NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

The complexities of new automotive technologies such as AV, EV, ADAS, and emission reduction are resulting in increased regulator and criminal consequences like never seen before. Warranty and recalls are escalating as key product requirements are missed or not verified prior to release. The industry is demanding a strong, traceable, and auditable solution to ensure requirements and product performance are achieved.

Siemens’ digital thread-based verification management solution ensures all product development and verification processes are synchronized, traceable and auditable. This streamlines product development ensuring that up-to-date information is digitally linked to all verification processes such as CAE and physical testing. As a result, reducing cost overruns, program delays and wasted efforts due to lack of easily accessible critical program information.

For example, when a CAE request is submitted, the CAE analyst needs to know the following information:

• What are the requirements and targets the design needs to be evaluated against?

• Where is the exact CAD model that should evaluated?

• What are the corporate and customer CAE procedures, methods, standards?

• Is the CAE model already available in another workflow and can be reused?

The digital thread-based verification management process addresses this the workflow and related data is managed and provided. The work task is provided via email and inbox which describes the tasks and delivery dates. In the notification, the data objects are provided that when opened have all the information, models, requirements necessary to execute the CAE analysis. CAD models are specifically linked allowing the CAE analyst to download the models directly from the Engineering Bill of Materials in the CAD system. No more guessing which design level is needed. Loads, boundary conditions and requirements/targets are available directly from the central storage site – single source of truth. No more rogue or unauthorized documents to disrupt the simulation process. And after testing is completed, the CAE analyst has direct access to the testing data, as all information, data, documents, files, results are stored and connected in through the verification process.

In general, this solution addresses many traditional ailments and mistakes encountered during product development such as:

• A centralized point of data access eliminates “hunting” for information in different storage systems that delays programs and introduces errors due to no or missing data.

• Everyone in the verification eco-system has direct access to up-to-date product information, requirements, CAD models, CAE and test data/results, etc.

• Centralized data access provides a “single source of truth”, eliminating uncontrolled documents and information that generate confusion and wasted time.

• Ensures the correct CAD design revision is referenced for CAE simulation, part manufacturing/ordering and testing.

• Provides direct access to the CAD engineering bill of material (BOM) for viewing, CAE model development, test fixture development, part manufacturing/ordering.

• All verification models, files, results and raw data are stored and linked throughout the process providing easy access for all engineering and management roles. This helps address one of the traditional problems accessing physical test results for CAE correlation.

• Digital thread links meet traceability requirements for audits, regulatory compliance, and legal exploratory procedures.

• Requirements, CAE, and test results can be tracked down even years later to support warranty and field failure investigations.

• Incorporates workflow tasks, stage gates, and checkpoints to ensure consistency and integrity throughout the verification process.

This state-of-the-art web-based HTML 5 solution offers a lightweight global solution that integrates into any product development process.