Altair 2021 offers engineers collaborative tools for the electrical, logical, mechanical, physical and thermal designs of IoT devices.
Altair has just announced the release of their 2021 simulation software. It’s chock full of updates from a solver, user experience and functionality perspective. The highlights of the release focus on:
- Electronic system design
- The real-world product performance simulation
- Simulation-driven design for manufacturing (SDfM)
James Scapa, founder and chief executive officer of Altair says, “In addition to accelerated simulation of real-world product performance and expanded simulation-driven design for manufacturing functionality, this release brings a robust end-to-end electronic system design toolset to our customers.”
Scapa adds, “the latest updates to our simulation solutions enable customers to develop complex products more profitably by simulating 5G connectivity, electronic board-level performance, modern manufacturing processes and more.”
Knocking Down the Silos of the End-to-End Electronic System Design of IoT Devices
Altair has released a new electronic system design toolset that aims to breakdown the silos between engineering teams. With it, engineers can collaborate on the electrical, logical, mechanical, physical and thermal designs of their smart, connected and IoT devices.
Uwe Schramm, CTO of Altair, says, “for several years now, we’ve been in the development of electronic systems. Our systems can go from electronic to the mechanical simulation of this technology. In terms of new developments, they address the needs of the market towards IoT, digital twins, 5G and wireless technologies. Around Altair Feko, we’ve made a few acquisitions in the past few years that will assist companies to design the antenna, car-to-car and other systems that integrate mechanical and electronic components.”
The latest improvements include Feko’s ability to simulate and optimize wireless connectivity. This will help engineers ensure the 5G and electromagnetic compatibility of their designs. Visual firmware has also been updated to support more microcontroller families. Additionally, PCB fabrication, assembly and end-of-line testing capabilities have been added.
Finally, workflows have been simplified and automated so non-experts can assess stress, vibration, thermal and drop test performance. As a result, more people on the design team will be able to use simulations to streamline the development of their motors, sensors and actuators. Tasks that will benefit from these improvements include printed circuit board (PCB) design review, verification, analysis and manufacturing.
As the world moved down a path of further electrification and automation, it’s only natural that simulation companies will focus on the design software needed to optimize the development of these technologies. Expect to see more electronic system design updates from Altair and numerous other simulation players in the coming years.
Simulation of Product Performances Within the Real-World
The Altair 2021 release promises faster, more accurate simulations of real-world product performance.
The speed boost comes from the release’s expanded utilization of graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs). This boost in compute power will benefit simulation users working on desktop, hybrid, public and private cloud systems.
One example of this computation speedup benefits Altair SimSolid, simulation technology for designers, engineers and analysts. This already lightning-fast technology is now ten times faster than when it was first launched. Another speed boost comes to modeling and visualization workflows. Engineers can now slice the time to produce a topology model or mesh a 3D model from hours to minutes.
“We continue to build out the physics of our simulation systems but are also making a big effort to make simulation faster,” Schramm says. “We are moving to more and more higher throughput computations using CPUs and GPUs. This enables engineers to do iterations, virtual prototyping and fast design improvements. The goal is to go directly from CAD to a simulation to see how changes to the 3D model will affect the product and help users optimize designs.”
The computational upgrades also come with a handful of advanced physics models. For instance, it’s now possible to simulate particles in the air thanks to a co-simulation model of fluids and discrete elements. Flutter and other aviation design issues can also now be assessed thanks to the release’s ability to analyze the aeroelastic effects on aircraft wings. The release also notes improved connector representations.
“We’ve moved to a new user experience for HyperMesh, which is now HyperWorks,” Schramm adds, “the experience helps companies efficiently move through workflows. It also includes integrations with PLM, simulation and other technologies. This brings huge productivity gains.”
Finally, the Altair Material Data Center now supports all the simulation products in the Altair portfolio. This should be helpful when searching for the materials and properties data of various substances.
Though customers expect bigger, better and more complex products, the development time of these goods continues to shrink. Engineering teams need all the help they can get to ensure that more people can use simulation to quickly iterate through designs. The workflow, democratization and speed boost within this release will be a breath of fresh air to the industry.
What’s New in Simulation-Driven Design for Manufacturing (SDfM)?
Altair has expanded its SDfM functionality to include additive, casting, extrusion, foaming, molding and stamping. As a result, these manufacturing simulations can be used to help design and optimize factory systems earlier in development.
“For years we’ve invested into manufacturing simulation. It’s a crucial piece of assessing the feasibility of a design,” Schramm says. “We’ve developed special solvers for stamping, extrusion and other manufacturing simulations. It’s important to perform simulations to assure products work but you also have to assure they can be manufactured. This is all heavily integrated into our Inspire technology which streamlines simulations workflows so that more engineers can assess the feasibility of their designs.”
But these simulations don’t need to end at the design phase. Manufacturing simulations are expanding into research, development and process optimizations. As a result, automotive, aerospace, energy, healthcare, high tech, food, cosmetic and chemical industries are starting to use simulation to assess, study and optimize the equipment and processes they already have.
Highlights of the SDfM updates include improvements to Inspire Mold, a simulation tool for the early product design stages of an injection molded product, and Inspire PolyFoam, which simulates the molding of rigid foam components that are made from polyurethane.
COVID-19 has been an eye-opening experience for the manufacturing industry. No doubt, simulation tools will be used to squeeze out efficiencies, automate complex processes and continuously improve the factory floor. Much of these simulations will be performed by those creating manufacturing equipment to design new products that reduce their customer’s reliance on large workforces.
However, there is no doubt that it will be used, more and more, in the R&D offices of manufacturers looking to implement the process, personnel and workflow changes. These R&D offices represent a new audience of simulation users that are hungry for an easy-to-use tool from simulation providers—like Altair.
The expansions offered by this release will streamline the development cycle, research and operations of engineers around the world. And, the fact that any product in the portfolio is available using Altair Units, low commitment access to these improvements is a luxury that many simulation experts can experience.
