Altair Simulates Full-Vehicle Crash FEA Model in 24 hours

By DE Editors

Altair Engineering says it has compressed the time required to mesh, assemble, and simulate a full-vehicle crash finite-element model—directly from OEM native CAD data—to 24 hours. According to the company, this represents a two-to-four-week reduction in turn-around time that is typically required for this type of analysis.

Ford Motor Company supported Altair’s ambitious project by supplying representative CAD data for the proof-of-concept effort. 

The company says the simulation addresses the entire crash analysis process, from CAD importation to results post-processing. Altair used its modeling tool, HyperMesh, along with the automotive-specific model setup capabilities of HyperCrash and tailored automations to cut the time required to get the run-ready model to RADIOSS for analysis. Altair’s job management portal, PBS Catalyst, was then used with the computing resource management of PBS Professional to simplify and accelerate the analysis process. Upon job completion, automated results post-processing was performed using HyperView, yielding a custom auto report and Microsoft Office presentations ready for engineer review. 

“With this kind of speed, engineers gain more time to carry out more investigative studies and explore more alternatives relating to weight, materials and performance, while still accelerating the time to market of the final product,” says Uwe Schramm, chief technical officer for HyperWorks. “These types of turn-around times now provide the opportunity to perform statistical and stochastic studies in the crash domain to further improve for the performance and robustness of designs.”

Altair says its CAD2CRASH24 process can be customized and implemented for manufacturers.

For more information, visit Altair.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.