Technology Update: V5i GNL - MSC.Nastran within CATIA V5

Advanced nonlinear simulation now available within V5i

MSC.visualNastran V5i R10 Full Release was announced, bringing major enhancements to each of the nine Generative and Gateway products.

Most exciting are the new features added to MSC.Generative Nonlinear (GNL). As an add-on product to CATIA V5, GNL allows users to directly work with CATIA V5 assemblies (CATProduct) and simulate nonlinear behaviors of assemblies including contact, geometry, and material nonlinearities.

The nonlinear contact capabilities increase the level of simulation at the assembly level. It supports self, deformable-deformable and rigid-deformable contacts. "Glue", "touch" and "inactive" are additional contact attributes that can be provided to a part through a table and contextual menu.

MSC.Generative Nonlinear offers additional options to simulate hyper-elastic material behavior and nonlinear spring property for rigid virtual parts. In addition, new Nonlinear case control parameters are now available, including loading-unloading.

For more information and a complete list of V5i analysis products, please visit: http://www.V5i.com/ or http://www.mscsoftware.com/products/ and click on MSC.visualNastran V5i.

'Gateway' to the World: Extending Product Data to Enterprise Apps

Shelli Zargary, SMARTEAM Marketing Products Manager, recently sat down with Avichay Nissenbaum, SMARTEAM Executive Vice President of Product Marketing, Oleg Shilovitsky, SMARTEAM R&D Director, and Alexander Xu, Manager of Engineering at ABB Xiamen Switchgear, China. The subject of our discussion was SMARTEAM - Gateway, SMARTEAM's enterprise application integration solution.

SMARTEAM (ST): Avichay, how is SMARTEAM - Gateway designed to enhance SMARTEAM's EAI strategy?
Avichay Nissenbaum (AN): SMARTEAM - Gateway plays an intricate role in the connection of enterprise wide applications to the product data managed by SMARTEAM. Our partners have strengthened and broadened our ability to connect to these applications.

ST: How is this accomplished?
Oleg Shilovitsky (OS): As Avichay said, we achieve this through our partnerships. We have integrations with systems like PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Siebel, Baan and many, many more. SMARTEAM - Gateway is just a continuation of SMARTEAM's strategy toward supporting a range of EAI platforms, beginning with Microsoft Biztalk® Server and soon to include IBM WebSphere Business Integration.

ST: Oleg, please give a quick definition of what the SMARTEAM - Gateway Product is all about?
OS: Sure. SMARTEAM - Gateway is an enterprise application integration that serves as an interoperable platform for bringing the benefits of revision management, change control and collaboration to global enterprises that are already using enterprise-wide applications/ information systems. SMARTEAM - Gateway seamlessly integrates vital enterprise applications, enabling a higher level of business efficiency and profitability throughout the extended enterprise.

ST: How is this done?
OS: SMARTEAM - Gateway exposes SMARTEAM's product information repository to EAI platforms, optimizing access and transfer of the latest product data, including information about Parts, Bills of Materials, Change Processes and Documents, across engineering design, manufacturing logistics, customer service and other legacy systems - benefiting the entire extended enterprise.

ST: Xiaman Switchgear is one of ABB Ltd's most profitable groups. Alexander, you guys must be doing something right--can you tell us why you chose SMARTEAM?
Alexander Xu (AX): SMARTEAM represents a powerful technology that has met all our needs and was implemented quickly. The system was up and running fast, and users were trained in only a few hours.

ST: And what about SMARTEAM - Gateway? Why were you interested in that particular product?
AX: SMARTEAM - Gateway significantly reduces the time to prepare and send BOM information to manufacturing.

ST: As I understand from our earlier discussions, your team was entering this data manually and found it hugely time consuming.
AX: Done manually, the BOM used to take weeks. Considerable time was spent correcting mistakes. Now, the automatic process takes place in just minutes and is virtually error-free. This dramatically reduces lead time and improves design quality.

ST: Avichay, what role does Microsoft play in all this?
AN: By integrating with Microsoft's BizTalk Server, SMARTEAM - Gateway is opening up mission critical product data information to enterprise entities that have traditionally not had access to it.

ST: Sort of combining the best of PDM and EAI?
AN: Yes, leveraging the power of SMARTEAM combined with the enterprise connectivity of the ERP systems enables SMARTEAM to communicate with a wide variety of leading applications.

ST: Oleg, can you tell me a little bit more about how a business can benefit from this information exchange?
OS: By providing bi-directional exchange of information, SMARTEAM - Gateway speeds workflows, avoids redundant efforts, and improves communication throughout the organization.

ST: How is it managed?
OS: This functionality can be managed using SMARTEAM - Gateway capabilities, such as business logic, filtering, and triggering of events, and by leveraging the capabilities of the EAI platform, such as mapping tools and business process modeling. SMARTEAM - Gateway, leveraging these platforms, is fully scalable: able to scale up and scale out. SMARTEAM - Gateway also supports multiple servers and multiple server applications.

ST: I imagine companies are looking for this functionality and benefits of this kind these days.
AN: Acknowledging that time-to-market, cost control, and compressed cycle times are becoming prime drivers in their ongoing product development and change processes, more companies are looking to optimize their business procedures by linking Product Data Management (PDM) systems to other Enterprise applications, including Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Planning (MRP), Customer Relationship (CRM) and other legacy systems.

ST: And this is what SMARTEAM - Gateway provides?
AN: Yes, because SMARTEAM - Gateway works seamlessly with the SMARTEAM family of business process solutions and best-practices. By doing so, SMARTEAM - Gateway brings the benefits of product lifecycle collaboration to other enterprise systems. Product data from initial design stages and from product design changes is available to users of other enterprise systems and drives business processes in all enterprise systems across the product value chain. Serving as the glue, tying all enterprise systems together, SMARTEAM - Gateway enhances efficiency throughout the entire product lifecycle.

A Collaboration to Jointly Redefine the PLM and Simulation Marketplace

IBM Product Lifecycle Management, Dassault Systemes and MSC.Software have formed a number of close strategic alliances in recent months. Most notable is a collaboration to jointly redefine the PLM and simulation marketplace. Within this alliance, MSC.Software will develop its new generation of simulation tools on the next generation CATIA V5 architecture, and, together with Dassault Systemes and DS's existing CAE partners, the objective is to deliver the largest and most advanced PLM integrated analysis and simulation portfolio available.

IBM, Dassault Systemes and MSC.Software have been working together for a number of years to provide manufacturers with a complete suite of PLM products, services and systems. The three companies collaborate closely to bring innovative differential solutions to automotive, aerospace and other manufacturing industries.

MSC.Software is also an IBM Business Partner. Under this relationship it distributes and supports the entire hardware portfolio developed by IBM and 3D PLM software portfolio developed by Dassault Systemes, including CATIA design and analysis applications, ENOVIA and SMARTEAM collaborative Product Data Management (PDM) software, as well as process re-engineering tools. As an experienced provider of simulation technology, MSC.Software brings significant depth of expertise to the IBM/Dassault Systemes PLM offering in the mid-market.

Bombardier Transportation 'Harmonizing' with MSC.Software

Bombardier Transportation is a market leader in the rolling stock industry for short and long haul, passenger and freight rail transportation. Its wide range of products includes passenger rail vehicles and complete rail transportation systems. The company also manufactures locomotives, freight cars, propulsion and controls and provides signaling equipment and systems. They entered the mass transit market in 1974 with a first contract for the Montreal metro. Over the years Bombardier Transportation has grown by internally generated expansion and acquisition of other companies that had proven designs, know-how and technologies.

In 1996, through the merger of AEG and ABB Transportation a company called Adtranz was created as a joint venture between Daimler-Benz (now DaimlerChrysler) and ABB. The constituent companies of Adtranz have more than 150 years of experience in the railway field and regularly set industry standards with innovative products and new vehicle concepts. In 1999 DaimlerChrysler became sole shareholder of Adtranz and sold Adtranz in 2001 to Bombardier Transportation.

The acquisition of Adtranz by Bombardier Transportation created a truly global company in the design, manufacture, and delivery of railway vehicles and services. By pooling their complementary capabilities Bombardier Transportation is uniquely positioned to provide innovative solutions to their customers' requirements.

The Business Proposition

Prior to the acquisition, Adtranz was nearing the end of a software 'harmonization' process in design and structural analysis. They had established a Center of Competencies (CoC) for analysis at Kalmar in Sweden. When Bombardier took over they endorsed the Center of Competencies concept and appointed the then Manager of the CoC, Micko Björck, to be responsible for the CoC for the whole company. Before the acquisition, the CoC at Adtranz had already begun to develop a global presence and therefore it was to be used as a template for the whole of the Bombardier Transportation organization with regard to harmonizing the software products in use and how the CoC was to interact with the divisions.

"The Adtranz harmonization was almost completed regarding structural mechanics," said Micko Björck. "We had only a few sites left to convert. After the acquisition my views on harmonization had not changed -- they were as relevant for the new company as they were for Adtranz. I suggested that we should continue with what we had started in Adtranz. I showed Bombardier the benefits of the MSC.Software Token System (Campus License) and at the same time it became clear that MSC.Software and IBM/Dassault had developed a closer relationship. As CATIA was the principal CAD tool in use in the former Bombardier it was only logical to standardization on MSC.Software products and CATIA."

At the moment, Bombardier is still using CATIA V4 in production, but there is a strategy to move to CATIA V5 during 2004. This migration has significant strategic importance and Bombardier feels confident that V5 can offer all features they need. By using MSC.Patran, MSC.Nastran, MSC.Marc, MSC.Construct, MSC.Dytran, and MSC.Fatigue with the MSC.Software Token System/Campus License, Bombardier has access to all the appropriate software tools whenever they are needed.

"Without question the most important feature of the MSC.Software offer for us is the Token System (Campus License) which gives us total flexibility in the way we use our software," said Björck. "The co-operation between IBM/Dassault and MSC.Software is also very important to us. We always need good interfaces and I'm sure the new relationship with MSC.Software will bring more in that regard. MSC.Software products are easy to use and most of the analysts like the interface and are very comfortable using the system."

Typical Applications

Because of the variety and complexity of the work it is not possible to describe the full scope of a typical train project. Analysis for each new series product usually takes about one and a half years for five to fifteen analysts depending on the size of the project. Because there are so many different requirements from the individual customers and the variety of prevailing national and international standards there is usually very little design 'carry over' between different projects. The railway industry is also very old, dating back to around 1850, consequently things are very different from location to location geographically and there are a tremendous number of national standards. The gauge of the track is fairly similar in Western Europe, but there are several standards from continent to continent.

Bombardier has several different vehicle divisions who are responsible for delivering complete vehicles to customers. These include: Intercity trains (high speed); metros; locomotives; regional and commuter trains; light rail vehicles; and there are other divisions which are sub-suppliers to the vehicle divisions. The carbody division provides the steel or aluminum structure of the different vehicles. There is also a division for bogies and one for propulsion, which supplies the propulsion system and the motors. All these different divisions are distributed throughout the world. In Sweden Bombardier has divisions for the design and construction of Intercity trains, metro, propulsion, car bodies and a services division, which does train maintenance. The trains are designed and manufactured in the various Bombardier locations and then delivered all over the world -- where possible Bombardier will design in one location and manufacture close to its point of use.

"At Bombardier we do all sorts of different analyses on a rail products," said Björck. "Among these are normal analyses to ensure that stresses and deformations are kept within reasonable limits, as well as buckling, eigenfrequency, crash, fatigue and thermal analysis. We also have internal requirements for handling of the carbodies during production, for example lifting stresses and there are a number of international and national standards to which we have to comply."

The analysis procedures used in Bombardier have been developed over a number of years and output from one analysis tool is regularly used as the input for another. MSC.Nastran results are post-processed with MSC.Patran and Bombardier takes the MSC.Software static results as input to their own fatigue tools. Bombardier plans to harmonize fatigue tools in a next phase. One of the impediments to fatigue harmonization is the fact that they have to work to so many different international and national standards.

"We tend to post-process the analytical runs using MSC.Patran and home-grown post-processors," said Björck. "Our own post-processors are used mainly for fatigue and for sorting load cases. For a normal carbody there are about 100 load cases, and maybe 1,000 components -- our own post-processors are used to sort out this vast amount of data and to seek out the problem areas. This is more a sorting process than a graphical display process. The output is a sorted list, which highlights areas for further investigation. Each country has their requirements with regard to reporting procedures for regulatory authorities so there is no such thing as a standard report structure."

Design and analysis are very closely linked at Bombardier and the interaction between the designers and the analysts is on a daily basis starting from the very early stages of design. On projects where there are very experienced designers the task is much simpler for the analysts since many of the load cases are satisfactory in the first design loop. In other cases the analysts have to guide the designers more to get a feasible design.

While analysts have to make the final calculation, there is also a role for 'stress checkers' in the design of discrete components. "Structures as large and complicated as rail carbodies, bogies and electrical motors need to be analyzed from the outset by experienced analysts using sophisticated CAE software," said Björck. "We do not have a formal designer education program, but as it is always important to educate designers to appreciate the way the structure works, we make every effort to encourage our designers in this regard."

While CATIA is a major CAD tool at Bombardier, the kind of geometry imported from CATIA is different from site to site. Some sites don't even have access to CATIA yet and therefore they generate the geometry for the analysis themselves using the pre-processors. Bombardier has different ways of filtering the CATIA data to accommodate the different analyses. Solid geometry is fairly straightforward; the CATIA model can be imported directly and meshed with standard meshing tools. When a mid-surface model is required then either the analyst produces it or Bombardier has another process at some sites where the designer makes a copy of the CAD model and transforms it into a mid-surface model for the analyst -- this ensures congruent surfaces for the analysis. It also allows small details, which would upset the meshing algorithms like holes and small radii to be removed without compromising the master CAD model.

While most sites use MSC.Patran for meshing, there are still some sites using the CATIA meshing module which they prefer for their purposes. Meshing is another area that Bombardier is hoping will benefit from the co-operation between MSC.Software and IBM/Dassault and the adoption of the CATIA V5 architecture as the common platform for the simulation environment of the future.

IBM Product Lifecycle Management, Dassault Systemes and MSC.Software have formed a number of close strategic alliances in recent months. Most notable is a collaboration to jointly redefine the PLM and simulation marketplace. Within this alliance, MSC.Software will develop its new generation of simulation tools on the next generation CATIA V5 architecture, and, together with Dassault Systemes and DS's existing CAE partners, the objective is to deliver the largest and most advanced PLM integrated analysis and simulation portfolio available.

The Software Benefits

Computer aided design verification by simulation and analysis is an integral part of every aspect of vehicle design. MSC.Software has a complete portfolio of Virtual Product Development tools for every simulation and analysis situation. Because of the Token system engineers and designers have flexible access to a variety of integrated solutions.

"Even though it's very difficult to gauge the benefits in quantitative terms from the way we use MSC.Software, the mere act of harmonizing the software across all our sites means that collaboration both within and between the divisions is much easier and the possibilities to share work and components are significantly increased," said Björck. "This collaboration also extends to human resources. If everyone is using the same software, analysts can move around to respond to increasing workloads in different locations. By having a flexible analytical human resource pool Bombardier can for example reduce the number of contractors they require from time to time. It also allows us to rotate analysts on secondment regularly, to give them a broader work experience. Due to this flexible approach Bombardier can save between 10 and 20 contractors per year. This represents about 10 percent of the human resource budget for analysts."

By harmonizing the software it is also a lot easier for engineers and analysts to discuss upcoming issues, which has a direct bearing on quality. Because of the greater inter-divisional involvement and discussion arising from the harmonization exercise, Bombardier has discovered some anomalies in certain analytical procedures at some sites. And as they continue to roll out the software to the less prominent sites the harmonization of analytical procedures is also a continuing benefit.

Because Bombardier is using numerical methods and simulating testing in the computer the company has been able to reduce the number and sometimes the size of physical prototype tests. "We do physical impact tests on the plastic fronts of the rail car bodies by shooting missiles made from steel cubes at the vehicles," said Björck. "If you can simulate this, most of this physical testing is not necessary. Crash testing is another example of where we, thanks to simulation, rarely do full-scale testing these days -- we only do it occasionally to verify the analysis."

For the Future

Bombardier has been doing analysis for as long as there has been analysis software available so over the years they have built up considerable knowledge and experience that is continually being used to improve their designs. In fatigue testing they rarely test full-scale complete vehicles, but they do component testing, again to verify the analysis, new designs and/or methods. A combination of experience and their analysis highlights critical components or regions that could potentially cause fatigue problems.

By doing analysis early in the project, Bombardier can eliminate a significant amount of physical testing. Sometimes as a result of early analysis the engineers would set up a physical fatigue test on particular components, especially bogies. This testing would run in the background as analysis continues. Also each new product series is monitored throughout its life to measure and document its fatigue response. In propulsion they use a lot more thermal analysis than in car bodies and bogies. Bombardier actually makes the electric engines for the trains but most of the diesel engines are 'bought in'.

At present Bombardier is concentrating on completing the harmonization project. The CoC at Bombardier is setting the standards and issuing the guidelines and recommendations, which everyone will be following with respect to the harmonization of analytical procedures and software. Considering all these processes, harmonization is expected to be completed by mid-2004.

Bombardier already has significant 'knowledge capture' in their fatigue tools and it is looking to exploit the Knowledgeware functionality in CATIA to extend their knowledge-based engineering. There are internal standards for spot welding when the car bodies are made from stainless steel. There are different requirements for spot welding depending on the relative thicknesses of the components to be welded -- the size and spacing of the welds are critical parameters. It would be ideal if this kind of information was captured in CATIA. The designer could then just specify the spot weld and the software would sort out the details and the various analytical parameters of the weld would be sent to MSC.Patran. Similarly, for normal fusion welds the appropriate parameters need to be sent to Patran to eliminate the need for manual input -- this is a big quality issue for the future.

"We are very satisfied that with MSC.Software products we have made the right choice of CAE software," said Björck. "And the harmonization of the software across all divisions is starting to yield significant business benefits. The software provides us with an opportunity to make sure that the designs fulfill all the requirements before we start to make the first unit."