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TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCT LIFECYCLE
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How Vax retooled its design process
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WELCOME EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Al Dean al@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)7525 701 541 Managing Editor Greg Corke greg@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3355 7312 Digital Media Editor Stephen Holmes stephen@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3384 5297 Consulting Editor Jessica Twentyman jtwentyman@gmail.com +44 (0)20 7913 0919 Consulting Editor Martyn Day martyn@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)7525 701 542
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his month, we’ve got a belter of an issue for you. We take a look at how one of the UK’s most well-recognised brands, Vax, is developing a new platform of products, based on the knowledge and expertise of its Chinese owners, combined with its own world-leading industrial design and engineering skills. Elsewhere, Stephen talks to Ford about its design for the first hybrid police Interceptor and how its team is changing its game in order to take advantage of the latest technologies. We also feature a quick chat with the team at bag maker Targus, about how it developed its new range of high-end laptop bags. This last story got me thinking about the hardware we use in design and engineering offices and workshops. While we’re always focused on workstations, laptops, CNC machines and 3D printers, there’s another class of hardware that we rarely discuss – the tools associated with soft goods design, from sewing machines to numerically controlled drag-knife pattern cutters. I’m curious to know what’s in your office or workshop to help you build prototypes. Are you rocking the sewing machine pedal as much as you do the FDM machine? Contact details are to the left. Get in touch!
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CONTENTS OCTOBER 2019 ISSUE NO. 113
NEWS Ultimaker launches S5 Pro Bundle for light-out 3D printing, Lenovo introduces its first rack-mounted workstation and a first look at Ansys 2019 R3
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FEATURES Comment: CEL-UK’s experience of reshoring Comment: Customer experience and the digital thread Visual Design Guide: The NIO ES6 electric vehicle COVER STORY Vax takes design to the max Stealthy beast: Designing the Ford Interceptor Hot pursuit: Thermal issues in aviation electronics Targus bags a design win with stylish new range
REVIEWS 36 KVS Quicksurface 42 Altair SimSolid 46 HP ZBook 14u G6 mobile workstation 49 DEVELOP3D SERVICES 50 THE LAST WORD Al Dean considers what other companies can learn about artificial intelligence and simulation from a recent announcement by Toyo Tires
2020
16 April 2020 The wood used to produce this magazine comes from Forest Stewardship Council certified well-managed forests, controlled sources and/or recycled material
University of Sheffield
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BIGGEST RE-DESIGN SINCE ORIGINAL PRODUCT LAUNCH NEW ABSOLUTE PORTABLE MEASURING ARM RANGE • • • • • •
Offers the most compact scanning configuration on the market Modular wrist design makes probing in tight spaces very easy Wrist contains display screen for measurement result oversight Range available in 7 sizes from 1.2 – 4.5m radii Three levels of accuracy provide 36 unique arm configurations New RS5 Laser Scanner available
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NEWS
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT NEWS
ULTIMAKER GOES FOR LIGHTS-OUT BUILD WITH NEW ADD-ONS FOR S5 MODEL » 3D printer company heeds users' calls for more enclosed and automated environments that require less human intervention
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he Ultimaker S5 Pro Bundle has emerged, throwing the Ultimaker S5 3D printer into cahoots with the new Ultimaker S5 Air Manager and Ultimaker S5 Material Station, which integrate with each other for automated 3D printing. This solution has been designed to be left unattended 24/7 and, according to Ultimaker, significantly improves 3D printing workflows and productivity, giving engineers the flexibility to spend more time on design work and less time managing and monitoring [read: shouting at and kicking] their desktop 3D printer. The Ultimaker S5 Air Manager provides a closed, inside-out air flow for the Ultimaker S5, leading to a better controlled environment inside the printer and reportedly filters out up to 95% of all ultrafine particles created while printing. The Material Station is set up for filament storage and delivery, enabling dual extrusion throughout the longest prints, with what Ultimaker says is higher productivity and consistency. Filament spools – including glass and carbon-fibre composites – sit in six bays with abrasive-resistant pre-feeders. Silica gel extracts moisture and automatically regenerates, keeping the
fully enclosed chamber below 40% relative humidity – even in outside conditions of up to 70% humidity. “The Ultimaker S5 Pro Bundle truly embodies the meaning of hassle-free 3D printing,” said Paul Heiden, senior vice president of product management at Ultimaker. “Our goal is to make 3D printing easy, reliable and accessible, in order to accelerate the world’s transition to digital distribution and local manufacturing. We have heard many professional users express a need for a more enclosed 3D printing environment and we understand the desire for good, dry material storage and smart material handling in order to reduce the risks of humidity, dust and human error.” He continued: “This solution enables users to take their 3D printing applications to a new level of quality and consistency, with greater flexibility, efficiency and confidence.” Alongside the Pro Bundle, Ultimaker has also launched a slimmed-down version of the S5 for the true desktop user. This combines all of the S5's advances (doors, more reliable prints and so on) and packs it into a smaller unit with a build volume of 230 x 190 x 200 mm. The Ultimaker S3 is available now for £3,705. The Ultimaker Pro Bundle (including machine) is £9,666. ultimaker.com
Above: The new S5 Pro Bundle includes features and add-ons to help run machines without much in the way of maintenance Left: The S3 is a trimmed-down, lower-cost version of Ultimaker's most advanced product yet
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NEWS
LENOVO LAUNCHES ITS FIRST RACK-MOUNTED WORKSTATION
Trek Bicycles adds Onshape to design toolkit
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enovo has released its first rack-mounted workstation, the ThinkStation P920 Rack. The 2U machine is designed for the data centre and can be used as a flexible resource, supporting mobile working (for example, on site or at home), distributed teams and IT resource sharing, including software licenses. Firms also get the benefit of centralised IT management and data centre-class security.
The ThinkStation P920 Rack is based on the ThinkStation P920 desktop workstation. It supports up to two Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 GPUs or four Nvidia Tesla T4 GPUs and up to two Intel Xeon 2nd Gen Scalable Processors, with up to 56x cores and speeds up to 4.4GHz. The machine can be used as a 1:1 highperformance workstation or, through virtualisation, can support multiple users concurrently. lenovo.com
The new rack-mounted workstation is based on Lenovo's P920 desktop worksation
Ansys 2019 R3 comes stacked with tools to engineer safer autonomous vehicles
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mong new enhancements to Ansys 2019 R3 (and there are a lot) are a range of dedicated tools for the automotive industry, including Ansys Autonomy for testing autonomous vehicles (AVs) simulation. Advanced closed-loop scenario simulation, automated driving and control software development, functional safety analysis and sensor, camera, lidar and radar simulation are all included in the new module, in order to sidestep millions of hours of driving or flying. The addition of Ansys SCADE Vision – powered by Edge Case Research Hologram technology – should also reduce the cost of AV perception software testing, enhance safety and drive high value from AV data. Updates to Ansys VRXperience provides innovations in scenario simulation, sensors, sound simulations and VR; the software also now offers SPEOS Live Preview, Ansys’ optical performance simulation for headlights and the like. “Combined with Ansys' comprehensive partner ecosystem, our leading-edge solutions enable customers to accelerate the future of safe autonomous driving,” said Eric Bantegnie, vice president and general manager, systems business unit at Ansys.
rek, a bicycle design and manufacturing leader, has added Onshape to its toolkit for the purpose of improving collaboration and communication between its teams and partners worldwide. “Trek is about innovation, solving complex problems and helping people use bikes for transportation, recreation and inspiration,” said Chad Manuell, global director of engineering at Trek. “We selected Onshape’s unique product development platform so we can bring new products to market faster and maintain our competitive edge.” Manuell added that Trek’s design ethos of “only building products we love” requires a globally distributed team to simultaneously work on a variety of projects while meeting incredibly high standards. “The most important question we always ask ourselves is, ‘Do I love this?’ If you don’t love what you’re making, why would anybody else?,” he said. “I only want our people working on creating great stuff.” onshape.com
UK’s Siemens Digital Industries resellers merge
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The Ansys Discovery family continues to push simulation upfront in the design process, with 2019 R3 updates introducing generative design capabilities through the first interactive topology optimisation tool, which Ansys states adds “groundbreaking speed and ease-of-use that finds optimal designs in minutes.” The new release of Granta Materials Data for Simulation provides access to additional material property data, now embedded within Ansys Electronics Desktop as well as Ansys Mechanical. A refreshed and renamed update to CES Selector, Ansys Granta Selector, is the brand’s entry to become the industryleading materials selector tool for product design or development. ansys.com
Ansys is aiming to drive changes in the way the automotive sector designs new products
nePLM has announced its acquisition of Team Engineering, creating a merger of the UK’s two largest Siemens Digital Industries software partners, serving clients throughout the UK and Ireland. OnePLM CEO Allan Blackwell, said: “Encouraged by the continued success of the merger of Cutting Edge Solutions and Majenta PLM (now known as OnePLM), the joining of Team Engineering into this enterprise makes perfect sense. Extra capabilities and services based around the Siemens software portfolio will become available to both company’s client base.” Nick Farrall, UK indirect sales director for Siemens Industry Software added: “OnePLM is Siemens’ largest UK PLM partner, with responsibility for looking after the majority of our UK customers. Team Engineering has been a partner of Siemens since 1997 and is known for managing many of our most technically complex NX and Teamcenter customers. We look forward to OnePLM continuing its growth and success including its new customers and colleagues from TEAM Engineering.” oneplm.com
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KAWASAKI HEAVY INDUSTRIES ADOPTS ARAS FOR PLM
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ith 34,000 employees on six continents, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) is a leading manufacturer of equipment for the aerospace, energy, industrial, power, transportation and shipping sectors. It recently made the decision to adopt a single product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, driven by the desire to improve efficiency and enable the rapid sharing of process innovations in core areas such as CAD data management, bill of materials (BOM) management, document management, design data management and infrastructure system collaboration. KHI chose to run with Aras Innovator, taking the option to do so in a private cloud environment, in order to maximise speed of deployment.
The company seems pleased with the results. Since adopting the platform, KHI says it has reduced the cost for creating a new PLM production environment by 51% to 83%, and cut the time taken to deploy a verification environment from several weeks to as little as a day. aras.com
KHI credits its Aras implementation with helping to boost productivity
Shapr3D secures $6 million funding round to take its CAD software to the next level
ROUND UP A 40,000 square metre, ultra-modern facility in Lichtenfels, Germany represents the latest step in GE’s continued investment in lean manufacturing, as it adapts to growing customer demand for its technology and the shift to serial production. The site will be home to GE Additive’s Concept Laser teams ge.com
Universal Robots' new UR16e cobot boasts an impressive 16kg payload capability, making it one of the more beefier collaborative robots available and upping the number of potential use cases. UR16e combines its high payload with a small footprint, reach of 900 mm and pose repeatability of +/- 0.05 mm universal-robots.com
Desktop Metal’s Studio System has added H13 tool steel, allowing the office-friendly 3D printer to produce mould inserts, extrusion dies and sheet metal tooling. H13 is a tool steel widely used in hot work applications, but its toughness also makes it applicable to cold work tooling applications desktopmetal.com
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hapr3D, producer of a 3D CAD modelling app for the iPad Pro, has announced a $6 million Series A financing round from top European early-stage venture capital firms Point Nine and Creandum. Shapr3D is the first CAD system to run Parasolid and HOOPS Exchange on iOS natively, and the only one designed specifically for iPad Pro, with over one million downloads since its debut in 2016. “I came up with the idea for Shapr3D because I could see the urgent need for a 3D modelling application that is intuitive and easy to use on the move,” said Shapr3D CEO István Csanády. “I believe that if you are using a tool for eight to ten
hours a day, it should fundamentally be better than what is on offer today.” He added: “We all want consumerlike apps at work, and sub-standard experiences just aren’t acceptable anymore. My generation, in particular, simply won’t tolerate bad software and the CAD software world hasn’t changed in three decades.” The creators of Shapr3D are under no illusions of where the tool fits into the product development process, and claim the product's ease of use makes it unique in the 3D CAD arena, because it enables early-stage design, ideation and creation, helping to meaningfully boost design innovation. shapr3d.com
Shapr3D is one of the only modelling applications for the iPad Pro
VRgineers and R3DT have combined their offerings for users who need to plan for and review production processes. VRgineers XTAL's peripheral vision-filling 170-degree field-of-view and integrated haptics will work alongside R3DT’s software for virtual prototyping vrgineers.com | r3dt.com
Evatronix has signed Concurrent Design Group (CDG) to offer UK sales, support and training for its range of 3D scanners, including its heavy-duty Quadro 3D scanner cdg.uk.com
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COMMENT
Reshoring of production has boosted CEL-UK’s innovation and competitiveness, and may be a good option for other firms as Brexit takes effect, says MD Chris Elsworthy
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eshoring is a business strategy that more and more UK manufacturers have adopted over the last decade – but the trend seems to have gained momentum following the Brexit referendum. Manufacturers of 3D printers are no exception. As CEL-UK’s experience shows, reshoring production presents an opportunity to boost innovation and competitiveness, even against the odds presented by Brexit. But how? Before answering this question, we need to take a step back and look at what drove a company like CEL-UK to offshore production in the first place. Many consumer 3D printers grew from the open source community, and that self-build ethos is still apparent in the design and manufacture of many machines. When CEL-UK first set up the Robox project in 2012, however, we wanted to step away from the open source community and design a true consumer-friendly 3D printer. What we had in mind was a high-quality, plug-and-play 3D printer that anyone could use. CEL-UK already had vast experience with high-volume manufacturing through our power tool business and contracted product development. Utilising Chinese tooling, injection moulding and mass production capabilities to create a competitive, high-quality product was the obvious way to enter the rapidly growing consumer 3D printer market. This is how our Robox printer was born. At the time, it made sense to get the tooling and manufacture of the original Robox made in China, where overheads were low and quality high. The factory there was able to source components and parts in large quantities, which kept costs down. Injection-moulded parts gave the Robox and RoboxDual printers a high-quality finish and a high standard of build quality, at a time when most 3D printers were still kits or self-builds. A QUESTION OF DISTANCE Manufacturing in China works well, but distance can be an issue. A design change or update requires a site visit and/or lengthy discussions, which can take up a considerable amount of time. But, overall, these delays are generally offset by the final product’s high quality and competitive cost. Being able to take advantage of Chinese
tooling and production expertise certainly helped CEL-UK realise its ambitions, but with the Brexit vote and the falling value of the pound that followed, we had to rethink how we were going to manufacture our new printer, RoboxPRO. This is when we decided to reshore part of our production. It has been a significant change for CEL-UK and has enabled us to expand from pure product design to research and development. Bringing the production of many components in-house at our Portishead factory has meant that enhancements are made to the printer regularly and innovations realised. Design changes can be made and run to the production floor on the same day. Bespoke alterations for clients can also be factored in with relative ease. This transition was key to our expansion from manufacturer of consumer 3D printers to producer of industrial 3D printers for applications including aerospace and automotive. Increasingly, the industry is looking for adaptive and responsive 3D printing solutions, which is something we are now better equipped to produce thanks to our UK manufacturing operations. The ability to adapt a machine’s design, from increasing printer size through to adding features or even making an entirely bespoke printer, is key to meeting our clients’ needs. Reshoring has also offered us the opportunity to boost our research and innovation capabilities. For example, while
the Robox printers follow a traditional 3-axis design, we are now developing 5-axis machines that can print from any angle and will enable wiring looms to be integrated within the walls of a print. Investing in tooling such as CNC machines can be a huge outlay, but it is essential for a successful transition from offshore to onshore manufacturing. We have been realistic about the cost and use of this new equipment and have encouraged other companies to utilise the kit to realise their own products. While the manufacture of the RoboxDual will remain in China for the time being, the success of the RoboxPRO production line has proved that it is possible to produce and manufacture a 3D printer successfully in the UK. Parts, such as nuts and screws, may still need to be ordered from China, but in time, we hope to source these from UK companies, too. Our long-term goal is to reshore our entire manufacturing process to the UK. While manufacturing in China makes the production of high-quality products possible, changes and updates take time. By bringing that production in-house, we have gained more control over the product and its future development.
CEL-UK’s RoboxPRO machines are all built in the company’s facility in Portishead
Chris Elsworthy is managing director and lead mechanical engineer at CEL-UK, a supplier of 3D printers including the Robox, RoboxDual, and more recently, the RoboxPRO.
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COMMENT
A strong digital thread that connects every stage of a product’s lifecycle is fast becoming the best chance to deliver exceptional customer experiences, writes Graham McCall of Aras
O
ver the last decade, there has been a paradigm shift in the way in that product and services companies want to use data. In short, they want more information and control over the entire operational lifecycle of their products, including the aftersale period when those products are in service and in use. With this information, they can discover new ways to improve the experience of customers, faster and more confidently, even in-flight. They can coordinate a customer-focused response when new opportunities or threats emerge: new market entrants, new product technologies and mounting competition, for example. Furthermore, product development and business strategy teams can use new information and insights to improve future offerings. The shortest path to meeting your future customer’s unmet needs, to own their experience, is to own the product lifecycle. This forms the heart of any organisation’s digital transformation journey. Ownership means that information must be immediately accessible, complete, accurate and actionable by the stakeholders whose job it is to effect improvements. Furthermore, data and technologies must be malleable, so that they can be used in new ways. For a business to sustain year-on-year transformation– including incorporating technology and service innovations that have yet to be invented – information and actions must be managed endto-end across the product’s lifecycle on a platform that can continually be added to, adapted, upgraded and evolved to meet the company’s ever-changing strategic needs.
management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution (MES), and supply chain management (SCM), then the danger is that a business will end up either performing redundant work or duplicating tasks. In short, disconnected tools mean disconnected processes. The result is that nobody owns the lifecycle, making it impossible for anybody to own the customer experience. This leaves businesses vulnerable to competitors, as frustrated customers contract with alternative service providers or choose to buy from other suppliers. Underpinning any products and services business should be a connected product lifecycle – a digital thread that connects all product streams with their digital assets, from concept through design, manufacturing and service. When a change is made to a product or process in one part of the thread, that change should be automatically disseminated to each stakeholder
The importance of senior management endorsement cannot be underestimated. If the CEO fails to set a strategy for connecting data throughout a product’s lifecycle, including delivery and field service, then product data will be broken down into disconnected silos. The answer is not a monolithic PLM system with static integrations. Rather, an open-platform approach is needed, one that provides the flexibility to optimise processes and select the right technologies, a system that creates connections to data across the lifecycle of a product. GETTING CIRCULAR There is a tendency to think of PLM as a linear system, tracking a product from its conception to its end-of-life, but it should be a recursive, circular digital thread, a cycle that leads to additional business, more competitive products, reduced development times and closer relationships with customers. Forward-thinking companies are beginning to form their underlying ecosystems into such a continuous digital thread, creating closedloop product feedback, predictive analytics, and connected digital twins that enable the full traceability of products. In the process, they are eliminating redundant work and exploiting the benefits of their data and analytics to make data-driven decisions with greater speed and agility. Regardless of the industry in which an organisation operates, with the right leadership, culture and an open, flexible, scalable and upgradable PLM system, it can own the lifecycle of its products, enabling it to transform it business. Those organisations that can own their lifecycle will innovate faster, achieve greater operational efficiencies, increase their ability to react to market conditions, and sustainably deliver an exceptional customer experience.
Those organisations that can own their lifecycle will innovate faster, achieve greater operational efficiencies, increase their ability to react to market conditions and sustainably deliver an exceptional customer experience
EASIER THREAD THAN DONE This is easier said than done, of course, owing to the complexities of existing legacy product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, based on outdated architectures and sub-optimal processes that persist in many manufacturing organisations. If a PLM system does not share product data with pillar systems, such as customer relationship
along the chain. These updates allow the entire ecosystem to collaborate using data and analytics from the connected systems to increase a business’ operational efficiency and improve the quality of its products, services and responsiveness to customers. Effecting such a digital transformation can be a tricky business. According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, 84% of companies fail at digital transformation. And, according to a 2018 McKinsey Global Survey of 1,733 business executives, just 14% said that their digital transformation efforts have delivered sustained performance improvements, while only 3% report complete success at sustaining change. Organisations seeking to own the complete lifecycle of product information cannot rely on old technologies. When data and processes are locked in by the applications that manage them, the company’s available insights and actions are limited to the capabilities of the tools they reside in: inflexible tools yield inflexible data, processes, and strategies.
Graham McCall is vice president of operations at Aras, provider of a resilient platform for digital industrial applications. Aras customers using its technology to manage complex change and traceability across product lifecycles include Airbus, Audi, GE, GM, Honda and Mitsubishi. Learn more about Aras at aras.com or follow the company on Twitter: @aras_plm
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VISUAL DESIGN GUIDE NIO ES6 The NIO ES6 is an electric car from a Chinese company you’ve likely never heard of and that won’t even be sold where you live – but that doesn’t mean its design shouldn’t command your attention
KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU The ES6 comes with NOMI, an onboard AI helper with a little swivelling face sat on top of the dashboard. On seeing its owner’s arrival, it can set up the seats and steering wheel position, even monitoring them while they drive
SCENT When it senses you are fatigued, NOMI can release a refreshing scent into the cabin to wake up the senses. The Intelligent Fragrance System features four fragrances: Solar, Stellar, Wild and Haven
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HIGH PERFORMANCE The ES6 is the world’s first SUV equipped with a combination of permanent magnet and induction motors, allowing for power and endurance alike. The front permanent magnet motor delivers power of up to 160 kW, peak torque of 305 Nm and an energy conversion rate of 97%. The rear induction motor delivers 240 kW and 420 Nm and aids fast acceleration: it can manage 0-100 km/h acceleration in as little as 4.7 seconds
LOUNGING AROUND The EV architecture allows for lots of cabin space, with the option of a fully reclining lounge seat for the front passenger, complete with footrest
HYBRID CONSTRUCTION Aircraft grade 7 Series aluminium and carbon fibre are used in the body construction, generating a torsional stiffness of 44,930 Nm/degrees
THE BIG HOUSE
Buying a Nio in China is described as like buying into a club: It grants access to any ‘Nio House’ – car dealerships come coffee stores, some of which even boast a library and rentable office space
BATTERY ES6 has an average range of just over 500km, and users can use one of NIO’s battery-swap stations that can automatically replace the battery with a fresh one in three minutes, less time than it takes to refuel a petrol car
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY Launching in Q4 this year, prices start at ¥358,000 (circa £41,600) – not including a flight to Beijing to pick one up nio.com
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This is the benefit of computer simulation – you can explore all of these scenarios... You’re exploring trends and identifying which parameters give you the most benefit – then you can focus in on those
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PROFILE
Âť To develop the next generation of its cordless pole vacuum cleaner, Vax relied on a mix of smart thinking, industrial expertise and optimisation technology. Al Dean reports on the design effort that went into the Vax Blade 2 Max
The Vax Blade 2 Max is an award-winning cordless pole vacuum cleaner
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PROFILE
1
E
stablished in 1977, Vax is perhaps best-known for its wet-dry carpet cleaning products and, in particular, its iconic Vax-101 tub product, with its striking orange and black colourway. Based in Droitwich, West Midlands, and with over forty years of product innovation under its belt, the Vax range now offers vacuum cleaners, steam cleaners and carpet washers, as well as air treatment and cleaning solutions. But in the years since we first visited the company’s HQ, back in September 2011, the company has built a reputation for itself in cordless products that give customers more freedom to clean, without being tied – almost literally – to the nearest available power socket. Released in September 2018, the Vax Blade 2 Max is the company’s newest cordless vacuum that has since amassed seven consumer accolades for excellence, setting the trend for future product development. The bar has been set high, since the Blade 2 Max has three times more power than any of its cordless Vax predecessors, and offers an innovative horizontal and removable collection bin and lithium-ion batteries that provide 45 minutes of runtime with no suction loss. “There were three main challenges in developing
the Blade 2 Max,” says Richard Waters, new product development director at Vax. “We listened to customer feedback and these insights revealed that they wanted the performance of the best corded upright vacuums, at least 45 minutes runtime, and all contained in a lightweight and innovative design.” “To answer these challenges, we had to first create a new class of product that would truly delight our customers, develop a new internal battery power pack, and incorporate a brushless motor. And in terms of performance, one of the key factors is maintaining the suction while you’re using it; we have to maintain that above everything else.” COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE During the development of the original Blade product, the design team discovered that extensive IP exists relating to bin layout and design. Its horizontal bin arrangement gave Vax something of a competitive advantage; this would therefore remain in the Blade 2 Max design. The next generation would build upon this layout and combine it with more efficient, higher power, as well as leave room to explore new features, such as that removable dust bin. The design challenge that lay ahead called, quite clearly, for some pretty advanced design technology. “Keeping our customer insights at front of mind, where performance and runtime were high on their list,
1 Simulation has ● become a key part of Vax’s on-going product development strategy, giving the design team real data on how a design iteration performs 2 &● 3 &● 4 ● Industrial design, combined with smart thinking around power and electronics packaging, has given the Blade 2 Max a unique look backed up with industryleading performance
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‘‘ The true
value of using simulation is to make two things easier: reducing the number of experiments and to help with decisionmaking
’’
developing the brushless motor and battery platform became the top priority,” says Waters. “The brushless motors operate at a high RPM rate, but more efficiently than the permanent magnet motors used in the original Blade. Higher speed means more air power for pick-up of particles, so battery power is fundamental to ensuring that the product meets performance targets.” The team started with the key components and subassemblies needed for the system and then packaged them in the best way possible to optimise balance and ergonomics. As Waters explains, “The battery pack in the Blade 2 benefits from years of R&D intelligence and intellectual property in manufacturing and quality expertise that Vax has amassed.” Even at these early stages of design, visual elements also needed to be taken into account alongside technical development, following the principle that the finished product needed to “evoke performance”. “One of the key elements in the Blade 2 Max was to ensure its exterior aesthetics measured up to the ‘high performance’ technology contained inside,” explains Waters. “I think it was all down to this sort of execution, of exposing a lot of the internals. We wanted to show off the bare bones and the fundamentals of what became the chassis, which has now become the platform for product development moving forwards.”
2
SIMULATE TO INNOVATE This dual focus on both the technical and visual aspects, whilst delivering consumer expectations of a cordless vacuum cleaner, has triggered a shift in the tools that Vax uses to develop its products. As Waters, who heads up the department, explains, “This was one of the first projects where we’ve placed equal emphasis on visual as well as technical design. Originally, we used CAD for detailed design, the design-to-manufacture and tooling design side of things – but the visual focus required a lot more renders in KeyShot, because we wanted to ensure that the product, especially in side profile, doesn’t look out of place in somebody’s kitchen. And that’s down to the detailing and the colour scheme.” A greater reliance on photorealistic rendering and CAD isn’t the only new trait in the Vax arsenal. One aspect of the development process that has changed dramatically since our last visit is the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). PTC’s Creo is still the Vax tool of choice for 3D CAD and documentation, but this has been extended greatly with the use of CFD as a way to experiment – something that has been at the very heart of the Blade 2 Max development process. Waters says that Vax’s use of CFD in this project was initially fueled by the need to accurately benchmark this product against alternative designs. This would
3
4
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PROFILE require a different approach than that taken for the firstgeneration Blade. There are, he adds, some tricks to getting the most out of CFD on a project like this – and being open-minded and making evidence-based decisions are among these. “There are so many variables. You begin with a certain energy output from the battery pack, [and] you lose some of that energy through the electronics.” “There are so many areas where you lose more or less energy. We need to identify these, quantify and minimise them, but there are also some areas where you need to make decisions. So the true value of using simulation is to make two things easier: reducing the number of experiments and to help with decision-making.” From the consumer’s point of view, the product needs to fulfill three simple goals: offer sufficient pick-up power; be able to capture even the tiniest dust particles, and provide sufficient runtime. From the engineer’s perspective, however, the problem needs to be broken down into more granular views. Delivering a vacuum cleaner that performs well, after all, is down to a wide range of factors. To achieve the understanding they need, the Vax team has developed a process that sees a parametric Creo model linked to a virtual CFD model, through which air and particles are run. “These are dynamically linked, so as we modify the parameters in Creo, it will update the
fluid dynamics, allowing us to explore different operation conditions and targets, such as pressure losses and separation efficiency, and see what happens when we make design changes,” Waters explains. “This is the benefit of computer simulation – you can explore all of these scenarios. Of course, it takes a long time to explore all of these parameters, as you have a big cloud of points, but you don’t have anyone building costly prototypes. Instead, you’re exploring trends and identifying which parameters give you the most benefit – then you can focus in on those.” IP AND THE DESIGN PROCESS As in many highly competitive, technology-focused industries, the floor care market is prone to legal disputes between rivals, many of which centre on the intellectual property (IP) that results from innovation. There are, for example, over 20 patents that cover the first and second generation of Vax Blade products. For Waters, IP protection and working around other companies’ IP can be a significant part of the design process. “If we didn’t have to work around those preexisting patents, we wouldn’t have been able to secure our own IP. Because Vax is an established brand with its own product architecture, we want to protect that position,” says Waters. “Our competitors started filing patents around 30
6
‘‘
Looking to the future, we have some incredible ideas and a strong product design and engineering team to bring them to fruition
’’
5 With its horizontal ●
collecting bin, the Blade 2 Max is one of Vax’s best-selling pole cleaners 6 &● 7 Simulation, ●
combined with advanced visualisation, gives a compelling way to tell the story of how the product works
5
8 Vax makes heavy ●
use of physical test rigs in its design process
7
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8 years ago, and in those patents are a lot of sensible ideas, particularly with regards to cordless cleaners and on how to arrange the core parts.” “To work around those patents, you really need to come up with better ways to do it, because the easiest and most obvious solution to a particular design problem has already been protected,” he continues. “In a very competitive IP landscape, it’s a challenge to work around existing IP and present new innovations, which in turn, requires its own IP protection,” he concedes. “But we’ve managed to do it and will continue to do so.” THE ROAD AHEAD It’s clear that the design and engineering team at Vax has been on a journey since we last visited. Not only has its remit expanded since then, but also a great deal of development work and experimentation has provided a deeper knowledge of how the company’s products perform and how design choices influence that performance. And that, in turn, has resulted in a whole raft of new intellectual property that needs to be protected.
The Vax Blade 2 Max may represent the current state of the art from the team, but it is not resting on its laurels, with multiple projects currently underway, with a view to building on its success. “Vax has a rich heritage in the UK and we’re proud to still be based in the Midlands where it all started in 1977. We’re focused on continuing to make high-performance products that deliver effective cleaning and that consumers will love to use. The products have really taken off in the last few years and it’s exciting for us,” says Waters. “Ultimately, the aim with the Vax Blade 2 Max,” he concludes, “was to engineer a product whose attributes work in perfect synergy and outperforms existing cordless Vax models in pick up and runtime; and that’s exactly what was achieved. “Looking to the future, we have some incredible ideas and a strong product design and engineering team to bring them to fruition,” says Waters, and if recent awards from Which?, the Good Housekeeping Institute, Mumsnet and four others are anything to go by, Vax looks set to clean up. vax.co.uk
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Image: Thomas Burke & Others
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INTERVIEW
SERVE & PROTECT
» With its latest police vehicle, Ford has taken a deep dive into human-centric design. Stephen Holmes learns how watching police agencies at work inspired the purpose-built 2020 Interceptor DEVELOP3D.COM OCTOBER 2019 25
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INTERVIEW
1 The chassis frame ●
and body have been reengineered to meet Ford’s rigorous 75-mph rear-impact crash test, as well as tackling heavy-duty driving tasks
t’s the sirens and lights that usually alert you to the fact that the car in your rear-view mirror is a police vehicle. With the new Ford 2020 Police Interceptor, that might not happen. Instead, the Interceptor could silently glide up behind you in electric mode, so you wouldn’t know you were in trouble until the very last moment. In other words, it’s a stealthy beast. The typically mild-mannered, ‘soccer mom’ favourite, the Ford Explorer SUV has been redesigned from the ground up as a serious, specialist law enforcement vehicle. “Everything, from how we spec the engine, to the gear ratios that we use, the shocks and springs, some of the brake components, are upgraded and massive in size compared to most of the retail variants,” explains Ford’s global chief engineer Bill Gubing, a man who has clearly enjoyed working on this project. The rethink extends to wheels and tyres too, he adds. “[This is] much more of a performance-orientated tyre, and also wheels that are designed for durability. These guys run over kerbs with them!” The Explorer platform may have been leveraged, and many of the sheet metal body parts are the same, but everything underneath it has been completely purpose-built, reinforced and upgraded for US police forces. This is a much heavier duty vehicle, engineered to take ‘really extreme’ loadings on its chassis and suspension. “They run over stuff!” says Gubing, seemingly still in shock at some of the stories he’s heard, among the masses of research his team has conducted with real police forces. “Like I said, kerbs are just one of the things. You’ll hear officers telling stories of how they drove down a set of stairs; how they did a really deep median [central reservation] crossing, or took it out on the beach – very different to the average customer use.” Gathering this knowledge involved spending vast amounts of time with police officers and different agencies across the US. Ford has assembled a Police Advisory Board, numbering nearly 50 members nationwide, that the company can turn to when it wants to discuss police needs from the new vehicle. “There’s officers and fleet managers on the board, so it’s really about understanding how they’re going to use the vehicle,” he explains. “We’ve done ride-alongs with different agencies, so our engineers have been sitting in the front seat, experiencing the job first-hand. We’ve done a tremendous number of visits to their agencies and through their garages and repair bays. We’ve been to their command centres, watching how units get dispatched and what information is sent back from the vehicle – so a really deep customer knowledge.” This ‘human-centred’ approach generated a long list of key criteria for the design and engineering team. As
this was a new platform from the ground up, Ford could incorporate all this learning straight through its design process and into the end product. POWER LEVELS A lot of the expected usage of the car is more sedentary than the off-road pursuits the chassis is capable of handling. With this in mind, the 2020 Interceptor was engineered with a 3.3 litre hybrid drivetrain in mind from the start. So much of the vehicle’s daily use is sitting at idle, whether at the side of the road or at the scene of an incident. “Because of the hybrid battery pack, we can then turn the engine off and run all auxiliary systems off the battery, so they get a huge improvement in idle fuel economy, which relates to a 40% improvement in overall fuel economy.” This greatly helps police agencies reduce their operating budgets, as do other features, such as the
1
universal mounts that allow police forces to switch their existing equipment – like radios, light and siren consoles, and radar guns – straight over into the new vehicles. The interior features numerous ‘human-centred’ design tweaks, some of which you’d expect – such as extra legroom (both in the front and back) – and some that might only occur to an active officer. “This is their office, that is their office chair,” explains Gubing of the Interceptor’s cabin. “Anything we can do to make it more comfortable for them is really important.” One of the key issues the design team picked up on was the problems caused by bulletproof vests, which make it very difficult for officers wearing them to bend at the waist. Gubing brings up the issue of how even closing the door was a problem in the old models: “If you watch them close the door on a regular basis, they’ll use their left foot to kick the door and bounce it off of the hinges, so that it comes back to them and they can grab it,” he explains. “That’s an interesting use case, and not something we’d expect a retail customer to do!” The immediate solution was to use much stronger door hinges, but after some FEA analysis and prototyping, Ford also added a check strap that handles all of that loading and weight, so the door hinges and the body structure is not tearing. This reinforcement also creates the opportunity to have a ballistic panel inside the door structure. “Depending on the level of panel that you have, you can add on almost 100lbs to the door, and then be kicking it DEVELOP3D.COM OCTOBER 2019 27
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INTERVIEW
‘‘ If you watch
2 of autonomous features the design team had thought out. One such creation is the new Perimeter Alert system, described by Gubing as another layer of safety and protection for officers when they’re sitting in those cars. In the retail version of the Ford Explorer, there are rear parking sensors and a camera. The development team came up with the idea to pull all of that together and, with some adjustments, use it to sense potential threats moving behind the car in a 270-degree radius. “The radar can detect if the object is moving closer to the car, if it suddenly changes speed, anything that would indicate a potential attack from behind. And they can watch that on a screen inside the cluster – little blue or red blips on the screen,” he says. A red alert automatically turns on the rear camera on, locks the doors, rolls up the windows, and gives an audible warning inside the car to get the officers’ attention. VIRTUAL PROGRESS VR testing helped develop this idea, along with the With a clean slate to work with, the design team turned to positioning of the alerts, dials and fixtures inside the cabin, familiar automotive prototyping tools – clay model demos, helping engineer a workspace that is super-efficient and foam model demos, and bucks – but for the 2020 model, virtual reality (VR) was also used as a means of early testing functional. Ford Motor Company has been using VR since 1999, for the design and layout of the Interceptor’s cabin. “We would put the people in the VR demo and first we just and its ability to know where and when to use it has had a basic interior of a police car simulated in, and people advanced significantly since then, along with the software could pay attention to the different warnings and so forth,” and hardware. Yet the physical methods are still relied upon alongside explains Gubing. VR for getting real human feedback all the way through a “Then we introduced lights and sirens into the VR project. headset – a flashing light strobe going off and the sirens After all, this is going to be a vehicle that must be trusted wailing in the background, and voices coming over the by thousands of officers, as well as millions of civilians, radio – very much a realistic police environment, and then and the testing needs to reflect that, and be as rugged as watching how people interacted with the car and so forth.” any potential task the Interceptor might be called upon to While some of the experienced officers could tune out all the background and focus on what needed to be done in the perform in the line of duty. cockpit, others struggled – flagging up the benefits of a lot ford.com with your foot – you can really have some severe stress loads in those hinges.” Ford uses Catia for its CAD, and a raft of simulation software, but these only go so far towards resolving these really unique problems. Gubing’s team prefers to use digital models and data to point them in the right direction, but subsequent physical prototyping takes precedence. “That really allows us to take a look at the body structure as well, and how that all interacts, and to put some weld variations in the system and so forth,” says the chief engineer. “CAE is a really powerful tool to get you in the ballpark, but it is still a production environment where there’s enough variability going on that physical tests still have good benefits to us.”
them close the door on a regular basis, they’ll use their left foot to kick the door and bounce it off of the hinges, so that it comes back to them and they can grab it. That’s an interesting use case, and not something we’d expect a retail customer to do!
’’
2 The cockpit ●
is designed with reinforced, flat panels for police equipment to bolt to; a manual column gear shift to match police performance driving techniques; cut-outs in the seats for gun butts; and even a lighting ‘dark mode’ for use on stake-outs
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PROFILE
PROFILE
HOT
PURSUIT
» In the race to digitalise, manufacturers and designers of electronics intended for use in the skies are scanning the horizon for ways to identify thermal issues earlier in the product development lifecycle, as Tom Gregory , product manager at Future Facilities, reports
I
n the face of increasing digitalisation, the design and manufacture of electronics products and components has grown ever more complex. At the same time, with additional layers of complexity also comes a far greater potential for thermal complications. Nowhere is this more true than in the aviation sector. Aviation places a number of unique demands on electronic components and designs, all of which will need to be considered before an effective product can be manufactured. For a start, the environments to which electronics are exposed during flight are significantly harsher than in most other industries. At the same time, the need for bulletproof reliability is critical, with device failures and reliability issues having the potential to reap catastrophic results. Given the level of risk involved, companies in the aviation industry work to extremely high standards in manufacturing and design. Each part produced must undergo rigorous testing 1 before being certified for use in an aircraft; those that show even mild fluctuations in reliability during physical testing will be sent back to the drawing board or simply destroyed. From a thermal management perspective, this is particularly challenging. In order to prevent devices from overheating and ensure that they are working reliably, designers must think very carefully about the way that heat is produced and dispersed across their designs. While this is a challenge for most electronics, aviation introduces a whole host of new considerations, including much wider fluctuations in temperature, pressure, humidity, vibrations and more. Failure to account for these fluctuations in the design process has major implications for manufacturers down the line, with the vast majority of devices being dropped at the manufacturing and test phase because they cannot pass stringent physical reliability tests.
to even greater potential for thermal complications and future reliability concerns. These are:
HIGH STANDARDS FLY EVEN HIGHER
SOLVING THROUGH SIMULATION
While high standards have always been intrinsic to avionics manufacturing, two new trends in the industry are leading
As the complexity of aviation technology increases, avionics designers and engineers cannot risk
1. The rise of digitalisation: The last decade has seen significant interest in digitalisation across the aviation industry. As a result, we are seeing a major expansion of avionics manufacturers embracing digital technology, enabling pilots to file a flight plan, pull up new approach charts and even use digital co-pilots, all via touchscreens, tablet computers and similar portable electronic devices. With the move towards digitalisation comes even more complex electronics components that need to function reliably in the air. These components must be compact, lightweight, wireless-enabled and increasingly powerful – a combination which dramatically increases the potential for thermal complications and the need for careful thermal management during the design, testing and manufacturing processes. As a result, any digital instrumentation introduced must be as reliable as its almost bulletproof analogue counterparts.
1 Thermal model of ● an aerospace-focused electronic component 2 Example of liquid ● cooling in a design for aerospace electronics
2. Demand for high speed connectivity: The second key trend that we’re seeing in 2019 is growing demand for high-speed connectivity among business aviation operators. An evergrowing number of device manufacturers now supply high-speed aircraft modems, antennas and other electronics designed to deliver airborne connectivity. Many of these also add digital elements to onboard systems, in order to extend their worth and give operators the ability to digitally customise how their aircraft acquires, analyses and transmits flight data to and from ground-based servers. Once again, this adoption of wireless technology comes with a whole host of additional electronics components and demands, all of which need to function reliably across temperature, altitude and pressure fluctuations.
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As the aviation industry evolves and digitalisation becomes the ‘new normal’, those designing and manufacturing avionics will need to think more and more carefully about the way that heat is managed across their designs. Most importantly however, this management will need to happen earlier in the product design cycle Tom Gregory, Future Facilities
downgrading reliability for new functionality. At the same time, we cannot go on producing designs that inevitably get scrapped as soon as it comes to the manufacturing and test process. Such an approach is both costly and wasteful and will only become more so as digitalisation increases. In response, manufacturers and engineers need to move this testing process further forward within their product design lifecycles. Instead of expecting the majority of products to fail at the manufacturing and test phase, they need to limit the potential for thermal complications and reliability issues before a product even goes to prototype. This is increasingly being achieved through advanced simulation and the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Using these tools, aviation products – whether a touchscreen flight planning system or a new onboard communications node – can be simulated virtually, creating an accurate depiction of heat flow and potential reliability issues. As CFD tools have grown more advanced, designers can even automatically model physics, such as altitude corrections, heat and solar radiation and liquid cooling considerations. This is ideal for the extreme environmental conditions and unique cooling processes 2 associated with avionics.
RETHINKING DESIGN AT TEN TECH As just one example, consider the aerospace company Ten Tech. It recently collaborated on the design of a new liquid-cooled airborne radar processing chassis. This was a very high-powered, high ambient temperature design, which had no cooling mechanism other than a single liquid cooling loop. A little under 3kW had to be dissipated out to the (already hot) environment in order for the electronics to function reliably. A team at Ten Tech started its work with the redesign of one of the cold plates, since the initial design would not have provided enough cooling. The cold plate design also
had to account for pressure-drop requirements. Working with 6SigmaET thermal simulation software, the company ran thermal CFD analysis to better understand the heat flow and to maximise cooling and minimise pressure drop. Ten Tech was able to quickly create a multi-fluid model of the cold plate involving free convection and liquid cooling and optimised the cooling channels to obtain a good compromise between heat dissipation and pressure drop through the cold plate. Once this stage was complete, the Ten Tech team moved on to understanding the liquid cooling of the entire system. This larger chassis included over 25 high-power single-board computers (SBCs) and five cold plates of various complexities. Using CFD simulation, they were able to ensure that the entire chassis was properly cooled, the liquid loop would function correctly and each of the single board computers would remain within its temperature requirements. Rather than manufacturing multiple prototypes, or expecting a large number of product designs to fail at the test phase, thermal simulation allowed Ten Tech to move towards a ‘right-first-time’ approach to building reliable products. As such, across just this one project, the company was able to make an estimated cost saving of over $50,000 in test failures and programme delays. As the aviation industry evolves and digitalisation becomes the ‘new normal’, those designing and manufacturing avionics will need to think more carefully about the way that heat is managed across their designs. With the correct thermal considerations built in from day one, businesses can focus on right-first-time manufacturing, significantly reducing the number of products that fail the testing phase. This will not only prove beneficial for businesses but will also free up manufacturers to streamline their processes and produce reliable products at a more cost-effective rate. 6sigmaet.info | tentechllc.com
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PROFILE
BAGS OF STYLE
» With the lines between work and leisure blurring, Targus has designed a laptop bag fit for the office and for the everyday. Stephen Holmes learns how the brand diversified to add sleek style to its substance
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lifestyle characterised by sun, sand and boardwalks is in plenty of evidence on California’s Newport Beach. It’s also provided the inspiration for a new range of bags from Targus, as it looks to reach out across the Pacific Ocean to new markets. For the locally based company, this is the first time it has leveraged its ‘Designed in California’ status, as it looks to acquire some of the same sheen that Apple has gained from the term in order to resonate with customers in the AsiaPacific (APAC) region. With its collections of business and laptop bags, Targus was looking to expand its portfolio with a more contemporary, unisex product. “Historically, Targus is a masculine brand,” explains Huw Bush, global product manager for Targus. “So, we knew that to cater for a diverse range of customer requirements, we had to diversify ourselves.” It was decided that the new line-up would need to have the aesthetics to allow it to comfortably sit in the handbag department of a store or boutique. By contrast, Targus’ traditional product lines are normally to be found in the technology department. The company’s insights team had discovered that its Asian customers don’t carry as much or as many large items as their counterparts in other regions. In Asia, it found, there’s a prevalence of sub-14-inch hardware, which allows the designers to make bag silhouettes slimmer and sleeker. Many people also use crowded public transport to travel to work, so the bag needed to be compact. How the bag is carried is also important: top opening ‘convertible’ bags are more popular in EMEA and North America, while the double-strapped rucksack is more popular in APAC. Targus debuted its original laptop bag in 1983, and since then, it has spent thousands of hours studying how people work, pack and travel for business.
“We took what we knew about carrying tech and applied it to the different needs in that region and for that customer group,” says Bush, adding that, in a crowded market, it was useful to lean on both its technical understanding and its fashionable design location. “Our provenance, combined with our brand heritage of laptop protection, is our overall USP. We’ve brought our knowledge and experience in the field into a more fashionconscious range.” An example of this is the bright orange lining of the bag, based on the insight that it’s easier to find things inside a bag with a bright lining. This also provides a flash of fun contrast, like an eye-catching jacket lining. In these ways, this lining works on both a practical and a style basis.
Targus’ design team starts with ideation sketches (as above), then moves into Solidworks, along with capious amounts of prototyping along the way
STRONG BRIEF With a strong brief in place, Targus’ design team quickly moved on to sketching out designs, from silhouettes through to materials, covering the main bag, trim, zips, DEVELOP3D.COM OCTOBER 2019 33
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PROFILE
lining, foam type and thickness and colour options. Solidworks was used to produce 3D models for components, such as zipper pullers, to create, prove and test different designs, but the physical prototypes are the most important part of the process, according to Bush. “It’s such a tactile thing,” he says. “We ask key questions like how do the materials feel, do they hold their structure, is foam protection too thick? These criteria are particularly important in this new, stylefocused category, he adds, “where form is possibly more significant than function for the customer.” The most difficult aspect of creating this new range was working with new materials and different construction techniques, all of which posed problems that were worked out through physical prototyping.
“Prototyping is largely our development process. We design, develop and test each prototype, and at each stage, we do the all-important commercial check-ins against cost, market insight and the original proposition,” says Bush. Typically, it is in the third and fourth stages of prototyping that the design team gets into internal and external user testing, using feedback to refine the designs. By the fifthgeneration prototype, the design has usually been finely tuned and this is the version that typically heads into production. With a range of styles and sizes, the Newport Collection has already built an enthusiastic following, enhancing the everyday bag that easily transitions from the office to outings.
The bright orange interior helps owners to locate items inside, while providing a stylish contrast to the exterior
targus.com
We ask key questions like how do the materials feel, do they hold their structure, is foam protection too thick? It’s especially important in this new category where form is possibly more significant than function for the customer
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REVIEWS SOFTWARE REVIEW
SOFTWARE REVIEW
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KVS QuickSurface 1.0 Tools for efficiently working with mesh-based data from 3D scanners are few and far between and can often be costly. KVS’s new QuickSurface looks to change that. Al Dean gets to grips with the product’s first release
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e have never been better off for solutions designed to capture the physical world in digital format. At one time, the world of 3D scanning relied on high-cost hardware from a limited number of specialist vendors. More recently, the options have widened. There are now more vendors, offering more kit at lower price points. With this expanded range of options come plenty of choices for buyers, in terms of accuracy, resolution, method and more. Buyers can now spend from a couple of hundred quid for a depth sensor-based device to tens of thousands on metrologyspecific scanning equipment. What’s interesting is that while the hardware has opened up in terms of affordability and accessibility, the software world has yet to follow suit. While more folks than ever before are accustomed to working with meshbased data, the ability to take a pointcloud derived mesh and turn it into useful surfaces for use in a CAD system
» Product: QuickSurface 1.0 » Supplier: KVS Limited Price: from €1,995 quicksurface3d.com
1 QuickSurface is ● useful for grabbing your scan data, however partial or incomplete and creating proper surfaces from the data
still remains the preserve of costly specialist software from the likes of 3D Systems (with its Geomagic Design X and Wrap systems) and Innovmetric (with Polyworks). Yes, some more mainstream systems are becoming more ‘mesh aware’. Some are even including editing, repair and resurfacing capabilities – but these are by no means heavy-duty enough to handle serious work on complex scan datasets. So as it stands today, we face a roadblock in the path to wider adoption of 3D scanning and physical form capture. Hardware prices may be decreasing and the kit itself becoming more accessible, but the ability to do meaningful work downstream with the data created remains hampered by a lack of similarly affordable, usable software. Into this gap has stepped KVS, a Cambridge-based company founded by Kostadin Vrantzaliev. Vrantzaliev has, at various points in his career, worked on the development of SolidWorks and 3D Scanners’ Kube Software (which is active
in point cloud-based inspection.) Those within the Rhino community might perhaps recognise the KVS name, meanwhile, for its Mesh2Surface plug-in for Rhino. This allows them to take a mesh-based data file and use a mix of polygon segmentation, surface fitting and quad-surface modelling techniques to reconstruct the analytic geometry from meshes as needed. Recognising the market potential for a standalone version of this, Kostadin began development on QuickSurface in the last few years and the first release is out now. The overarching goal of QuickSurface is to provide a set of tools that allow you to take a mesh-based file, typically from a 3D scanner, and turn it into a set of surfaces that can be reused downstream in any CAD system. The reason I use the term “set of surfaces” is that this is a process that has a wide range of requirements. Those requirements, moreover, will change from model to model, and from job to job. For example, it might be that you have a polygon mesh of a scanned part and
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16 April 2020 University of Sheffield UK develop3dlive.com
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MODEL CREDIT: ERIC BAUER (sketchfab.com/ebauer4)
SOFTWARE REVIEW
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just need to be able to extract a few key surfaces in order to build mating parts or to take measurements from or work up the remainder of the part. At the other end of the spectrum, you might need a fully patched-up and healed surface model that closely matches the 3D scan. The chances are that most jobs will fall somewhere between these two extremes. So let’s dive in and see what it can do, shall we?
QUICKSURFACE IN USE QuickSurface begins, as you would expect, with the importing of a mesh file resulting from your 3D scan process, typically in STL or OBJ. Once this is done, you can get to work, assuming that you’ve got a reasonably sized dataset. It is typically the case that 3D scanning devices generate point clouds (and inherent meshes) that contain a great deal of data. That’s useful if you want an intricate mesh, of course, but in order to be able to do something useful with it, it’s also entirely possible to reduce the number of triangles greatly and still maintain the accuracy and resolution of your data. QuickSurface includes a tool to do just this. We tried it with some pretty hefty datasets and while the system was capable of working with data ‘as imported’, using the decimation tool made things much more efficient. The next step in your workflow will depend on the task you want to accomplish, so we’ll break the system down into its various areas of operation. A good place to begin is alignment. When 3D scanning hardware creates data, it does
so only with respect to how the scanner is positioned in relation to the object, rather than the more ordered approach we prefer for 3D design. As a result, unless you’re really lucky, your STL data will be at an arbitrary position in 3D space. The alignment tool allows you to reposition your scan, so it’s aligned with a more useful XYZ coordinate system. This pays dividends, both when using the system further, as well as importing the resulting data into your downstream CAD system. There are several options here. The first is to apply a known rotation or translation to your mesh data. Unless you’re really lucky, this is going to mean eyeballing the whole thing. The other option is to use references from your model to define axis directions and references. A more sensible way to do this is to use QuickSurface’s tools to add in primitive surfaces that match to readily identifiable features, using a mix of cylinders, planes and spheres. To do this, you need to explore the mesh selection tools in the single toolbar across the top of the screen. Hitting the ‘mesh selection’ icon brings up a palette of selection methods, allowing you numerous ways to grab the triangles you want, whether that’s using a simple painting method, lasso, curvature-based finding or some other method. You have control over the size of selection brush and can also remove faces from selection just as quickly. As you can see from stage 4 in our workflow opposite, it’s relatively simple to grab the faces of the plane. Then you hit the Primitives icon and add in a plane that conforms to these selected points.
This can then be used as the reference for aligning your mesh. While we’re on this subject, let’s move on to other geometry fitting tools in the system. Alongside the ‘fit plane to faces’ option, planes can be defined at a specific coordinate position and rotation value, offset from other existing planes or fitting as a mid-plane two other planes (this is really hand for defining symmetry for reasons that will become obvious later on). There are also tools to fit cylinders and sphere to geometry, too. The cylinder tool is particularly useful if you’re looking to build precisely mating components from scan data. It allows you to select the faces of the cylinder to fit to, then fine tune it in terms of alignment, radius and so on. There is also a sketch extraction tool that allows you to create a section plane and create sections through your model. This could be a single sketch, used as the basis for an extruded surface, or a number of sections to build a loft (you’ll do this in your CAD system, since QuickSurface doesn’t have these tools at present). While these primitives are useful in many engineering workflows, chances are you’re going to want to extract more than those types of geometry from your scanned data – and there are more complex options available in QuickSurface. These centre on the creation of freeform patched surfaces and can work either in an automated manner or using a manual method. Let’s explore both.
2 The FreeForm ● surfacing tool allows you to quickly build on a patchwork of surfaces to describe your model’s form, giving constant feedback on deviation from the mesh
FREEFORM SURFACE FITTING The creation of a freeform surface that fits across the entire surface of a part, unless
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it’s very uniform and very simple, is always going to be complex. What QuickSurface does is offer up two methods. The first uses a surface patch fitting process that gives you control over the number of patches used (we’re talking hundreds, if not thousands), the accuracy required and how the surface patch adheres to sharp edges. This is called Auto-Surface. In practice, this is a brute-force approach, but if you need to take your scanned model to a CAD system quickly, it gives you a good place to start, if in a rather heavy-handed manner. The reason is that, for non-trivial datasets, you’ll need to give the system the allowance of enough faces to accurately skin your part. During our time with the system, we found that this approach was best suited to organic, more freeform parts, rather than heavily prismatic components, as there are issues around fitting surface patches around sharp edges and the like. There is also a Wrap Surface. This is similar to the auto-surface operation, but uses a cylindrical set of faces, which are then wrapped to the selected portions of the mesh. While this is a
pretty specific tool, it’ll prove really useful if you’re looking to skin across the surface of spars or forms cylindrical in nature (see our example in Figure 3 of a tibia). The last option (and probably the most useful) comes in the form of manual freeform patching tools. Essentially, QuickSurface allows you to sketch in a surface patch layout (using four-sided or quad surfaces) that snaps control points to the surface of your mesh. You can do this in a couple of ways: you can either start with a small patch and grow it outwards (there are nice on model interactions for adding additional faces), or create a gross large patch and then refine it. The former is a much easier way to retain control over the process, but for larger parts, the latter might be a better approach. Whichever approach you use, once you’ve learned the ins and outs of this workflow (there are some excellent tutorial videos on YouTube), it’s pretty easy to patch up a surface and create something useful. While this is just the first release of the system,
there are nice workflows in place and all of the controls you need are in simple, well-documented dialogues and right-click menu items. As you can see from Figure 4, it’s pretty simple to start patching the surfaces you need, grow your surface patch and ensure that you’re within tolerance at the same time. To add in another patch, you select the edge you want to grow from (or multiples thereof) and a small ‘D’ pops up. Drag from that and you’ve added in a new string of faces. A quick tidy-up of your control points and you’re ready to start again. It’s a nice workflow that has enough flexibility and control to ensure you’re getting the data you want, rather than the data the system thinks you want. Alongside these raw geometry modelling tools, there are also a number of editing tools to help tidy up and build additional features. For example, a number of the operations have symmetry controls built in, so you can define a plane and have the system build a mirror of your surface patches. Another is the pattern feature. This is super-
WORKFLOW: REVERSE ENGINEERING & QUICKSURFACE
1 Begin by importing your STL file from your 3D scanner’s ● software. As STL is a unitless format, you’ll need to tell the system what units are being used here. These are typically measured in millimetres.
2 The next step is to create a more efficient mesh to work ● off. QuickSurface doesn’t need the heavy datset from the scanner, so includes a polygon reduction tool. This dataset was reduced by 20% from half a gigabyte.
3 Now you can start to select your mesh faces to build your ● geometry from or to perform an alignment proceedure. The selection tools range from simple painting with the cursor to curvature-based flood filling.
4 Adding a plane is a pretty simple process. Handily, our ● data is quite clean, but QuickSurface includes tools to finetune position and sizem as well as to line up with existing features.
5 The Cylinder primitive tool will a particularly useful ●
6 It’s a pretty quick process to build up the primitives ● you need to build off of this part, but one area that would prove tricky is manufacturing a gasket as there are no clear primitives available.
7 To get around this, the 2D sketch tool comes into play. ●
8 There is a nice workflow here, allowing you to use the ●
9 The data from your work in QuickSurface can then ● be read in your workhorse CAD system. Here, we have the mesh-data alongside the extracted surfaces, used to redesign a part to match the physical part’s form.
This allows you to create a sketch plane, or series of sketches, through your part over the top of which you will sketch curves.
tool for those looking to reverse engineering for building additional parts off. You have control over position, finetuning and the ability to make concentric with others.
references from the scanned data and your own sketching processes to build up the form you need, rather than purely adhering to the points from the scan.
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
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useful for many reasons, but one workflow which springs to mind is the scanning of axisymmetric parts, such as pulleys, rims and so on. With good patterning features, you can save time by just scanning a single instance of that pattern, constructing the geometry in QuickSurface, then using the pattern operation to create the whole. All in all, that amounts to a lot of time saved across the whole process. There are also trimming tools to help cut back some of those surfaces you create to other geometry, as well as a filleting tool to build in those types of features – all of which can be checked and compared against the original mesh at any time using the compare tool. This will give you a graphics display of either a graduated measure of deviation of the surfaces from the underlying mesh or a pass/fail against your supplied tolerance.
EXPORTING YOUR DATA Whether you’re surfacing up a small portion of your scan data or looking to reverse engineer the whole part, you’ll eventually end up with a set of data that you want to export to your CAD system. At present, there isn’t a reliable way to export both the mesh and surface data as a single entity, so QuickSurface handles both separately. On the surfaces front, you can export them as either a STEP or IGES file. On the mesh front, you can export either your original mesh or the reduced/decimated file as an STL file. The latter might seem an odd choice, as you have the data already, but consider that if you’ve used the align part and mesh decimation tools, you’ll have
a mesh file that’s in both a different position in coordinate space and much more lightweight. After all, CAD systems typically struggle with raw output from laser scanners due to the heaviness of the point clouds and the inherent mesh files. There is an additional option using KVS’ QSconnect which currently connects your QuickSurface to SolidWorks. This isn’t a simple export of data and rebuild inside Solidworks. Instead, it guides you through the process, taking your data, built up from a set of operations inside QuickSurface, and transfers them step by step to Solidworks. Once the two systems are connected, you’ll start to see Solidworks build the individual surfaces in the same manner as QuickSurface, building a history-based model of each operation. Because this can be an error-prone process, you can instruct QuickSurface to pause the process when trim operations are used, so you can double-check that Solidworks has carried out the operation correctly. Compared to normal export/ import workflows, this might sound like a time-consuming process, but the result is a much more robust model.
IN CONCLUSION It’s not that often that we get to take a look at brand-new software these days, so spending some time with QuickSurface was a delight. The developer’s background across the CAD industry, as well as providing tools for Rhino, really shines through. QuickSurface is one of those applications that’s likely going to prove useful to many, particularly as 3D scanning
becomes more accessible and workflows become more entrenched in our design and engineering offices. Perhaps its brilliance lies in the fact that it doesn’t claim to do everything – there are no point cloud clean-up tools and there’s no mesh editing, per se. Instead, QuickSurface is about taking your mesh-based data out of your scanning process and achieving the geometry you want. Whether that’s a complete part, skinned and surfaced up, or a select set of reference surfaces from which you will begin to design another part, QuickSurface handles these tasks in a very efficient, clearly defined and wellexecuted manner. There’s are also some interesting things to consider around price and competition in this space. While every hardware vendor has their own solution and bundled software, there are often hefty add-on prices for software to do this type of work. In fact, these can often be more expensive than the hardware itself. At €1,995, the starting configuration of QuickSurface Freeform contains everything we’ve discussed here, except for the surface fitting tools and the SolidWorks connection. Adding these in bumps the price up to €3,995. QuickSurface offers an entirely viable alternative in a market that one vendor, in particular, has had to itself for a long time. What’s more, it delivers this capability in a very competitive price bracket much more closely aligned with the mid-range scanning devices now available.
3 QuickSurface’s ● AutoSurface tool is excellent for quick surfacing models, particularly when they’re more organic in nature, such as this tibia from an STL derived from CT scan data
quicksurface3d.com
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
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Altair SimSolid When it comes to simulation, large assemblies cause some serious headaches for those looking to perform efficient analyses. Al Dean explores SimSolid, which offers a unique solution to an age-old problem
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ltair is a name longassociated with some of the most advanced simulation technologies available, but in more recent years, the company has been exploring the potential to bring its tools to a much wider audience. While this has predominantly been conducted through its solidThinking brand to date, the company also made an acquisition in October 2018 that expanded its portfolio significantly. SimSolid is the flagship product of a start-up that had been around for a good few years before its acquisition by Altair. It’s based on a meshless method of simulating large, fully featured CAD models. While the underlying principles around how the system operates are pretty hardcore, the basics are perhaps best understood via a walk-through example, so let’s dive straight in. We’ll begin with the set up for a new study. SimSolid is a project-based system, allowing you to have, within a single project, multiple sets of geometry, multiple study types (it supports linear and non-linear structural, modal, transient and thermal analyses.) For those working on more complex assemblies, multiple subsystems or indeed, rapid iterations
» Product: SimSolid » Supplier: Altair Price: On application altair.com
1 Modal simulation ● lets you explore the harmonic response of complex assemblies without reduction of the fidelity of CAD files
during the early stages of design and engineering, this will prove invaluable for managing data and results. As ever, the first step is to import your geometry. SimSolid has a good range of import options – from the usual suspects of STEP, IGES, SAT and Parasolid, through to some more native formats including Catia V4, V5 and V6, Inventor, Pro/E and Creo, Solidworks and Siemens NX. It’ll also read in STL files, but I’m not 100% convinced that’s the best format to use. While most simulation systems would follow the path of importing CAD geometry (or building it from scratch), then giving you tools to mesh that geometry as the basis for the simulation, SimSolid differs quite significantly. The need for a mesh has been removed, as SimSolid works directly with original, unsimplified geometry. During import, the geometry is classified, and special high-order functions are used to approximate the initial solution. Proprietary adaptive analysis that locally enriches the functions is then used to further refine the result. This gives SimSolid both its speed and accuracy. In some instances, this is purely down to shape, but in others, it will recognise form (such as bolts, washers, springs or thin sheets), as well as geometric features
such as through holes. It will then define a lightweight physical model that represents a bolt, for example, in your assembly tree. To the user, the geometry simply imports and displays on screen, allowing them to select, interact, view/hide and section it. But behind the scenes, it is swapping out what would traditionally be a complex finite element mesh for a much more lightweight data model for each part.
DEFINING CONNECTIONS Your next step is a little more interactive, depending on the complexity of your product and how it is put together. You need to define the connections between all of its constituent parts. As with most such tasks, you can apply an automated connection-finding routine to your assembly, which will find and assign those connections based on a global setting (such as ‘all connections are bonded’). Of course, in many cases, there are more complex interactions between parts, so a good step is to define the special cases first, then apply the automated routine. Our example projects, for example, feature a lot of welding, and SimSolid allows you to define these explicitly, either as seam welds or spot welds. There are also tools to use bolted
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connections including pre-tension. It’s possible to define remote masses where needed, which is very useful for defining supporting structures, without the need to model what it is that they’re actually supporting. The last general task before you get into specific simulation studies is to define the materials in your assembly. As with all good simulation codes, SimSolid is supplied with a pre-baked selection of engineering materials. This features both linear and non-linear material properties (since the system supports non-linear structural work) and, of course, you can use your own. You can work through your parts by material grouping, selecting parts manually and applying the correct materials – or you can apply then as a whole, then pick out individual parts to edit. In addition, SimSolid supports direct import of CAD-defined material properties for common applications such as Solidworks, NX, Creo and Onshape. This set-up process is fundamental to getting good, accurate results out of the system. If you spend the time making sure everything is accurately defined here, you’ll have a solid base on which to conduct your studies. There are tools built into help you achieve that, from simple randomisation of component colour (which helps
with visualising what might be very complex models), through to more analytic tools to display and review disconnected parts and connections in place.
DEFINING YOUR FIRST STUDY With geometry, materials and those all-important connections in place, it’s time to try out one of the simulation studies possible in SimSolid. The system, as we’ve already mentioned, includes both linear and non-linear structural analyses – useful for both non-linear material behaviours but also non-linear geometry concerns (such as largescale deformation and so on.) Alongside these, dynamics use time, frequency or random response including base excitation. We’re going to work through a linear structural analysis of an older motorcycle frame. While this isn’t a huge assembly in terms of the number of parts, setting this up in a traditional simulation system would be more than a little difficult once you factor in different materials and connection types (such as bolts, welds and so on) and the curious loading conditions. As you start a new study, all of the information you’ve already defined transfers into a new folder in the project tree. You’ll spot that SimSolid has
placed your materials and connections here – but if needs be, these can be overridden where appropriate for your study. As we’re working on a structural simulation, we’ll now need to define the boundary conditions for that study – the usual constraints (in terms of where the assembly is fixed) and the forces, pressures, loads and so on. SimSolid has a clear workflow for these and you define each set of boundary conditions using their own dialogues, selecting the appropriate command from a vertical toolbar to the right of the main modelling window. These separate dialogues mean it’s very quick to start adding fixed faces, for example; the dialogue pops up and you navigate around the model, selecting each face. There are tools to tangent faces to those selections and you can very quickly build up your list shown in the dialogue. Hit ‘apply’ and it’s done – with a new entry added to the project browser. While other mainstream tools might require selection using the familiar CTRL and mouse selection method, the listing is more useful, allowing you to remove misselected faces, points or other geometry with ease. SimSolid’s structural tools have a good set of boundary conditions available, covering most of the basis – fixed, sliding, hinge and pivot
WORKFLOW: FIRST SIMULATION STUDY WITH SIMSOLID 2019
1 Start by creating a new project and importing your ● geometry. SimSolid supports a good spread of both native (including SolidWorks, Inventor, Creo, Catia etc) and standard formats. We’ve used ACIS (.SAT) files.
2 SimSolid then carries out some quick checks to find any ● overlapping components. It maybe the case that you’ve got a number of parts that require modelling with interference, but this is a good sanity-check early on.
3 Next up, you might find that your assembly has similar ● parts. SimSolid uses a charcterisation method so there’s little point repeating this for each part. This allows you to find true replication of parts and save a little time.
4 The next step is to start to define the connections. An ● automated routine handles the bulk of these, while more interactive tools let you define special cases, such as the seam welds on the major joints of this frame.
5 Materials definition is next. SimSolid has a good ●
6 Once done, you can start to define individual studies. ●
7 More complex loads can be defined where needed ●
8 Once set-up is complete, the study can be solved. ● SimSolid takes seconds to compute, so feedback is pretty quick. Extensive results inspection and reporting tools are available, as well as bookmarking to save specific views.
9 Once you have your dataset prepared, it’s then possible ● to further experiment with other simulation studies, from modal and frequency-response to thermal studies, – transferring data between studies where appropriate.
alongside the usual forces, pressures and so on. Here, we're defining a remote load to represent the engine and transmission.
database, but it’s simple to adapt this to your requirements. Parts can be assigned material in bulk or individually, making it easy to rip through your assemblies.
We’re going to start with a linear structural study, so we need to define boundary conditions, such as fixed constraints. Again, this is a simple icon pick and selection of faces.
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
2 constraints. Loading conditions range from the usual suspects of force and pressure to the likes of bearing, gravity, remote mass loads, thermal loads, hydrostatic and nut and bolt pre-tension loads. Once you’ve completed your set-up, you can run a quick check, although this just to ensure that you have a fully connected assembly and the minimum viable boundary conditions defined. Then it’s time to move on to calculation – and this is where things get really interesting. If you’ve used simulation technology before (with a few exceptions), you’ll be aware that the cycle of ‘CAD to mesh to solve’ is often a lengthy one. The solve part alone can vary from minutes to hours, if not days, depending on the complexity of your mesh and your study requirements. SimSolid, by contrast, doesn’t really have a solve step, as this process happens in a matter of seconds. For example, our linear structural study took just 3 seconds to solve. Yes, as your studies grow in complexity, so will solve times, but these are delivered an order of magnitude faster than is the case with most traditional systems.
RESULTS INTERPRETATION Results inspection comes around a lot more quickly with SimSolid, so it’s a good job that this stage is pretty simple to dig into. At the bottom of the same vertical toolbar, you’ll find the results operations. The first port of call will be the ‘Results Plot’ icon. This expands to give you a range of other tools for plotting Von Mises, stresses, strains, displacements and the like – all as you would expect.
The legend that pops up into each plot type is fully interactive, so you have tools to finetune display, output (in terms of units, deformation scaling), minimum/maximum bounds locking, as well as animation tools. Of course, these vary for each simulation type, but the basics are all the same. Below your plotting options, you’ll then find tools for individual point inspection, graph plotting, bolt/nut resultant forces and more. And this is what’s key to SimSolid: on the surface of it, the system seems very easy to use. And often, in the simulation world, that’s associated with ‘not much functionality’, but once you dig into each icon for results display and model interrogation, it’s clear that you can pull useful data out of your simulations, rather than just generate pretty pictures (which it also does, by the way).
OTHER STUDY TYPES While we don’t have space to detail every study type that SimSolid currently supports, it is worth detailing the additional types of work you can do with the software. As well as linear and non-linear structural studies, you can also move into modal simulation. Again, these studies are simply defined from your existing dataset. You can transfer items from a structural study where appropriate (such as fixed constraints and so on) and tweak where needed. You then tell the system the number of modes you want to discover, and the system brings your answers back in seconds. As you’d expect, the results interpretation tools allow you to dig into results. Alongside modal studies, you will also find opportunities to explore transient,
frequency and random-response studies, and finally, thermal studies.
IN CONCLUSION SimSolid is a cracking simulation tool for those looking to simulate the performance of large-scale, complex assemblies, but in a timeframe that makes simulation a regular aspect of design and engineering – something not readily available elsewhere. What’s interesting is that this time reduction is not really about the time to compute results, either. It’s more about being able to use your design and engineering geometry, as is, without having to first spend hours defeaturing and simplifying it and eventually meshing it, before then having to go through all of the set-up work to get to the point of hitting ‘solve’. While there will always be a set-up and a solve time cost to simulation, being able to simply use your CAD geometry is much more efficient. It saves you all that time and, chances are, you’ll be more inclined to run multiple studies, multiple design iterations or variants through the simulation process. So your time savings quickly add up – or perhaps more critically, the same amount of time is used, but you learn a lot more and your products get better as a result. Then, if you consider the fact that solve times are measured in minutes at best, it’s clear why SimSolid has the potential to empower its users to an enormous extent. There’s a fully functional trial available, so it’s worth downloading and throwing some data at it. I think you’ll be surprised at how efficient this system is.
2 Displacement of ● large-scale, complex datasets is a speciality for SimSolid. This data was read directly from Siemens NX
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HARDWARE REVIEW
HP ZBook 14u G6 » Portability doesn’t have to come at the expense of performance, as Greg Corke discovers with this impressive 14-inch CAD-focused mobile workstation from HP » Intel Core i7 8665U) (1.90GHz, 4.8GHz Turbo) (4 cores) » 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 2400MHz RAM » 512GB PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD TLC » AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 (4GB) » 14-inch 100% Adobe RGB UHD (3,840 x 2,160) LED backlit 600nits IPS panel » Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 64-bit » 326 x 234 x 17.9mm » From 1.48kg » 3/3/0 warranty (3-year parts, 3-year labour. Onsite service is not included) Price £1,636 + VAT hp.co.uk/workstations
» CPU benchmarks (secs - smaller is better)
CAD (Solidworks 2019 IGES export) - 85 secs Rendering (KeyShot 8.1) - 1,045 secs (V-Ray 1.08 Benchmark) - 250 secs
» GPU benchmarks
(frames per second @ 4K res) (bigger is better)
CAD (SolidWorks 2019) standard graphics engine (beta graphics engine)
PC model (shaded + edges) 21.7 (43.20) (RealView, Shadows & AO) 13.9 (12.5)
1 Full-size ● chicklet keyboard with touchpad, Pointstick and fingerprint sensor
I
t wasn’t that long ago that mobile workstation manufacturers only had two or three machines in their range. But times have changed. And now with eight models in its ZBook G6 family, offering varying power, portability and 2-in-1 capabilities, HP has taken things to extremes. Weighing in at 1.48kg and measuring 326 x 234 x 17.9mm, the HP ZBook 14u G6 is the smallest and lightest in the family. A 14-inch mobile workstation used to mean a big trade-off in performance, but with new power-efficient CPUs and GPUs, this is becoming less of a concern. You wouldn’t want to rely on the HP ZBook 14u G6 for real-time visualisation or ray trace rendering, but for 3D CAD and BIM, it can stand shoulder to shoulder with machines with much higher specs.
POWER IN SMALL PACKAGES The HP ZBook 14u G6 is built around a power-efficient quad-core version of the 8th Gen Intel Core processor. With a 15W Thermal Design Power (TDP) – the average power a processor dissipates when operating at base frequency with all cores active – these ‘Whiskey Lake’ CPUs draw significantly less power than the 45W sixand eight-core CPUs used in mainstream mobile workstations like the HP ZBook 15. Low power means a performance tradeoff, but only in multi-threaded workflows. The Intel Core i5 8265U (1.6GHz, 3.9GHz Turbo), Intel Core i7 8565U (1.8GHz, 4.6GHz Turbo), Intel Core i5 8365U (1.6GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo) and Intel Core i7 8665U (1.8GHz, 4.8GHz Turbo) all have low base frequencies when running all four cores, but the GHz can be boosted significantly when only using a single core. And single-threaded performance is where it counts for CAD. When exporting an IGES model from the 3D CAD tool Solidworks 2019, for example, our test machine’s Intel Core i7 8665U went up to 4.2GHz. And the 85 secs it took
1
to complete the test is on par with most other mobile workstations, including the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 that we reviewed in June, which had a six core Intel Xeon E-2276M (2.80GHz, 4.70GHz Turbo). Of course, performance falls off dramatically in multi-threaded workflows, such as ray trace rendering. With fewer cores running at a lower frequency, we found render times in our Chaos Group V-Ray and Luxion KeyShot tests to be significantly slower than a mainstream sixor eight-core mobile CPU. However, rather than dropping all the way down to the base clock speed of 1.8GHz, the HP ZBook 14u G6 maintained a solid 2.4GHz with very little fan noise – even when rendering for well over an hour. HP appears to have done an excellent job on thermal management. The HP ZBook 14u G6 supports up to 32GB of DDR4-2400 non-ECC SDRAM, spread across two SODIMMs. This should be plenty for most mainstream CAD workflows, but for those that work with particularly large models (Revit models in particular can be huge) or lots of applications at the same time, this could be a deal breaker. In comparison, a mainstream mobile workstation like the HP ZBook 15 G6 can support up to 128GB. To help deliver its compact form factor, the machine relies on a single M.2 SSD and you get a choice of NVMe (256GB to 2TB) or SATA (128GB). Some NVMe models are SED (Self Encrypting Drive), for situations where data security is critical. Both memory and storage can be accessed easily from the bottom of the machine. Simply remove eight Philips head screws and the service panel pops off. The WLAN module, WWAN module and battery can also be easily replaced. Once inside the machine, you’ll notice there’s a single fan to cool both Intel Core CPU and the discrete AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 GPU. More powerful mobile workstations typically have dedicated
fans for each, but because the ZBook 14u’s processors are relatively low power, it does a perfectly good job with one.
GRAPHICS TUNED FOR CAD With 4GB of GDDR5 memory, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200 is a step up from the 2GB AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 that featured in the G5 edition. The additional 2GB should make a significant difference in certain applications when working with large datasets. Despite being an entry-level GPU, the Radeon Pro WX 3200 still performed extremely well with CAD and BIM software, even on our test machine’s 4K panel. In Autodesk Revit 2020, a BIM application that is notoriously CPU-limited (that is, the CPU can’t keep up with the GPU, causing a bottleneck), 3D performance was similar to a workstation with a far more powerful GPU, simply because the GPU is underutilised. We observed that only 13% of GPU resources were used when moving a 4-million triangle building model on screen. In short, even if the HP ZBook 14u G6 did have a faster GPU, you’d be unlikely to get any better 3D performance. Solidworks 2019 is also CPU-limited, but nowhere near as much as Revit. Using our 3.6-million triangle PC test assembly, we got a fluid 22 frames per second (FPS) in shaded with edges mode and 13 FPS when we increased render quality by enabling shadows, RealView and Ambient Occlusion. This is on par with more powerful GPUs such as the Radeon Pro WX 7100. When it comes to 3D performance, Solidworks is typical of most 3D CAD tools, but this is set to change in Solidworks 2020. The new release, due to launch soon, will feature a new graphics engine that is much less CPU-limited because it offloads more of the graphics calculations to the GPU. As a result, it also uses more GPU memory, with medium to large assemblies typically using somewhere between 2GB and 4GB.
2
2 Memory, ● storage, battery WLAN & WWAN modules can all be accessed easily underneath the service panel
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The new OpenGL 4.5 graphics engine is currently available as a beta option in Solidworks 2019, which we used for testing. Performance immediately shot up to a silky smooth 43 FPS in shaded with edges mode. However, when RealView, shadows and Ambient Occlusion was enabled, performance dropped down to 12 FPS. With more powerful cards like the Radeon Pro WX 5100 and Radeon Pro WX 7100, you can expect 20-40 FPS, which gives a much better experience. This shows the Radeon Pro WX 3200 doesn’t really have the power to take on more demanding graphics tasks, especially at 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution. Rendering more pixels (4K has four times as many as FHD (1,920 x 1,080) generally puts a greater load on the GPU, so this could influence your choice of panel. The laptop can be configured with a range of FHD or 4K IPS panels, some of which are touch-enabled. Two of the FHD models feature HP SureView, which is designed to combat what HP describes as ‘visual hacking’ (short for someone else looking at your screen), by significantly reducing the viewing angle at the touch of a button. To protect from prying eyes from further afield, the HP Privacy Camera allows you to physically shut off the 720p/Infrared webcam. Our test machine came with an LEDbacklit 4K, 600 nits, 100% AdobeRGB panel. It’s a good-quality, bright display that delivers super-sharp lines for precise CAD work. Corner to corner, it’s only 14-inches, so you need to use Windows scaling in order to see text and icons. By default, this is set to 300%, although we found 200-225% offered a better balance. The machine can support up to two external displays via the HDMi or Thunderbolt 3 (USB 3.1) ports on the righthand side of the machine. Here you’ll also find a USB 3.1 Gen 1, Gb Ethernet, Docking Connector and SIM card slot (which works with the optional WWAN module). On the left-hand side, there’s a USB 3.1 Gen 1 charging port and optional Smart card reader. WiFi and Bluetooth are delivered through an Intel Wifi6 AX200 802.11AX 2x2 +BT 5.0 Combo Adapter.
3 The 65W PSU ● is tiny and weighs a mere 300g, significantly less than the PSUs that power most mobile workstations
3
The chassis is made from CNC-machined aluminium and feels solid and well built. The full-sized backlit chicklet keyboard is pleasant to use. We experienced a little bit of give in the middle section, but only when pressing keys particularly hard. As you’d expect for a machine of this size, there’s no room for a numeric keypad. The touchpad is of a decent size and there’s also a Pointstick in the middle of the keyboard, for those who like
Singlethreaded performance is on par with most other mobile workstations, including the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 with a six-core Intel Xeon E-2276M
protect against an attacker turning off antivirus; and HP SureRecover, to help non-experts reimage a system on the go. Enterprise features also extend to collaboration and the machine is ‘Skype for Business’ certified thanks to a ‘world facing’ microphone and dedicated buttons on the keyboard for answering calls, hanging up and presenting. The microphone (which is located on the back of the display) can be used in ‘conference mode’, so everyone in the room can be heard, or ‘individual mode’, where it cancels out unwanted noise. Or you can simply plug in a headset. Battery life from the HP 3-cell 50 WHr Long Life Polymer battery is pretty decent, not least because the power demands from CPU and GPU are so low. The machine lasted 198 mins in the GPU- and CPU-hungry PC Mark test. Expect it to last significantly longer in less demanding workflows. HP Fast Charge support means it can charge from 0 to 50% in 30 minutes, which is useful for a quick top-up in a coffee shop. As you might expect, the 65W Smart AC Adapter is very small, weighing a mere 300g with a US plug.
CONCLUSION The 14-inch mobile workstation used to be considered a companion product to a desktop workstation, to be used when away from the office. This is probably one of the reasons why the form factor has never really taken off, contributing to a very small proportion of mobile workstation sales over the years. But the HP ZBook 14u G6 is different to those that have come before. It is powerful enough for most mainstream 3D CAD and BIM workflows, but significantly smaller and lighter than your average 15inch mobile workstation. With tough competition from
their input devices ‘old school’.
SECURITY CONSCIOUS Like all of HP’s enterprise-class laptops, the ZBook 14u G6 is big on security. There’s a FingerPrint Sensor and Windows Hello technology for face authentication. These are standard fare, but HP also has some special technologies of its own. These include HP SureSense, an AIbased malware defence solution that is said to offer enhanced ransomware protection; HP SureClick, which puts all web browsing in a container so it will not infect the rest of the machine if an insecure website is visited; HP SureStart to protect the BIOS; HP SureRun to
slimline 15-inch mobile workstations like the Dell Precision 5540, it’s unlikely to sell in huge numbers, but it promises to serve a niche market well. And for designers, engineers or architects who are frequently away from the office and place a huge value on portability, it’s an attractive machine for CAD on the go.
4
4 Most of the ● ports, including Ethernet, USB (Type A and C), Thunderbolt and HDMi are on the right-hand side
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THE LAST WORD
When the pedal is put to the metal, one component – the tyre – sits between that power and the road. Al Dean considers an announcement from Toyo Tires that it is using artificial intelligence to achieve better traction
A
fter last month’s column about the use of generative design at Volkswagen, it was with some interest that I saw a press release from Toyo Tires land on my desk this month. The release in question heralds ‘An Evolution in Tire Design Base Technologies Through Fusion with AI.’ Artificial Intelligence is the new hot shit – whether that’s true AI, where machines make conscious decisions, to the much more common sub-branch of machine learning, where a machine learns from a given set of instructions and, typically, large datasets. Either way, examples of real AI or machine learning are few and far between in design and engineering software. Most are just based on optimisation routines and design of experiments, so this made me sit up and pay attention. Toyo’s approach has been pretty traditional. It combines two simulation technologies run on supercomputers. The first step is tyre simulation, which simulates tyre motion when in use and is used for performance prediction and structural analysis. The second traditional element is driving simulation, which reproduces various car configurations, passenger numbers, loads, driving patterns and more, in order to assess the impact on tyres from car motion. This dual approach has been referred to as T-Mode Intelligent Tire Development Platform and has been in use at Toyo since 2000. Interestingly, the press release states how the company’s product market is changing and sets the
scene for its future plans. “As the only automotive simulation data, and test data improves the part in contact with the road, tires play a major role added value of the data and also allows for its in satisfying the various performance requirements development as data for a deep learning.” for cars. With competition for technological It’s this latter portion that’s fundamental. Toyo advances in next-generation mobility has begun to is publicly acknowledging the simple fact that, in dominate the industry with the conversion to EVs most organisations, a wealth of data is created, and spread of autonomous driving, tires need to tested, simulated and reported on, but often, not rapidly achieve clear performance and functionality reused and learned from en masse. Why? Because shifts to support the evolution of mobility. High it would traditionally mean more people, pawing precision and high speed in design will be the keys over previously done work to find trends and new to this in the future.” findings that come about from considering this To help conquer this brave new world, Toyo is type of data as a whole, rather than individual looking to build a new T-Mode, one studies. Essentially, we all have too much data which combines its existing and too few people to do anything useful with it. expertise with the benefits While there’s no real detail of how it’s going of artificial intelligence about this work, it does leave us with a tantalising and it seems that a lot thought. “Traditionally, means of resolution of this approach is involved first entering design specifications and intended to overcome running a simulation, then obtaining performance the simple fact that values from the results. If performance values more traditional did not satisfy requirements, the design simulation cycles specifications would be revised and the means more people simulation repeated, extending the process term needed to run them. overall when repetitions grew frequent.” In order to It continues: “Obtaining design data for accelerate product structures, shapes, and patterns required to obtain development, target performance through the ‘Inverse Problem further simulation Solution’ approach is, essentially, a means of capacity upgrades entering required performance values and using and connections to the required design specifications derived via AI high-precision designs technologies.” were required. The I use the term robots glibly, but there’s a nugget SPDM constructed of truth here. If we’re going to change how in this instance has transportation works, we’re going to need to work revolutionized the Toyo harder, smarter and more efficiently than ever Tire development process. before – and in the engineering world, that often It explains that the tyre means simulation and tons of it. development process, a I’ve seen several talks where the speaker variety of design factors and says that we don’t have enough resources to usage conditions are entered and complete all of the simulations we need to do “design, simulation, prototyping and evaluation” before the dawn of autonomy is upon us. Perhaps cycles are repeated in order to optimise the Toyo’s approach is prescient – it sees the coming performance and design required. It then goes challenge and is retooling its development onto explain that, “Conventionally, data that processes to make the most of it now. designers acquire from simulations is handled as the individual designer’s data. However, the new T-Mode platform unifies management of various GET IN TOUCH: al@x3dmedia.com or @alistardean data types as shared assets, allowing for sharing Now he’s staring at the 911S Hot Wheels on his monitor between designers. Connecting this design data, and wondered if he can 3D print a closer match
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