2013 Global focus on the future

Simulation: the new design challenges When projects turn into numbers and data become sequences able to predict any single variable; when complicated calculations are able to work out any step of any process thanks to increasinglycapable computers and software, then we understand the power of computer-aided simulation. Even if we don’t realize it, simulation is deeply rooted in our everyday life. The creation of computational models allows us to obtain more precise and reliable results with a dramatic reduction of time, economic resources and risks. Virtual prototyping has already become an essential reality – no longer confined to the laboratory, but a necessary component of every industrial sector.

CAE Conference: a world-wide focus on the future This renowned engineering event in the heart of Europe brought together scientists, researchers and managers from various sectors to show how “engineering simulation” can improve our tomorrow. They shared their progress in medicine, engineering, environmental-friendly and renewable energy, safety, aerospace exploration and the management of natural phenomena; together exploring how we may improve our future, our world and our lives.

That the answer lies (at least in part) through the blossoming of technological advancement was made visible and almost tangible over the two days of the International CAE Conference in Pacengo sul Garda from the 21st to the 22nd October. Our prestigious conference attracted a global audience from various backgrounds and disciplines with a common understanding that no product, process or service innovation can disregard engineering simulation.

This year (the 29th) extends an incredible record. The Scientific Director of the International CAE Conference, Stefano Odorizzi, initiated this remarkable event thirty years ago, and has nurtured and promoted it over three decades with the aim of capturing the state of the art of a methodology whose great potential has proved to be absolutely revolutionary.

CAE Conference

Fig 1 - An exciting moment of the Conference: the connection with the Italian astronaut Parmitano directly from the Space Station during the speech of Maurizio Cheli

What started as an Italian initiative is now not just a European, but also a worldwide reference point. Delegate numbers confirm this trend: a 25% increase in participants (in comparison to 2012), with thirty seminars and workshops divided into different sectors (energy, civil engineering, transportation and biomechanics, among the others), this year with a strong focus on Aerospace & Defense. Fourteen projects displayed their results and prototypes in the R&D area, and 30 remarkable sponsors (including Nvidia, HP,

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 48

IBM and ANSYS) filled our exhibition space - including EnginSoft, the Italian multinational company, headquartered in Trento, founded by Stefano Odorizzi in 1984.

Another Italian representative, contributing to another space mission, is Paolo Belluta who works at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles. He flew back to Italy to participate in the International CAE Conference and presented his work as driver of the Mars rovers Spirit, Opportunity and now Curiosity. “These vehicles cost millions of dollars and could be lost forever due to a simple accident. If we couldn’t take advantage of engineering simulation to analyze the driving context and condition, we would be the ones totally lost!”

EnginSoft is renowned for its computer aided engineering systems and solutions, its commitment to the value of virtual prototyping and the priority it places on innovation, dissemination and education in the latest innovative methods and software. For these reasons EnginSoft has consistently prioritized the development of the International CAE Conference (www.caeconference. com), as well as its quarterly EnginSoft Non-seismic systems and green SBES (Simulation Based Engineering nuclear energy & Sciences) Newsletter. These tools The International CAE Conference was honored by the presentations of two offer simulation engineering experts and opinion leaders the ability to share renowned Italian scientists, Francesco Iorio and Carlo Sborchia, authors of information, projects and experiences Fig 2 Prof.

Odorizzi from EnginSoft during the Conference welcome extraordinary projects, well-supported throughout the year, as well as enjoying the opportunity to gather in person at the by simulation. Francesco Iorio, engineer annual Conference. and professor at Politecnico di Milano, is the creator of the futuristic non-seismic damping system of the This year we were joined by extraordinary key-note speakers Isozaki Tower in Milan. In 2015 the tower will reach a height of 207 Maurizio Cheli, the Italian astronaut; Alexander Simpson, Global meters to become the tallest skyscraper in Europe. Carlo Sborchia Research leader of General Electric; Catherine Riviere, President is an Italian genius working in France in the ITER project, the of PRACE and GENCI general manager; Michael Gasik, from Aalto revolutionary nuclear reactor that, using hydrogen (tritium) instead University Foundation in Finland and Bernardo Schrefler, who is of uranium, will solve the problem of radioactive waste. involved in Padova and Houston in medical research, to predict cancer evolution with relation to medical treatments.

Investing in young resources and technologies That’s how we could get out of the crisis Aerospace in the forefront: from Shuttle mission to Mars The economic difficulties that characterize the industrial world are Maurizio Cheli, the Italian astronaut with over 360 hours of space strongly affecting scientific research. Laboratories and universities flight, including the Space Shuttle, and 4500 hours flight on highhave their funds reduced, with the result that innovative projects performing aircraft, opened the International CAE Conference 2013 and sealed a connection between this event and the Torino cannot achieve their potential impact – this disproportionately Piemonte Aerospace initiative that took place at Lingotto from affects younger researchers who have form the core teams of such projects. For this reason the International CAE Conference October 22nd to 24th. has introduced the Poster Award aimed at Research Centers and This is the first step of a new collaboration between the companies working in the aerospace sector and the scientific and institutional Academia with an impressive feedback of over 300 projects related to simulation engineering. Forty of them have been selected for community. “The technology coming from aerospace and judging by the scientific committee, with five prizes awarded. The applied to everyday life can strongly support the Italian economy.

Access to supercomputers is essential to guarantee industrial most innovative project has also been rewarded with an unexpected opportunity for its young author, the proposal is to be employed competitiveness and top-level scientific research. From this

by EnginSoft: “It’s a personal commitment that I have decided to perspective, Europe has no reason to be envious of United States and Asia,” stated Cheli. make,” observes Stefano Odorizzi, “reflecting an observation that in Italy there’s little place for meritocracy and a serious lack of It is rare for a conference presentation to generate a widespread opportunities for talented people. Companies don’t pay attention emotional impact on an audience, but this was certainly the effect of a live connection with International Space Station and the ESA to them, while managers should be more responsible and act astronaut Luca Parmitano. He greeted the audience by reminding accordingly. I hope to become a positive example to be followed, us how essential simulation is to the support of space mission and if other Italian companies would do the same, investing in preparations, allowing astronauts to train and cope with extreme young talent, the way-out of this crisis would be much closer.” and risky situations. “I have to thank all you researchers”, he For more information: www.caeconference.com admitted, “for enabling me to be here and talk to you!”

49 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

CAE Conference

CAE Conference 2013: will ANSYS Mechanical Release 15 satisfy technical user expectations?

Discussion and final considerations at the ANSYS Mechanical meeting Every year, at the conclusion of the International CAE Conference, the use of ANSYS Mechanical by Italian engineers is reviewed.

Many interesting inferences may be made from considering parameters such as the number of attendees, quality of technical presentations and, from the software provider’s viewpoint, the ability of the latest release to satisfy the technical expectations of each participant.

This year there were 103 attendees during the ANSYS Mechanical session, the vast majority remaining until the final presentation.

The overall conclusion was of a positive correlation between users’ demands, code capabilities and the technical requirements of the engineering challenges presented.

The “leitmotif” of these presentations is their organization around individual special features of the ANSYS code: each presenter is a veteran ANYS user who has been chosen because of their ability to present a detailed technical solution and the benefit that was obtained.

The first speech focused on the general state of art of the ANSYS Mechanical code and the development guidelines that were introduced by ANSYS to ensure the spirit of renewal which characterizes the continuous improvement of the code in spite its ‘seasoned’ technology. Five pillars form the basis of these developments, leading to release 14.5 and further exposed in released 15. These are HPC (High Performance Computing) technology, ACT (the ANSYS Customization Tool), significant improvements in meshing performance, multi-physics, and new technologies in fatigue and fracture mechanics.

Ing Santucci from Ansaldo and ing Perna from EnginSoft showed their presentation on huge use of HPC, revealing an innovative software-hardware structured approach that has already made a major impact on Ansaldo productivity.

CAE Conference

Ing Cova from Sacmi demonstrated the utilization of ACT to incorporate a customized tool into the ANSYS environment to deal with specific issues in ceramic material behavior.

Ing Mechi of Continental has introduced an interesting discussion about ANSYS capabilities in fatigue analysis, with reference to the features of the nCode software, raising various questions about its detailed usage.

Ing Biondi of Ansaldo presented an interesting analysis of a turbo alternator that linked a determination of its magnetic field with the resulting structural stress field analysis arising from the resulting Maxwell forces.

Other presentations from ing. Gardi from Cira, ing Bistolfi from Franco Tosi Meccanica, ing Raffaelli from INFN and ing Pacieri from Umbra Cuscinetti shared some common points characterized by challenging meshing requirements and demanding algorithm expectations. Together, they demonstrated that the powerful capabilities of ANSYS in each of these areas have enabled them to identify good technical solutions during the development of their products.

Finally, as the ANSYS Technical Organizer, I want to thank all the attendees and speakers for their reciprocal contributions. I would further like to remind you that we will continue to share with you all of the continuing and dynamic innovation within the ANSYS product family through our extensive programme of webinars and courses in our different competence centers. Please consult the plans and events publicized on our website www.enginsoft.it/eventi For more information: Roberto Gonella – EnginSoft info@enfinsoft.it

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 50

Scilab at the International CAE Conference 2013: what a great session!

The Scilab Session and Workshop at the 29th edition of the International CAE Conference was a great success!

Scilab is the worldwide Open Source reference in numerical computation and simulation software and it has been adopted in all the major strategic and scientific areas of industry and services, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy, defense and finance.

The session hosted speakers from all over Europe and India, and the presentations covered both academic and industrial applications.

Lea Florentin and Eloy Crespo, from Eramet Research, proposed two approaches to model metallurgical reactors with Scilab. Metallurgical reactors are characterized by their complexity, especially in terms of chemistry, heat transfer, transport phenomena, and thermodynamics; they showed how modeling such systems can lead to an improved understanding of the process and offer the opportunity to optimize the performance of the reactor.

There were two excellent presentations from the field of civil engineering: Sanjeev Gahlot, Govt. India, illustrated an interactive Scilab program for the simulation and the optimization of a 2-dimensional Truss, while Sukumar Baishya, Associate Professor at the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology, presented a program for the analysis of the allowable bearing pressure of shallow foundations in layered soil. He explained that, on many occasions, the detailed geotechnical characterization of a site may not be possible due to difficult ground conditions and limited time and resources. However, the developed Scilab program is able to utilize input data gathered during site explorations to compute the Bearing Capacity and the Allowable Bearing Pressure and generates an appropriate geotechnical report.

The first speaker from the academic world was Gabriele Santin, from the Padua University, who explained that the theory of Radial Basis Functions (RBF) is of growing importance in the field of approximation, especially when dealing with data coming from scattered samplings in highdimensional spaces. Nevertheless, in certain conditions this method can be unstable and can suffer from ill-conditioning: hence he presented a Scilab implementation of some tools for the fast and stable computation of RBF approximants in a wide class of problems. Giovanni Conforti, from the Berlin Mathematical School, introduced the main tools that Scilab

51 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

offers to tackle problems arising from stochastic modeling, describing and implementing a stochastic numerical algorithm to solve elliptic PDEs with a special focus on the heat equation. His algorithm is based on the celebrated Feynman-Kac representation formula. The last talk of the morning session was presented by Davide Poggiali, Padua University, and it concerned the resolution of a gamma camera in a clinical setting. From a diagnostic point of view, it is useful to know the expected resolution of a gamma camera at a given distance from the collimator surface for a particular setting in order to decide whether it is worth scanning patients with small lesions and to make appropriate corrections. He created a package to obtain the theoretical resolution of a gamma camera at different distances and compared these values with experimental results.

In the afternoon, the Openeering team and Jocelyn Lanusse, from Scilab Enterprises, led the Workshop. The main themes concerned the latest Scilab version, how Scilab can be used for building comprehensive industrial applications using external modules and the Return On Investment using Scilab. The workshop lasted for two hours and the attendees took an active part in the discussion, carefully dissecting each topic. The Workshop was also the setting for the official launch of the Scilab Black Belt Course, which the Openeering team has carefully designed to cover the full spectrum of Scilab features whilst keeping it compact and yet enriching it with meaningful examples.

Moreover, this session also had the pleasure of hosting an introduction to the “Mathematical Desk for the Italian Industry,” whose mission is to build a bridge of common interest between the Italian scientific community of applied mathematics and the world of Italian enterprise.

The cooperation envisaged is focused in particular on the development of industrial research projects, possibly in the international context of European networks, through effective mediation in the field of scientific and technology transfer based on the role of mathematics.

The Scilab session will return to the International CAE Conference in 2014, where we look forward to meeting you again: stay tuned!

For more information: Anna Bassi – Enginsoft info@enginsoft.it

CAE Conference

CAE Conference 2013 sessione MAGMA: un grande successo La CAE Conference 2013 ha chiuso i battenti confermando, anzi aumentando il già notevole successo degli anni precedenti.

All’interno dell’evento fra le numerose sessioni parallele, che hanno permesso approfondimenti nei vari settori di applicazione virtuale, è stato possibile assistere anche alla sessione specifica MAGMA, software dedicato all’analisi virtuale dei processi produttivi di fonderia. In sintonia con il risultato complessivo dell’evento, anche la sessione MAGMA è stata caratterizzata da una importante affluenza di ascoltatori non solo appartenenti al settore specifico delle fonderie.

In particolare quest’anno è stato dato ampio spazio agli utilizzatori che hanno esposto la loro esperienza nell’utilizzo dei sistemi virtuali nella logica di integrazione Processo-Prodotto.

cluso la sessione illustrando l’evoluzione del software che dal prossimo anno vedrà il rilascio della versione definitiva dell’Ottimizzatore che verrà integrato nel modulo base nella release 5.3, insieme a molte altre novità sicuramente molto utili, come ad esempio il controllo automatico del livello del battente di colata nel bacino, per i processi di colata in gravità.

Ancora una volta dobbiamo ringraziare tutti i relatori che hanno contribuito attivamente al successo di questa edizione e tutti i partecipanti che con il loro intervento hanno reso vivace la nostra sessione.

Un ringraziamento particolare lo dobbiamo al Dr. Sturm e al Dr. Bramann che hanno mantenuto un contatto diretto con gli utenti Italiani,

Gli argomenti trattati sono stati molteplici comprendendo non solo le attività specifiche di casting negli ambiti di produzione dei materiali Ferrosi e non Ferrosi, ma andando anche a considerare l’attività produttiva delle anime in sabbia, con preciso riferimento all’ultimo modulo nato in casa MAGMA: C+M (ossia Core and Molds).

Proprio relativamente al modulo C+M è stato possibile assistere a 2 presentazioni condotte rispettivamente dall’Ing. Timpano della Agusta di Benevento, il quale ha esposto il lavoro di progettazione e di realizzazione di un’anima piuttosto complessa per la produzione di una scatola ingranaggi per un motore per elicotteri, e dal Sig. Stefano Tamelli della Modelleria Brambilla di Correggio, il quale ha esposto un caso di produzione di un’anima del circuito di raffreddamento ad acqua di una testa cilindri per un motore benzina di nuova generazione.

Tra le aziende che hanno partecipato attivamente alla sessione ricordiamo: Modelleria Brambilla, Acciaierie Fonderie Cividale, iGuzzini, FAS Fonderia Acciai Speciali, Agusta, Fonderie Mario Mazzucconi, StaCast Project, Università di Padova, ABOR. Al termine delle memorie presentate dagli utenti è stata la volta del Dr. Sturm, Direttore Generale della MAGMA GmbH, il quale ha con-

CAE Conference

confermando come MAGMA GmbH sia al fianco delle fonderie per rendere sempre più efficace l’uso della simulazione in questo importantissimo settore manifatturiero.

Per ulteriori informazioni: Giampietro Scarpa, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 52

Forge NxT: l’Italian User Meeting raddoppia L’annuale appuntamento della CAE Conference quest’anno ha visto una partecipazione nazionale ed internazionale ancora maggiore; l’importante contributo delle numerose sessioni specifiche ha permesso approfondimenti interdisciplinari di alto valore. Tra esse si è distinta la duplice sessione dedicata a Forge & ColdForm: il 21 Ott. è stata presentata in anteprima la prossima release del SW Forge, il 22 Ott. si sono avvicendati gli interventi di utilizzatori e della casa madre: Transvalor.

Le novità presentate sono lo specchio della roadmap di sviluppo del SW Forge, ed hanno dato i punti chiave ed i vantaggi di utilizzare le nuova interfaccia e le new features inserite: new mesh, Induction Heating, nuove cinematiche, etc. Alla presentazione dell’Ing. Andrietti - Software Production Manager - è seguita una sessione hands-on con ottimo coinvolgimento dei numerosi intervenuti, i quali hanno potuto testare la bontà delle innovazioni apportate, contribuendo con interessanti spunti al continuo sviluppo del SW stesso e della sua interfaccia grafica, che lo rende ancora più intuitivo, robusto ed user-friendly.

Il nuovo modello di calcolo per l’Induction Heat Treatment permette di analizzare non solo la distribuzione di temperatura durante il processo, ma anche l’evoluzione metallurgica, aumentando la precisione dei risultati. Grande attenzione è stata dedicata dai più di 50 partecipanti alla Best-Practice Heat-Treatments & New features in steel quenching simulation, della quale i punti salienti sono la possibilità di modellare il processo di cementazione, austenitizzazione, tempra e la nuova possibilità di importazione, esportazione e visualizzazione dei dati.

Il coinvolgimento degli utilizzatori ha sottolineato l’alto valore aggiunto che l’uso del FEM e del CAE apporta ai processi di manufacturing, come evidenziato nello studio Analysis and optimization of heating process for large forgings quenching through finite elements analysis, presentato dal’Ing Curbis - PhD UNIPG presso Società delle Fucine di Terni.

L’ottimizzazione del processo di riscaldo di grandi fucinati (cilindri di laminazione >250ton) destinati alla tempra differenziale permette di massimizzare la qualità del prodotto forgiato, incrementando la durezza dello strato di lavoro, il cui spessore varia in funzione delle specifiche richieste. La simulazione numerica favorisce un approccio sistematico e scientifico alla risoluzione di tali problematiche industriali, specialmente quando il rapporto di scala sperimentale-reale è molto elevato.

In ambito di materiali innovativi è stato molto apprezzato lo studio: Dif-

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ferences in Forging Process for a Component Type “Convergent Venturi” Evaluated in Different Material, condotto dall’ing. Caracciolo - Product & Process Engineering Director - e dall’ing. Baruffaldi in Officine A. Melesi.

L’approccio FEM ha permesso di valutare in maniera preventiva la criticità del processo di forgiatura di un componente per OIL & GAS in INC 800H. La coerenza con i dati sperimentali e la robustezza delle analisi virtuali hanno permesso di ottimizzare il processo minimizzando il materiale usato (-20%), con conseguente riduzione di energia e costi totali pari al 30%. Altrettanta attenzione è stata rivolta allo studio di tesi in ambito di deformazione di metalli non ferrosi: A Study of the Parameters’ Influence on Dies Resistance in Hot Forging trough Numeric Simulation, condotto in Fonderia Maspero da Canesi - POLIMI - con la supervisione dell’Ing. Di Modica. L’analisi ha identificato e quantificato i fattori di causa di rottura stampi nella produzione di un grande elemento strutturale Automotive in alluminio (EN - AW 6082). Il risultato di minimizzazione dello stress termo-meccanico costituisce la base per lo sviluppo di una politica adeguata per la progettazione e la gestione delle attrezzature.

In ambito Cold Forging, l’ing. Zoppelletto - A.D. Zoppelletto SpA - e l’ing Bassan - PhD UNIPD - hanno presentato lo studio di un processo di stampaggio multistazione con transfer automatico di un particolare di forma complessa e strette tolleranze dimensionali: Process analysis and investigation of defects in multistage cold forging by using finite element method. I risultati delle analisi FE si sono dimostrati affidabili ed in ottimo accordo con i dati sperimentali: previsione di difetti, bilanciamento di forze ed ottimizzazione di processo, massimizzando la produzione e minimizzando i costi.

Il centro di competenza deformazione di metalli di EnginSoft, approfondendo tutte le tematiche presentate, ha coordinato le numerose domande degli intervenuti e, attraverso un confronto di tutti i partecipanti, ha collezionato tutti gli spunti di sviluppo.

Ringraziando gli intervenuti e tutti coloro che hanno contribuito, si rinnova l’appuntamento alla edizione 2014 dell’Italian Forge Users’ Meeting: Ad Majora!

Per ulteriori informazioni: Andrea Pallara, EnginSoft info@enginsoft.it

CAE Conference

The International CAE Conference 2013 welcomed participants from Japan We had the pleasure to welcome and interview Mr. Motoaki Ioroi from Japan who works for Honda Engineering Europe Ltd. in the UK.

from around the world can participate more easily. This would provide even more opportunities for lively discussions.

A.Kondoh: Could you please tell us a bit about your work and what type of CAE you are using at Honda Engineering?

A.Kondoh: Please tell me about your future vision for the use of CAE in your company?

Mr. Ioroi: Since I joined the UK office a few months ago, I have been gathering information to investigate the leading technology in Europe for automotive powertrain components.

I had been using ADSTEFAN, a casting simulation system, for fluid flow analysis and solidification analysis of hot metal in dies at our site in Japan before I moved to the UK office. At the moment, my main task is to study new technology, I don’t use CAE currently in the UK office.

Mr. Ioroi: We anticipate that cast components will become more complicated and therefore, the casting performance is going to be more challenging in the future. At the same time, we are required to reduce product development lead-time in order to cut costs. I hope to establish the ideal casting process for the components with complex geometries by applying CAE – This approach will indicate, will tell us which dies can deliver products with the targeted quality and without any errors.

A.Kondoh: What were the main objectives for your participation at the CAE Conference?

This interview was conducted by Akiko Kondoh, Consultant for EnginSoft in Japan

Mr. Ioroi: Our goals were to gather information about the CAE development trends in Europe and the recent case studies of casting CAE and forging CAE and to build networks with companies and universities which are developing CAE software products. We think that it is important to value the relationships between European companies and universities so that we can take full advantage of our CAE usage and improve the efficiency of product development.

A.Kondoh: What are your main impressions of the CAE Conference?

Mr. Ioroi: The conference provided an atmosphere of great openness, it was easy to discuss with others. The only pity was that I could not understand the entire content of some Italian sessions. I hope that next year there will be more English sessions so that the participants

CAE Conference

Left: Tomoya Tanaka of Honda Engineering Co.,Ltd. Middle: Motoaki Ioroi of Honda Engineering Europe Ltd. Right: Stefano Odorizzi, CEO of EnginSoft

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 54

CAE Poster Award 2013

An acknowledgment to young researchers’ creativity The second edition of the award for “the International Poster Award: A poster for CAE” has been really successful, both in terms of participants and quality of the submitted works.

This initiative has been promoted and sponsored by EnginSoft, being one of the promotion and dissemination activities that the company is constantly committed in to foster simulation culture.

This award has a double aim: the first is to acknowledge the quality and innovation of the project developed in the universities and the second is to offer a privileged context in which academic experiences and industrial world could meet and get mutually known.

41 posters, submitted by Italian and foreign universities and research centers, passed the selection; 5 projects won the award and 4 deserved the “mention of distinction”.

Posters were evaluated and voted by registered users and by the Scientific Committee members, consisting of professionals committed in transferring and disseminating numerical simulation techniques and knowledge, both on academic and industrial level, therefore able to influence the future of R&D: Aronne Armanini (Università di Trento, Italy), Sanzio Bassini (CINECA, Italy), Roberto Battiti (Università di Trento and co-founder of Reactive Search, Italy), Franco Bonollo (Università di Padova, Italy), Gabriele Dubini (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), Natalie Fedorova (ITAM SB RAS, Russia), Giorgio Fotia (CRS4, Italy), Michael Gasik (Aalto University, Finland), Carlo Gomarasca (Ansys, Italy) Gianluca Iaccarino (Stanford University, USA), Giuseppina Maria Rosa Montante (Università di Bologna, Italy), Enrico Nobile (Universita di Trieste, Italy), Bernardo Schrefler (Università di Padova, Italy), Christos Theodosiu (DTECH Corp., Greece) and Giorgio Zavarise (Università del Salento, Italy).

The winners were celebrated on October 21st in the frame of the International CAE Conference, held in Lazise (Verona). During the

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ceremony, presented by Luca Viscardi of Radio Number One, the five best posters were officially announced in front of the audience and their authors personally awarded with a tablet pc by Stefano Odorizzi, enterprising and prominent expert of Computer-Aided Engineering and Maurizio Cheli, astronaut, pilot, test driver and successful manager.

The list of the five award winners is provided here below: 1. Design by Optimization of a Controllable Pitch Marine Propeller Stefano Gaggero, Michele Viviani - University of Genoa 2. Thermo-fluid dynamics model of two-phase system alloy-air inside the shot sleeve in HPDC process Roberto Meneghello - University of Padova 3. FEM Analysis, Modelling and Control of a Hexacopter Angela Ricciardello, Valeria Artale, Andrea Alaimo, Cristina Milazzo, Luca Trefiletti - University of Enna KORE 4. CFD characterization and thrombogenicity analysis of a prototypal polymeric aortic valve Filippo Piatti, Matteo Selmi, Alessandra Pelosi, Alberto Redaelli - Politecnico di Milano - Thomas E. Claiborne, Danny Bluestein - Stony Brook University, New York 5. Stenting in coronary bifurcations: image-based structural and hemodynamic simulations of real clinical cases Sebastian G. Colleoni, Stefano Morlacchi, Claudio Chiastra, Gabriele Dubini, Francesco Migliavacca - Politecnico di Milano An in-depth perspective on each project is provided in the next pages.

For further information, please go to www.caeconference.com, Poster Award section, or contact posteraward@enginsoft.it

CAE Poster Award

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Stenting in Coronary Bifurcations: Image-Based Structural and Hemodynamic Simulations of Real Clinical Cases The majority of current numerical models simulates typical stenting procedures in idealized geometries. Consequently, such models can only provide standard guidelines without specific indications for the optimal interventional planning of each patient. The aim of this work is the implementation of patient-specific structural and fluid dynamic models that use image-based reconstructions of atherosclerotic bifurcations. Particular attention is paid to the plaque identification and the insertion of stents by simulating their advancement in the artery. Two clinical cases involving a coronary bifurcations of the left anterior descending artery have been investigated.

Materials and Methods Image-based 3D atherosclerotic coronary bifurcation The pre-stenting internal wall surfaces are generated from a combination of conventional coronary angiography and computed tomography angiography (Fig. 1, left). These surfaces have been used to construct 3D solid models of the two coronary bifurcations investigated (Fig. 1, right). External wall surfaces were created choosing the diameters in order to respect physiological values of the internal diameter and wall thickness of the arterial branches investigated (LAD). The geometry is discretized using a fully hexahedral mesh (Fig. 2a). Finally, atherosclerotic plaques were identified based on the distance between each node and the centerline of the external wall surface (Fig. 2b).

Stent models and prelinimary structural analyses The two clinical cases simulated involve two coronary stents: the Endeavor Resolute by Medtronic and the Multilink Vision by Abbott Vascular. Their 3D CAD models and discretizations are shown in Fig. 3. To correctly position the stents in the complex arterial geometries, crimping and advancement (Fig. 4) of the devices are simulated using an internal guide following the vessel centerline.

Results Simulated procedures Numerical simulations of stent deployment were performed using a commercial code as quasi-static processes. Two simulations are carried out following the clinical indications provided by the physician who performed the treatments at the Hospital Doctor Peset in Valencia (Fig. 5 and 6). Initial stressed configurations of the devices are imported from the preliminary analyses to guarantee a correct positioning and accurate mechanical results.

Fluid dynamic simulations The final geometrical configurations obtained are then used to perform steady fluid dynamic analyses. Preliminary results (Fig. 10) highlight the criticism of the overlapping region.

CAE Poster Award

Figure 1. Creation of the 3D geometries (right) of the two left anterior descending coronary arteries investigated. On the left, image-based reconstructions of the prestenting internal wall of the vessel created using a combination of conventional angiography and computed tomography

Figure 2. A) Hexahedral mesh of the geometry of case 2. B) Plaque identification is based on the comparison between a typical radius of a healthy LAD and the distance of each node to the centerline. If the distance is lower than the radius (black arrows), the node will be part of the plaque; otherwise (white arrow), it will be part of the arterial wall

Figure 3. 3D models resembling the two stents used: Endeavor resolute (left) and Multilink Vision (right). Dimensions and discretization of their sections are shown, too

Figure 4. Structural simulation of the stent advancement along a cylindrical guide constructed following the post-angioplasty vessel centerline. Final stresses and geometrical configurations have been used as a starting point for the final simulations

Biomechanical analysis: overlapping stents and straightening of the artery Main biomechanical results are shown in Figs. 7, 8 and 9 in terms of stresses in the arterial walls, stresses in the stents and final geometrical configurations. Overlapping of stents is proved to be a critical area due to higher stresses and metal-to-artery ratios. Moreover, in both cases, a straightening of the artery is found at the end of the procedure, in accordance to in vivo measurements found in literature.

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n째4 - 56

Stefano Morlacchi, Sebastian G. Colleoni, Claudio Chiastra, Gabriele Dubini, Francesco Migliavacca - Politecnico di Milano Ruben Cardenes, Ignacio Larrabide, Alejandro F. Frangi - Universitat Pompeu Fabra and CIBER-BBN Barcelona Jose Luis Diez - Hospital Valencia

Figure 6. - Steps of the technique performed for Case 2: A) pre-dilatation performed with a 2.0 mm balloon expanded at 12 atm; B) a 28 mm long Multilink Vision stent with nominal diameter of 3 mm is deployed at 14 atm across the bifurcation between the LAD and its first diagonal branch; C) the procedure is ended with a post-dilatation at 18 atm in the proximal part of the main branch using a 3 mm balloon; D) final configuration after recoil

Figure 9. Red and light blue shapes correspond to the pre-stenting surface and the poststenting geometrical configuration obtained with numerical simulation. Straightening of the arterial wall is found in both cases. This occurrence is in accordance to the cited publication where stented arteries are reconstructed using a combination of angiography and IVUS

Figure 7. Maximum principal stresses contour maps of several sections along the main branch of the coronary tree investigated in Case 1. Results are taken at the end of the whole procedure. Absence of plaque and minimal expansion of the artery results in very low stresses in the proximal area (left) while higher stress values can be found in the distal part of the main branch and, particularly, in the overlapping area

Figure 7. Maximum principal stresses contour maps of several sections along the main branch of the coronary tree investigated in Case 1. Results are taken at the end of the whole procedure. Absence of plaque and minimal expansion of the artery results in very low stresses in the proximal area (left) while higher stress values can be found in the distal part of the main branch and, particularly, in the overlapping area

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Figure 10. Velocity field (top) and wall shear stress magnitude (bottom) contour maps for a steady state simulation. Preliminary results prove that the overlapping area and the walls opposite to the bifurcations are affected by wall shear stresses lower than 0.5 Pa that is a critical value

CAE Poster Award

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Figure 5. - Steps of the procedure performed in Case 1: A) pre-dilatation with a semicompliant 15 mm long angioplasty balloon with a diameter of 2.5 mm; B) deployment of the 15 mm long Endeavor stent across the distal bifurcation inflating a 2.75 mm balloon at 12 atm; C) positioning and dilatation at 14 atm of the second 15 mm long Endeavor stent across the proximal bifurcation with a 3.0 mm balloon; D) final configuration after recoil

Conclusions This work shows the feasibility of implementing a patient-specific virtual model replicating actual clinical cases. Standard medical images (CCA and CTA) were used to create the 3D pre-stenting geometry and the intervention was simulated following the clinical indications provided. Moreover, simulations of crimping and insertion were necessary to find the correct positioning of the devices in complex image-based geometries. From a biomechanical point of view, overlapping of stents has been recognized as a critical occurrence due to modified hemodynamic and structural variables both in the artery and the devices.

Acknowledgments: This work has been partially supported by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT, Genoa, Italy).

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Design by Optimization of a Controllable Pitch Marine Propeller The propeller design is an activity which nowadays presents ever increasing challenges to the designer, involving not only the usual mechanical characteristics fulfillment (with maximum efficiency) and cavitation erosion avoidance, but also other cavitation side effects, such as radiated noise and/or pressure pulses. This is evident with the ever increasing demand for improvement of comfort onboard and concerns about radiated noise problems, especially in proximity of protected areas or for Navy ships. Moreover, in some cases propeller characteristics have to be optimized in correspondence to multiple very different functioning points (i.e. different ship speeds, propeller pitches...) including considerably off-design conditions, hardly captured by conventional design methods, still widely based on lifting line/surface approaches. Such designs, with a traditional approach, would have been addressed in an intermediate condition, leading to a geometry which is not optimal for any of the required settings.

Tools • MatLAB for the parametric description of the propeller geometry, • A Potential Panel Method, developed at the University of Genoa, to efficiently compute propeller performances and steady/ unsteady sheet cavitation.

• modeFRONTIER, as a link between the parametric description of the geometry and the panel method solver, to drive the optimization through a multiobjective genetic algorithm (MOGA II) for a total of 30.000 different geometries tested.

• StarCCM+ to further check the perforances of the original and of the pareto geometries.

• The Cavitation Tunnel of the University of Genoa to finally validate the results of the design by optimization through a dedicated experimental campaign.

Application & Results

In this work, a «design by optimization», based on the coupling between a multiobjective optimization algorithm and a panel code (certainly more accurate and reliable with respect to traditional design tools but inherently not directly applicable for the design itself), is applied for the design of a Controllable Pitch (CP) propeller at different pitch settings, with the aim of reducing the cavitating phenomena and, consequently, the resultant radiated noise. Only through optimization, as a matter of fact, it is possible to take advantage of the panel method features in an «automated and iterative» procedure and to look for a final design that correctly balance the performances at the different working conditions on the basis of the objectives and of the constraints required for the design itself.

Particular attention has been devoted to the slow speed (low pitch) condition, obtained at constant RPM, and characterized by considerable radiated noise and vibrations related to face cavitation. Numerical results are validated by means of an experimental campaign, testing both the original and the optimized geometry in terms of propeller performances (delivered thrust and efficiency), cavitation extent and radiated noise. Experimental results confirm the numerical predictions, proving the capability of the method to assess the propeller functioning characteristics and the effectiveness of the proposed design procedure in correspondence of challenging problems.

Objectives Design a propeller that delivers the same thrust (both at the design and at the reduced pitch working points) in order to: • Reduce back cavitation at the design pitch.

• Reduce face cavitation at the reduced pitch.

• Avoid back cavitation at the reduced pitch.

• Avoid face cavitation at the design pitch.

• Increase the efficiency (both pitches).

CAE Poster Award

Prediction of the sheet cavity extension and of the propeller thrust and torque by a computationally efficient Panel Method

The Pareto Frontier representation of the multi-objective optimization carried out with modeFRONTIER

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 58

Thrust (KT), torque (KQ) and efficiency (h0 ) at the design pitch setting for the original and the optimal propellers - Measurements at University of Genoa Cavitation Tunnel

Observed pressure side cavity extension for the original (left) and for the optimal (right) propeller at the reduced pitch setting for the evaluation of the radiated noise - Validation of the design at the University of Genoa Cavitation Tunnel

Stefano Gaggero, Michele Viviani - University of Genova

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CAE Poster Award

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Flow field and cavity extension prediction for the Pareto cases by a RANS multiphase solver for the selection of the optimal geometry

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

CFD characterization and thrombogenicity analysis of a prototypal polymeric aortic valve The recent growth of cardiovascular diseases, primarily due to heart valve failures such as stenosis and regurgitation, led to an increasing need of valve replacement procedures.

Polymeric prosthetic valves seem to gain advantages over both tissue and mechanical valves, as they combine excellent fluid dynamic features with long lasting performance. Moreover, they can be grafted via minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), reducing related surgical risks and complications.

Besides, heart valve optimization requires specific analysis regarding the effects of blood contact. In particular, shearinduced platelet activation can be investigated in order to estimate thrombongenicity.

This work presents a CFD approach for characterizing the fluidynamics of a novel hemodynamically and functionally optimized polymeric prosthesis for aortic valve replacement and to evaluate its thrombogenic potential.

Materials and Methods Geometry Starting from the closed valve CAD model (Fig. 1a), a FEM simulation was performed, on SIMULIA© Abaqus 6.10, with a symmetrical boundary condition and an homogeneous loading reproducing systolic transvalvular pressure. The systolic valve configuration was therefore obtained (Fig. 1b).

The fluid domain (Fig. 2) was reconstructed on ANSYS© 13.0 Workbench Platform, in order to reproduce the Valsalva Sinuses and the aortic arch with its three upper branches.

Discrete Phase Modeling approach.

Particles loading history was computed over 300 ms (time step 0.1 ms) and, via a statistical analysis, the Stress Accumulation (SA) distribution was extrapolated.

Results and discussion The maximum velocity value, located downstream of the valve housing, was equal to 1.58 m/s, while blood stagnation phenomena were detected within the Valsalva Sinuses.

The peak transvalvular pressure drop was equal to 2.41 mmHg. Velocity magnitude contours are shown in Fig. 3, at the ejection peak (T = 150 ms).

The valve prototype did not induce significant alterations into the aortic fluid dynamic thanks to its morphological similarity with the anatomy of the aortic valve. Pressure drop and maximum velocities were comparable with those reported for other bioprosthetic valves.

Particle trajectories (Fig. 4a) were analyzed in order to quantify the level of platelet activation due to shear stress. Scalar stress and particle residence time were combined to calculate SA. The statistical distribution of SA (Fig. 4b) allowed to identify particle trajectories with a high thrombogenic risk.

CFD computational setup Transient CFD simulations were run on ANSYS Fluent v13.0. A systolic ejection waveform was applied to the inlet section and outflow boundary conditions (constant flow rates) were imposed to the four outlets. A k-ω turbolence model with low Reynolds corrections was adopted and blood was characterized with density equal to 1060 kg*m-3 and viscosity equal to 3 cP. Particle tracking Neutrally buoyant spherical particles (Ф = 3 μm), representing platelets, were injected into the fluid domain from the inlet surface through a two-phase,

CAE Poster Award

Conclusions The present study combined FEM and CFD simulations to evaluate the hemodynamic and thrombogenic performances of a novel hemodynamically and functionally optimized polymeric trileaflet valve.

Acknowledgements The research leading to these results has received fundings from the Cariplo Foundation Project, Grant Agreement N° 2011-2241.

Figure 1 – CAD images of the closed (top) and open (bottom) configurations of the optimized polymeric valve

Filippo Piatti, Matteo Selmi, Alessandra Pelosi, Alberto Redaelli - Politecnico di Milano Thomas E. Claiborne, Danny Bluestein - Stony Brook University, New York

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 60

Figure 3 – Contours of Velocity Magnitude [m/s] in the aortic arch and in four different locations within the Valsalva Sinuses

Figure 4 – (a) Particle trajectories coloured by Scalar Stress [Pa]; (b) Frequency distribution of the Stress Accumulation [Pa·s] in the model

TECHNET MEETING The TechNet Alliance Fall Meeting 2013 took place at Lake Garda, Italy, with the support of EnginSoft organization and was well attended by 73 members. The official part of the meeting started on Friday morning with an Oil & Gas Initiative Meeting. After lunch till late afternoon, a meeting for ANSYS channel partners took place, giving an updated overview of ANSYS roadmap for the next future. In the evening, all attendees met for a welcome dinner at the hotel. The main event, planned on Saturday, started with the welcome of Stefano Odorizzi to all attendees and a short informative presentation on EnginSoft company and its field of activities. Afterwards, Günter Müller from CADFEM gave an update on TechNet Alliance and also the new webpage has been introduced to the audience. Potential new members were invited to give their presentations, on several different topics (from aerospace to energy, from aeronautics to biomechanics, among the others). On Saturday evening, the TechNet Alliance Fall Meeting 2013 closed with a dinner for all attendees at the excellent restaurant “Ai Beati” in Garda.The next meeting, i. e. TechNet Alliance Spring Meeting 2014, will take place in Malta on April 11th and 12th, 2014.

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Technet Alliance CAE is a complex and fast developing technology, it requires expertise in a variety of disciplines. Service companies who can provide this expertise are typically small to medium size enterprises- focused on one specific industry or discipline. No single company exists that can possibly possess all of the world’s CAE knowledge and experience. Therefore, it is difficult for a large company to find sufficient CAE expertise to satisfy its needs. However, by combining the best engineering talent, product knowledge, consulting expertise, training and support into a single entity, an “Alliance of Experts” can collaborate to solve the most complex CAEproblems. Such an Alliance may function as a “virtual corporation” - providing a high concentration of CAE expertise and services worldwide not available through any individual company. the future, networking and building alliances becomes vitally important to remain competitive in the global market. This is especially true for small and medium sized companies. For these reasons a company, Technology Network Alliance AG, was established 1998 in Switzerland by an international group of CAE- service companies. By combining the unique expertise of many companies into a “global corporation”, the Alliance is capable of focusing the skills, resources, and people to fulfill a market need. Today. The TechNet Alliance is perhaps the world’s largest network of engineering solution providers- dedicated to the application, development, marketing and support of CAE software. Beyond CAE service companies, business support companies, renowned professionals from industry, professors from universities and even representatives of corporate companies also belong to this network. www.technet-alliance.com

CAE Poster Award

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Figure 2 – CAD 3D geometry of the flow domain within the aortic arch. The red zone represents the Valsalva Sinuses where the prosthetic valve is placed

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Thermo-Fluid Dynamics model of two-phase system alloy-air inside the shot sleeve in HPDC Process In HPDC process, the final quality of castings is highly correlated to the first stage of injection. During this phase, the movement of the melt due to plunger’s acceleration causes the high level of air entrapment, inducing porosity into the component. This has a detrimental effect on mechanical properties and produces internal and surface defects.

To prevent these phenomena, it is important to control all the relevant process parameters. In the present work, this objective has been achieved through the development of a model that describes the thermofluid dynamics behavior inside the shot sleeve. The model consists in: • Numerical model: implementation of thermal equation into an open source CFD code; • Mathematical model: generation and execution of a DOE. The developed code has been used to simulate several cases with different combinations of input parameters.

The models allow to determine the response surface that is used to analyze the percentage of trapped air.

CAE Poster Award

The activity has been conducted for the master thesis work.

Numerical Model Scope Development of a numerical model that describes the dynamic of the system inside the shot sleeve also considering the heat exchange.

Mathematical Model Model Design Scope Identification of the relevant process parameters which will constitute the input variables for DOE and parameterizing the model as a function of these.

Process parameters selected 1. D = inner diameter of the shot sleeve; 2. L = length of the shot sleeve;

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 62

At the moment, the simulations are running and so the results are partial.

Future aim With this tool, it will be possible to explore all the combinations of input parameters (within the given ranges) and to forecast trapped air.

This would support HPDC engineers in managing process parameters.

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Roberto Meneghello, University of Padova

3. F = initial filling of melt.

4. V = velocity of the first phase; Other consideration All the remaining variables have been set as a function of four previous input parameters. It has been necessary to define a reliable and consistent condition for the end time of the simulations. The aim is to properly compare the results of trapped air volume percentage for different cases: simulations end when the total volume of the cylinder equals the initial volume occupied by melt alloy.

Definition and execution of DOE In this phase of project, modeFRONTIER has been used as the basis for the DOE planning but not for DOE execution.

DOE definition Each input variable range with a fixed quantization step. To avoid unfeasible designs some constraints have been imposed on combinations between input variables. In this way only the relevant cases in foundry practice have been simulated. SOBOL algorithm has been adopted to uniformly distribute a given number of experiments in a design space.

DOE execution It has been necessary to work out some scripts automatically generating all the experiments by reading variables from a text file.

These cases have been executed on a cluster system which enables to run several designs at a time using several processor.

Application of RSM The rate of entrapped air (R) has been calculated by dividing the final volume of air (Vair) respect the final total volume (Vtot). After inserting these values in modeFRONTIER, it has been possible to apply Response Surface Methodology (RSM) which correlates input variables with the related output by means of a mathematical model.

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CAE Poster Award

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

FEM Analysis, Modelling and Control of a Hexacopter This work is supported by the PO. FESR 2007/2013 subprogram 4.1.1.1 “Actions to support the research and experimental development in connection with the production sectors, technological and production districts in areas of potentiality excellence that test high integration between universities, research centers, SMEs and large enterprises”; (Prog. “Mezzo aereo a controllo remoto per il Rilevamento del Territorio - MARTE” Grant.

No. 10772131). The aim of the project is to realize a new platform for the representation of the terrain in a georeferenced raster map by using free and open source Geographic Information System (GIS).

In this wok a FEM structural analysis and the mathematical model and control of a hexacopter airframe is presented. In particular, the six-rotors are located on the vertices of a hexagon and they are equidistant from the centre of gravity; moreover, the propulsion system consists of three pairs of counter-rotating fixed-pitch propellers in order to balance the torque actions. The structure has been made up by a composite sandwich configuration characterized

by CFRP skins and closed cells foam core. The analysis has been performed by the code ANSYS V 14.5 Academic Version with the ACP tool to pre-postprocess the composite structures. In order to describe the movement of the drone in space, an efficient mathematical model has been introduced associated with a robust control technique that has been implemented by means of MATLAB software.

Mathematical Model and control Supposed the drone as a rigid body, its dynamics is deduced from the classical Newton- Euler equations but in terms of quaternions.

Taking into account all the internal and external influences, the transational and rotational components of the motion read

in which m is the mass of the drone, ξ=(x,y,z) represents its position vector with respect to the inertial frame, q=(q0,q1,q2,q3) represents the quaternion describing the angular position, Fg is the gravitational force, TB is the total thrust, Q is the orthogonal transformation matrix from the body frame to the inertial one, S is the velocity transformation matrix and n=(p,q,r) is the angular velocity, I is diagonal inertial matrix, Γ represents the gyroscopic effects and tB=(tf, tq, ty) the roll, pitch and yaw moment torque vector. To maneuver the flight and to manage the hexacopter, a PID control technique has been implemented.

A. Alaimo, V. Artale, C. Milazzo, A. Ricciardello, L. Trefiletti University of Enna KORE

FEM structural analysis • Units B are assembled on the mold (outer skin), according to the B local reference system.

• Units A are assembled with a stacking sequence [O2/Core/ O2], where the angle 0° is coincident with xA axis. Then the structure is completed by assembling the inner skin as well as the outer one (unites B).

• A local annular reinforcement is stacked following the [0/+302/0-302/0] layup referred to the C local coordinate system.

The modal analysis of the hexacopter is performed with the aim to compare the natural frequencies of the structure with the forcing frequencies deriving from the thrust of the electric motors. The first 10 frequencies are listed in the table.

• Forcing frequencies from the thrust of the electric motors (max rpm @ 9000) • Hovering condition @1/2 Max power motors (4500 rpm) • Normal flight regimes @ ± 20% Hovering rpm (3600 : 5400 rpm) → 60 : 90 Hz.n So a superposition is possible from 7th to 9th mode.

CAE Poster Award

Figure 1 – View of the hexacopter assembled CAD geometry (Solid Works 2013)

Table: masses applied on the drone

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 64

Fig. 2 - Loads on the structure: weights in gravitational field considered as concentrated masses; thrusts and reaction moments by electric motors

Fig. 3 - A, B, C are typical units of the layup with axial symmetry and last picture shows the structure thickness

Fig 4. - Total deflection [mm] on the left, IRF under axisymmetric load at n=3 on the right

Table 3 - First 10 frequencies

Fig. 5 - Modal shapes (from 7 to 9)

Fig. 6 - A,B,C are typical units of the layup with axial symmetry and last picture shows the structure thickness

Fig. 7 - Rubik Cube: the symbol of the 2013 CAE Conference

65 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n째4

CAE Poster Award

CAE POSTER AWARD 2013: WINNER

Table 2 - Materials mechanical data

WEBINAR CFD e supporto fluidodinamico L’offerta CFD di ANSYS copre una vasta gamma di applicazioni, attraverso l’utilizzo di svariati modelli fisici e numerici. Ad ogni nuova versione inoltre, tali modelli vengono migliorati in termini di efficienza e stabilità ed estesi in termini di applicabilità. Nuovi modelli vengono implementati, consentendo così agli utenti di affrontare problemi con fisiche sempre più complesse.

Contemporaneamente a questo, i core solver traggono beneficio da tutte le risorse che ANSYS impegna nello sviluppo delle soluzioni HPC (High Performance Computing), attività strategicamente portata avanti in costante collaborazione con i principali produttori hardware (processori e schede grafiche) e consente ad ogni nuova versione di essere apprezzabilmente più veloce della precedente, sia per il solutore seriale che parallelo.

Ecco perché, ad ogni nuova versione il panorama di funzionalità offerto si amplia e nuove metodologie vengono rese disponibili, eventualmente corredate di esempi pratici.

Per tali ragioni, nel corso del 2014 EnginSoft ha pianificato con cadenza mensile, degli webinar tematici (legati alle novità software o alla fisica), con lo scopo di fornire un aggiornamento più frequente e strutturato ai propri clienti, in una modalità che sia la più fruibile possibile per la maggior parte degli utenti (un semplice collegamento internet e per la durata di 50 minuti circa).

L’elenco di seguito riporta i webinar del primo Quarter.

• ANSYS Icepak: tool per la simulazione termo-fluidodinamica di componenti elettronici • ANSYS CFD Professional e modularità dei prodotto CFD di ANSYS R15 • ANSYS CFX R15: novità del software • Approccio multifisico: come realizzare analisi di interazione fluido-struttura (FSI) • Multifase: stato dell’arte delle potenzialità multifase degli applicativi ANSYS CFD R15 • ANSYS HPC: potenzialità e offerta per il calcolo parallelo in ANSYS • ANSYS Turbo System: novità di ANSYS R15 dedicate al mondo delle turbomacchine • ANSYS Workbench R15 Parametric Workflow: peculiarità parame-

Events

• •

triche dell’ambiente Aeroacustica: stato dell’arte, modelli disponibili e relativi costi/ benefici Combustione: stato dell’arte, modelli di reazione disponibili e loro applicabilità

Ulteriori informazioni relativamente a ciascun webinar possono essere trovate sul sito EnginSoft al seguente link: http://www.enginsoft.it/webinar/index.html Per iscriversi agli webinar, basta navigare all’interno dello stesso link e formalizzare l’iscrizione. La partecipazione agli webinar è gratuita.

Un tecnico specializzato a disposizione per incontri con i nostri clienti http://www.enginsoft.it/rules/trules13.html Dal 1° gennaio 2014 EnginSoft mette a disposizioni dei propri clienti in regola con il contratto di manutenzione, un nuovo servizio di supporto diretto nelle stesse date dei webinar. Tale servizio metterà a disposizione degli utenti software un tecnico EnginSoft per 4 ore / anno (presso le nostre sedi). In aggiunta, per i clienti ANSYS il cui contratto di manutenzione sia in corso di validità, è prevista, nelle stesse date dei webinar, la possibilità di usufruire di una mezza giornata di affiancamento dedicata, a valle o a monte dell’webinar. Ciò avvalendosi di uno dei tecnici EnginSoft, che seguirà l’utente, affiancandolo sulla tematiche di suo interesse o su caso specifico che l’utente potrà portare con se nell’occasione.

La mezza giornata è da intendersi come affiancamento dedicato su tematiche specifiche del cliente, il cui intento è di condividere con lo stesso una metodologia e/o fornire qualche indicazione specifica a riguardo di un progetto.

All’atto dell’iscrizione alla mezza giornata, l’utente avrà tuttavia la possibilità di spiegare, attraverso qualche riga di testo, la tematica oggetto di discussione, in modo da avere a disposizione la risorsa di EnginSoft più adeguata al proprio tema.

La mezza giornata verrà svolta presso la sede EnginSoft di Bergamo (http://www.enginsoft.it/dove/bergamo.html) ed è aperta ad un numero massimo di 10 utenti per sessione.

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4 - 66

EVENT CALENDAR June 11-13, 2014 Verona, Italy METEF 2014 http://www.metef.com Expo of customized technology for the aluminium&innovative metals industry. EnginSoft will be present with a booth.

October, 2014 International CAE Conference http://www.caeconference.com EnginSoft will be the main sponsor of the International CAE Conference. Many of our engineers will be engaged in presenting industrial case histories during the parallel sessions of the Conference or technologies update during the workshops.

CAE WEBINARS 2014 EnginSoft continues the proposal of the CAE Webinar on specific topics of the virtual prototyping technologies, such as: non linear phenomenas, turbomachinery, meshing, parametric workflow, optimization…

The CAE Webinar program will grow up during 2014 with many other topics on simulation.

Stay tuned to www.enginsoft.it/webinar for the complete program of webinars.

The podcasts on past CAE Webinars are available at: www.enginsoft.it/webinar

2014 CAE EVENTS

Stay tuned to www.enginsoft.it/eventi for the complete program of the events in 2014

67 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 10 n°4

EnginSoft at SPE Offshore Europe 2013 The biannual SPE Offshore Europe Conference held in Aberdeen was attended internationally by over 63,000 people and 1,500 exhibitors across the 4 days from the 3rd-6th September.

The SPE Offshore Europe Conference is one of the largest Oil & Gas events attracting a global audience that were keen to explore leading innovation technologies and services available. “The Next 50 Years” theme gave a fantastic platform of opportunity for EnginSoft to understand the ongoing and predicted challenges that will be faced in the Oil & Gas industry and establish their presence as specialists in complex simulation to an international audience.

With a 3 year waiting list for stand space, EnginSoft exhibited, with thanks, at Offshore Europe as part of a stand share with NAMTEC (National Metals Technology Centre). The conference provided an opportunity to meet with existing customers and proved to be a great event to showcase EnginSoft’s expertise in complex simulation with the support of Stefano Odorizzi, Massimo Galbiati, and Livio Furlan.

EnginSoft for the Oil & Gas industry EnginSoft operate as a key partner in Design Process Innovation, we specialise in Complex Simulation and Optimisation activities, including: • Offshore FEA/CFD • Oil & Gas Equipment • Flow Modelling • Subsea & Geology • Reservoir For more information: eventi@enginsoft.it

Your FREE Newsletter Copy Do you want to receive a free printed copy of the EnginSoft Newsletter?

Just scan the QRcode or connect to: www.enginsoft.it/nl

Events

21 | 22 OCTOBER 2013 Pacengo del Garda Verona - Italy

THANKS TO THE 1000 PARTICIPANTS AND SEE YOU IN 2014!

CAE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ARE AVAILABLE TO DONWNLOAD ON: http://proceedings2013.caeconference.com www.caeconference.com