Beginning with manual drawings, physical testing and eventually graduating to digital design and simulation, engineering design processes have seen major changes over the years.According to the experts at the ETAuto Simulation and Testing Virtual Congress conducted on Friday, simulation of digital prototypes eliminates a lot of physical prototype making at different stages of product development, which results in reliable validation, better performing products, and reduced cost and time.
IV Rao, former head of R&D, Maruti Suzuki India, noted, “In a simulation-based product development approach, the direction of the design is to optimally satisfy the requirements such as performance, reliability, sustainability, and cost. Computer-aided Design (CAD), Computer-aided Engineering (CAE), and simulation together offer an opportunity to the overall design in a number of expectations reflecting customer needs.”
Explaining the process, Anand Bhangaonkar, EVP & Head of R&D, Platform and SQE, Piaggio Vehicles, said that most OEMs follow a similar V-shaped product development. From the conceptualisation stage to styling, packaging, and there onwards, a lot of calculations and simulations are being done at different phases as the overall product evolves.
“Once we start looking at the overall vehicle model, we try to split it into a system and a sub-system at the component level. Next, we try to leverage Model Based System Testing (MBST) techniques and break it down to a model-based system level analysis. For Indian transmissions, we primarily use GT-suites to understand the overall combustion and engineering performances from the calculation and simulation perspective,” he said.
Reflecting a component maker’s perspective, Biswajyoti Mandal, vice president-Technology, Schaeffler India, stated that being a technology company, they jointly work with OEMs to co-develop the product. “One of the challenges is that there is a continuous demand from the vehicle manufacturers to shorten the engineering time during product development. They also want the parts to perform for an entire life cycle as the vehicle, thereby adding a lot of pressure on design, calculation and simulation.”
“In the past, a car was a mechanical device, today it is a mechatronic device. That means mechanical excellence has to be there and basic intelligence has to come from software, bringing about new competencies,” Mandal added.
He further said that as per their data collected over the years, a product typically takes 3 to 4 years of time to build up. Within this, nearly 40% to 45% of this time is taken by testing, which can be minimized to 15% to 20%, thereby saving in product development cycle time. “For the last few years, our focus has been to minimise the real time testing. But every simulation or testing that we do has to be correlated and correlating the CAE with the lab environment takes a lot of time,” he said.
“Five years down the line, our goal is to launch a product from India where we will completely depend on the CAE and perform any physical testing of the component,” Mandal said.
Vivek Kumar Jakhmola, President, JBM Group, informed that the company has its own AI division within JBM. “A lot of data is being captured from machines, but converting the data entry for the previous experience of engineers into a data form and using it as ‘Big Database’ is a continuous process,” he said.
According to Renuka Srinivasan, SIMULIA Sales Director, Dassault Systems, “Simulation has today become more about multi scale and multi physics, whether that is electromagnetism, fluids, structure or how these domains interact with each other. IoT for manufacturing also makes the digital twin or pre-experienced twin possible, which allows you to get the feedback from the sensors at your actual factory. And that information is brought to a central location.”
Virtual validation of electrified systems
According to Tushar Sambharam, Principal Technology Specialist, Ansys India, “While the previous practises were based on Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) involving complex physics, it was difficult to put forward accurate predictive models. However, for EVs, the physics is much better understood and one can put forward more reliable and accurate simulation models through Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) practises and then push them into the system validation framework. As a result, a part of the validation that is done in the physical world as of now, can be moved in the virtual environment.”
Simulation technology itself is not saturated and there has been a lot more democratisation over the years. It has evolved in the last 10 years and continues to evolve further, he said.
Software integration projects need the connection between the 3D physics and system simulation environment, which was another big challenge for the industry. However, this has become better than before. Of course, gaps will exist and EMI/EMC Simulation is not to replicate the physical test but to be a part of the product design process to cross check at every step. In the near future, we can expect to see simulation being part of mainstream product development, Sambharam added.
As per Apurbo Kirty, head E&E, Tata Motors, competency is also one of the challenges. “If you take any software, it would need 2-3 years for the people to be really trained on that software to develop the relationship between the actual and virtual.”
Kirty added that the industry is still at an infant stage and needs to work in thermal management, EMI/EMC simulations, energy management systems, amongst others. However, there is a lot of scope going forward.
Talking on similar lines, Kumar Prasad Telikapalli, Product Development Leader, Matter Motor Works, said, “Going from zero to 99% reliability is a journey and analytics can drive a lot more insights into what kind of testing is needed.”
Biswajyoti Mandal, vice president-technology, Schaeffler India, highlighted that we must consider if electric vehicles (EVs) are the only alternative solution in a cost sensitive country like India where battery cost can range between USD130 to USD150 per kWh. “A lot of research is already happening on fuel cells,” he added.
With the virtual product development technology, all customer requirements can be brought to the laboratory and then without spending much time on prototype and investment, the requirements can be simulated to ensure that the uptime, fuel efficiency and load capacity of the vehicle is maximum so that profits the owner earns from the vehicle is maximum. That is the only way to reduce logistical costs which is 12.5%-13% of the GDP. Product has to be more productive, Rajinder Singh Sachdeva, COO and head, R&D, VECV, told the ETAuto Simulation &Testing Virtual Congress on Thursday.
