The Hindu Business Line : By design, at every turn

According to Gopalakrishnan, computer aided engineering continues to be an effective approach for industries to manage time and cost overruns and eventually ensure return on investments. “The whole idea about implementing CAE is to identify product deficiencies as well as modify early stages of product development. The implementation starts from the conceptual design phase through various analyses, right up to testing and prototyping,” he says.

Maxsoft’s areas of expertise are domain system modelling and simulation, structural analysis, thermal analysis and computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

Excerpts from the chat:

Many companies see CAE as an expensive but dispensable luxury. What are your views?

Of course, not all product manufacturing companies have their design or R&D centres; there are many reasons for this.

If industries were to be broadly classified as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers, most suppliers get their design or analysis details from the OEMs and their job is mainly to manufacture as per the OEM specifications. So, in this case, the CAE activity is relatively less, as the engineering activity is focused on the manufacturing process. But the OEMs have to have the design or development activity since they are into the product design and development. Currently, OEMs are also passing subsystem development responsibility to suppliers and they are required to have the computer aided engineering activities in place to qualify and validate the product to the OEM’s specifications.

Certainly, CAE is more or less indispensable for engineering industries if only to produce better products and to reduce time to market.

When applied early and judiciously, CAE is said to result in less design rework, allowing companies time to explore more innovative alternatives. How does this work out in real terms?

It is true that in real or practical terms, CAE can be applied very judiciously from the conceptual design to the prototype development to save time and avoid design reworks. For instance, in a practical case of an automotive product development company, every single automotive comprises multiple systems and subsystems, such as steering, braking, suspension, engine, transmission, cabin, air-conditioning, etc, in addition to requirements such as safety, ergonomics, styling and emission for environment consideration.

So, as a first step, it starts with the concept designing of systems and subsystems using various system modelling approaches. Various iterations help in finalising the design of the prototype, which meets the functional behaviour and other specification requirements.

Later, the product can be subjected to microscopic analysis, such as stress, thermal flow, etc, using computational fluid dynamics. And more innovations can be applied during these stages. At each stage, the performance can be checked and corrections, if any, applied. So, eventually, most of the design-related problems are addressed before the manufacture and development of the prototype.

How does CAE help reduce reliance on physical tests, improve product performance and quality ?

This is another very important aspect; most of the CAE tools have undergone rigorous validation processes in line with their features and capabilities in the respective product applications, before they have been commercialised.

Also, before getting engaged in CAE activities, companies make an evaluation study with the available experimental data. This raises their confidence levels about the fidelity or robustness of the tools or methods. So, with these validated methodologies, product performance can be predicted over the entire range of operational conditions. And then with the limited physical tests, product performance can be warranted without resorting to exhaustive testing to mitigate the risk factors. This obviously has an impact on cost reduction.

Improvements in software and hardware create challenges for CAE implementation. How do you cope?

In the current global scenario, there are mainly five objectives that have to be met for developing any product competitively — performance, safety, environment, time and cost. To meet these requirements, CAE techniques play a major role. Complexities are increasing, so certainly there are real challenges. We apply multiple approaches to solve problems.

On consolidation in the sector… Concern has also been expressed over the aging workforce in your industry and the impact from globalisation.

Big players try to establish complete solutions in their CAE space, from the scratch level of designing, through various analyses, to testing. So naturally to address the market needs with all these capabilities, various companies have to merge to be more successful. An ageing workforce is a concern in the specific engineering domains, and this issue can be addressed only through a constant technological ‘updating’ of the workforce with proper training.

vinson@thehindu.co.in

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