newsletter - enginsoft · pages of this newsletter for a detailed overview of the agenda. many of...

Simulation Based Engineering & Sciences

n°3 Autumn 20129Year

Prevent Pressure Surgefor in theOffshore Oil&Gas Industry

Reliability Analysis ofand Inspection Planning

Water Injection Systems

OffshoreStructures

ADVENTURECluster: An innovativestructural analysis softwarefor

CAE Applications forin Oil&Gas Industrial Sector

super large scale models

Valves

International22-23 October 2012

CAE Conference

PlanetsX: TheCAE System fully embedded inANSYS Workbench

Injection Molding

Newsletter

By nature, engineers are thought-leaders, creators andinnovators. We focus on safety, realizability, and applicability. Ourdesigns are brought to life based on the sound knowledge ofengineering science, materials, technologies and our abilityto collaborate with other experts and highly specializedproviders.The International CAE Conference on 22nd and 23rd Octoberis a gathering of the people and brains behind much oftoday’s leading engineering simulation. This annualknowledge-platform brings together diverse expertise, state-of-the-art software, from the comprehensive ANSYS productsuite to a number of complementary technologies andhardware solutions. We are delighted to welcome Professor Parviz Moin from theCenter of Turbulence Research of Stanford University whose

presentation on “High Fidelitynumerical simulations of

multiple-physics turbu-lent flows in complexgeometries” will befollowed by otheroutstanding speakers

from industry, researchand academicinstitutions, such as AVLList, Sandvik Coromant,

Cascade Technologies, IMS, SINMEC Brazil, Volvo Cars, AnsaldoEnergia, Ferrari, Magnetti Marelli, General Electric, Tetra Pak,Thales Alenia Space, University of Twente Netherlands,University of Catalonia (UPC) Barcelona, the Universities ofMilan, Padua, Trento and many others. Henrik Fisker willpresent his Karma, the world’s first premium electric plug-inhybrid car in the exhibition, the traditional meeting andnetworking platform of the event!

We invite you to check the Conference Program on the lastpages of this Newsletter for a detailed overview of theagenda. Many of the articles in this edition offer a foretasteof the topics that will be presented and discussed live at theConference. You will read about CAE applications in the offshore oil&gassectors, about composite design and modeFRONTIER insystems engineering. We present ADVENTURECluster, aninnovative structural analysis software and PlanetsX, aninjection molding CAE system which is fully embedded inANSYS Workbench. Our case studies outline the use ofLIONsolver, Scilab and the Benimpact Suite, a tool for theassessment of the performance of ZEB Zero Energy Buildingswhich EnginSoft introduced also at the ZEMCH 2012Conference in Glasgow.

Moreover, this edition includes interviews with MassimoVerme of Verme Projects, an Italian yacht consultingcompany, and Marie Christine Oghly, the president ofEnginSoft France.

We would like to update you on the ESASIM and EASIT2projects, this year’s Transvalor Users’ Meeting, the 3rdDolomites Workshop on Constructive Approximation andApplications, the new features in ESAcomp, a software foranalysis and design of composite structures and on otherCAE-relevant topics.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Conference inPacengo del Garda – Please share with us your knowledge andthoughts about the present and future of CAE andSimulation!

Stefano OdorizziEditor in chief

Flash

Ing. Stefano OdorizziEnginSoft CEO and President

Flash

Newsletter EnginSoft Year 9 n°3 - 3

6 Applicazioni CAE per le Valvole nel settore Oil&Gas

8 Reliability Analysis of Offshore Structures and Inspection Planning

14 Optimised Workflows for Composite Design

18 Using Flowmaster to Prevent Pressure Surge for Water Injection Systems in the Offshore Oil&Gas Industry

20 INCOSE 2012: modeFRONTIER supports implementation and validation steps in systems engineering

22 ADVENTURECluster: An innovative structural analysis software for super large scale models

26 PlanetsX: The Injection Molding CAE System fully embedded in ANSYS Workbench

28 Magnetic Simulation of Toroidal Inductor using Simpleware and JMAG®

30 Internal communications management with LIONsolver

32 Data modelling: using Radial Basis Functions in Scilab

34 Benimpact Suite: A tool for ZEB Performance Assessment

40 ESASIM Project on Electromagnetic Sensors/Actuators SIMulation

43 Nuova Feature in ESAComp

44 Progettazione navale: intervista a Massimo Verme della Verme Projects

46 EnginSoft Network News from France

47 Il “Forge Italian Team” è presente a Cannes per lo Users’ Meeting 2012 di Transvalor

Sommario - Contents

The EnginSoft Newsletter editions contain references to the following products which

are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners:

ANSYS, ANSYS Workbench, AUTODYN, CFX, FLUENT and any and all ANSYS, Inc. brand,product, service and feature names, logos and slogans are registered trademarks or trade-marks of ANSYS, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries. [ICEM CFDis a trademark used by ANSYS, Inc. under license]. (www.ansys.com)

modeFRONTIER is a trademark of ESTECO srl (www.esteco.com)

Flowmaster is a registered trademark of Menthor Graphics in the USA.

(www.flowmaster.com)

MAGMASOFT is a trademark of MAGMA GmbH. (www.magmasoft.de)

Forge and Coldform are trademarks of Transvalor S.A. (www.transvalor.com)

LS-DYNA is a trademark of Livermore Software Technology Corporation. (www.lstc.com)

SCULPTOR is a trademark of Optimal Solutions Software, LLC (www.optimalsolutions.us)

Grapheur is a product of Reactive Search SrL, a partner of EnginSoft(www.grapheur.com)

For more information, please contact the Editorial Team

CAE WORLD

Contents

4 - Newsletter EnginSoft Year 9 n°3

CASE STUDIES

SOFTWARE UPDATE

RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

INTERVIEW

ENGINSOFT NETWORK

EVENTS

Newsletter EnginSoftYear 9 n°3 - Autumn 2012To receive a free copy of the next EnginSoftNewsletters, please contact our Marketing office at:[email protected] pictures are protected by copyright. Any reproductionof these pictures in any media and by any means is forbidden unless written authorization by EnginSoft hasbeen obtained beforehand.©Copyright EnginSoft Newsletter.

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www.enginsoft.it - www.enginsoft.come-mail: [email protected]

COMPANY INTERESTSESTECO srlwww.esteco.comCONSORZIO TCN www.consorziotcn.it • www.improve.it

EnginSoft GmbH - GermanyEnginSoft UK - United KingdomEnginSoft France - FranceEnginSoft Nordic - SwedenAperio Tecnologia en Ingenieria - Spainwww.enginsoft.com

Cascade Technologieswww.cascadetechnologies.comReactive Search www.reactive-search.comSimNumericawww.simnumerica.itM3E Mathematical Methods and Models for Engineeringwww.m3eweb.it

ASSOCIATION INTERESTSNAFEMS Internationalwww.nafems.it • www.nafems.orgTechNet Alliancewww.technet-alliance.com

RESPONSIBLE DIRECTORStefano Odorizzi - [email protected]

PRINTINGGrafiche Dal Piaz - TrentoThe EnginSoft NEWSLETTER is a quarterly magazine published by EnginSoft SpA Au

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48 Over 200 engineers joined the online EASIT2 project webinar titled“New Tools for Competence Development, Management andRecognition in Engineering Analysis and Simulation”

54 International CAE Conference - Program Overview

60 Silvio Garattini al “Poster Award” promosso da EnginSoft nell’ambito dell’International CAE Conference

61 Contributo scientifico di EnginSoft alla Giornata di Studio sullaPressocolata

61 EnginSoft al Congresso Internazionale “Aluminium Two Thousand”

61 EnginSoft al Convegno AIM di Trento

62 Event Calendar

PAGE 8 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS OF OFFSHORESTRUCTURES AND INSPECTION PLANNING

PAGE 44 PROGETTAZIONE NAVALE: INTERVISTA A MASSIMO VERME DELLAVERME PROJECTS

Contents


PAGE 6 APPLICAZIONI CAE PER LE VALVOLENEL SETTORE OIL&GAS

RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

INTERNATIONAL CAE CONFERENCE

EVENTS&NEWS


CAE world

Le valvole, organi meccanici diffusi in tutti i settoriingegneristici, sono in particolare componenti fondamentalinel campo impiantistico dell’oil&gas, petrolchimico edenergetico.Adibite all’intercettazione e regolazione del flusso di fluidipotenzialmente pericolosi, spesso in condizioni ambientalied operative critiche, richiedono ai produttori unaprogettazione che assicuri i massimi livelli di affidabilità edurabilità con un livello di manutenzione per quantopossibile ridotto.Poter assicurare un elevato livello qualitativo è dunque unvantaggio competitivo a cui gli strumenti di prototipazionevirtuale (CAE) contribuiscono in modo fondamentale.Le applicazioni del CAE sono svariate e coinvolgono siaaspetti strutturali legati alla resistenza e correttafunzionalità e durabilità del prodotto che di ottimizzazionefluidodinamica rispetto a dissipazioni e rumorosità.Più specificamente, l’analisi strutturale permette di

dimensionare, accuratamente e nel rispetto dei requisitinormativi, corpi e coperchi rispetto alle principali condizionioperative, generalmente governate dai carichi di pressioneinterna e da coazioni di origine termica.Il dimensionamento ottimizzato, rispetto a quelloconservativo offerto da un approccio convenzionale “byrules”, consente, in particolare su valvole di grossedimensioni ed elevato rating, consistenti riduzioni di pesocon evidenti benefici sia sui costi diretti di materiale cheindiretti di lavorazione, trasporto ed installazione.Le simulazioni traggono notevoli benefici dalla possibilità dipoter operare direttamente sulla geometria CAD riducendo lanecessità di semplificazioni geometriche e di ipotesi dimodellazione a tutto vantaggio dell’accuratezza delleprevisioni.Accanto a valutazioni di tipo “globale” come quelle sopraaccennate, le tecniche numeriche permettono di indagare inmodo accurato anche aspetti “locali” altrettantofondamentali per garantire il successo della progettazione.Un aspetto basilare, connaturato alla finalità del prodotto, èla verifica delle tenute; l’esempio più classico è ildimensionamento degli accoppiamenti seggio-sfera in cui èpossibile affinare il profilo dei seggi, e conseguentemente la

Applicazioni CAE per leValvole nel settoreOil&Gas

Fig. 1 – Simulazione di un contatto seggio-sfera

Fig. 2 - Mesh di una valvola gate


CAE world

loro rigidezza, in modo tale da assicurare ovunque lacondizione di contatto e reazione adeguata ad assicurare latenuta.In questo tipo di valutazioni è fondamentale accedere adalgoritmi di simulazione non banali -perché caratterizzati dadiversi aspetti non lineari- che devono risultare robusti edefficienti per mantenere i tempi di simulazione compatibili

con le tempistiche della progettazione. Altri aspetti che sonoanalizzati riguardano verifiche deformative rispetto a giochie tolleranze disponibili, l’ottimizzazione dei valori diserraggio degli accoppiamenti flangiati, la verificadell’adeguato dimensionamento degli organi collegati aimeccanismi di attuazione che devono poter trasferire lecoppie di manovra. Anche le analisi Fluidodinamiche (CFD – Computational FluidDynamics) sono utilizzate in svariate applicazioni: le piùcomuni riguardano la valutazione di parametri di prestazionequali caduta di pressione e il coefficiente di pressione cv.Altre simulazioni sono dedicate all’ottimizzazione di layoutrispetto all’instaurarsi di fenomeni di turbolenza e dellarumorosità da essa generata, o di cavitazione o, ancora, allaricerca della posizione di equilibrio di organi sotto l’azionedel flusso fluido (es. valvole swing check) dove le simulazionitraggono ulteriori vantaggi dalla possibilità di interazione

con il calcolo strutturale (FSI- Fluid Structure Interaction)permettendo l’analisi di fenomeni dinamici quali la chiusuraimpulsiva della valvola generata da rottura della linea. Come per il caso strutturale l’efficacia delle tecnichenumeriche è recentemente aumentata grazie al notevoleimpulso ricevuto dalla disponibilità di ambienti di lavoro checombinano facilità operative ed estrema efficienza numerica(es. disponibilità di solutori paralleli e ad alte prestazioni).Le applicazioni sopra citate rappresentano alcuni esempi diquelle su cui EnginSoft ha sviluppato una notevole attività diingegneria e trasferimento tecnologico verso numerosiproduttori italiani. Grazie alla pluriennale esperienzaacquisita, EnginSoft si candida quindi come partner per tuttele aziende che intenzionate ad affinare il livello della propriaprogettazione intendano ricorrere alla prototipazione virtualepotendo fornire oltre ad attività di ingegneria anche latecnologia di simulazione leader nel settore (ANSYS) e tuttele attività di formazione e di trasferimento di tecnologie disimulazione consolidate e validate.

Per ulteriori informazioni:Sergio Sarti - [email protected]

Fig. 3 - Modello FEA di Glifo per attuatore valvola

Fig. 4 - Analisi CFD di un otturatore per valvole di controllo

Fig. 5 - Visualizzazione linee di flusso – Analisi CFD

Fig. 6 - Sollecitazioni calcolate sul corpo di una valvola top-entry – FEM Analysis


Case Studies

The need for risk assessment and reliability criteria isbecoming the major requirement for offshore structures,where probabilistic analyses are achieving progressivelygreater importance.

EnginSoft, always committed in research and training, iscollaborating with Padua University on the reliabilityanalysis of offshore structures, including the support of aPhD. grant within the Industrial Engineering Department.Typical offshore platform components include “steeljackets” (those parts of the structure immersed in water)and “topside components” (those parts above water).Within this assembly, the most critical elements are thewelded tubular connections. The main objective of the research project lies in thedevelopment of routines to assess structural reliabilitybased on unambiguous and scientifically-recognisedcriteria, with a view to the accurate quantification ofoperational life and the planning of appropriateinspection protocols.

The aforementioned issues deal with probabilisticstructural design field, where both loads (dependent onwave and wind forces) and geometrical parameters andmaterials resistances are described in terms of stochasticquantities. To cope with this type of problems it isnecessary to make use of specific regulations whichdescribe the random nature of the problem. Thesestandards(based on the LRFD approach described below)have been developed according to a probabilistic logicand provide a valuable tool for the verification of thestructural components, ensuring predetermined reliabilitylevels. Within the research project, the concept of thereliability of a single component has been reviewed and

the process further developedto address systems levelperformance. The principal Operations Research strategieshave then been implemented to identify the dominantfailure modes of the structure. Finally, these issues ahvebeen reviewed in the context of inspection planning, withthe ultimate aim of increasing system safety and reducingthe costs connected with offshore structures constructionand maintenance.

WSD and LRFD StandadsThe design approach of the structures in general and thosewhich, in particular, work and live in the offshoreenvironment, is governed by two distinct designphilosophies, identifiable in WSD approach (WorkingStress Design) and LRFD approach (Loading and ResistanceFactor Design).

The first methodology considers the combined effect ofthe forces acting on the component or on the structure,reducing, by a factor of safety Ω, the ultimate resistanceRn of the member in such a way that the state of resultingeffort is comparable with a reference limit (allowablestress) below the yield point of the material. Althoughthis is a relatively simple method, there is no universalmethod for determining the coefficient Ω, which is mainlybased on past experience and on the need to remain 'far-away' from the materials performance limits.

Otherwise, the LRFD approach provides a more rational andrigorous design alternative. According to thismethodology, the overall effect of the load combinationacting on a member is determined by amplifying thecharacteristic value of each load with a load factor γS,that depends on the load type and the likelihood that

Reliability Analysis of Offshore Structures andInspection Planning


Case Studies

more loads are present simultaneously. Thus, the overalleffect is maintained below a certain reference value,related to the ratio between the nominal resistance(characteristic value) Rn and the resistance factor γR (seeFig.1)

Through the introduction of the load and resistancefactors, the uncertainties resulting from applied loads andthose related to the resistance characteristics of themember are treated separately. These coefficients aredetermined in a semi-probabilistic way, through aprocedure known as "design code calibration" (or also"calibration of partial safety factor").

Conversely, the WSD approach is largely dominated by thedeterministic philosophy, whose intrinsic characteristic isthe presence of high safety factors, with consequentoversizing and high associated costs of realization.Moreover, the determination of Ω based on the behaviorof existing structures can lead to the adoption ofinappropriate or even obsolete solutions for newgeneration structures, thus representing a potentialsource of danger.

Hence the development of a branch of civil engineeringbased on probabilistic codes, known as “structuralreliability analysis”. It is particularly important to developthis approach for structures whichoperate in highly random environments,and especially so where their failuremight have serious repercussions forsecurity, cost and the environment.Offshore structures are thereforeexemplary candidates for such ananalysis approach.

Component Reliability AnalysisEnsuring the high performance of anoffshore structure requires its

verification for safety and serviceability withrespect to limit state criteria. The term"serviceability” refers to all those issues(vibration, deformation, etc.) that reduce systemperformance but do not represent a securitythreat. The term “safety” refers to the absence ofcollapse or damage in the structure. Safetyisensured by applying design criteria defined bylimit state equations for ultimate failure andfatigue.

Introducing an Ultimate Limit State function,g(X), as the difference between the resistance R ofthe member and the stress (or loads combination)S acting on the member (in other words, g(X) = R-S), it is possible to see that the component is safewhen g(X)> 0. Thus, the probability of failure Pf isequal to the area subtended by the distribution of

g(X) for values less than zero (see Fig.2). Given the jointprobability density function fR,S(r,s), the probability offailure Pf is defined by the following expression:

Otherwise, the reliability R is defined as the probability ofthe resistance being greater than the applied stress. Inthe hypothesis of independence between R and S thefollowing well-known formula can be derived:

The difficulties associated with the calculation of Pf arenumerous. Generally, the limit function g(X) is a nonlinearfunction of X and consequently the domain of integrationg(X)<0 is not linear either. Moreover, in real problems, thenumber of random variables involved is high, so that amultidimensional integration is required, which may havea high computational cost. To overcome this issuenumerous methods have been developed for theapproximate calculation of Pf. Of these, the "First OrderReliability Method" (FORM) is the most frequently used.The FORM method operates in the U-space of uncorrelatedstandard normal variables, obtained through the

Fig. 1 - Difference between WSD and LRFD standards.

Fig. 2 - Probability density functions relative to material resistance, stress in the member and theirdifference, i.e. the ultimate limit state function.


Case Studies

Rosenblatt transformation of the original X-space, asillustrated in Fig.3. The reliability is then calculated bylinearizing the limit state curve in the neighborhood ofthe most probable point (MPP, see Fig.4) and using thefollowing analytical solution for linear limit functions:

R=Φ(β)

where β is the reliability index, defined as the distance ofthe MPP from the U-space origin, i.e. the minimumdistance of the curve g(U)=0 from the origin.Consequently, the calculation of R is reduced to aminimum optimization problem (HLFR algorithm, seeFig.5).

Fatifue Analysis of Tubular Welded JointsThe aforementioned Ultimate Limit Strength criteria canbe applied to the study of the fatigue failure of acomponent. In the present case the component is awelded tubular joint.

In a steel jacket type platform, tubularjoints connect the main elements of thestructure (bracing and legs) and represent,as always, the critical factor in relation tothe fatigue behavior. As for the latter, it hasa significant impact in all structurescharacterized by persistent and extremedynamic loads (North Sea), or when thereare no dominant high load design eventssuch as hurricanes or typhoons (ArabianGulf, West Africa).

The importance of fatigue as a key designconsideration has been emphasised by theincreasing use of higher strength steels andwelded connections. In the earlier offshoreplatforms, steel strengths were low and the

connection were riveted or bolted. These resulted inlarger member cross-sections, highly redundantconnections and lower cyclic stress. Since the fatiguestrength of steel is not strongly correlated with itsyield strength, fatigue was a lesser problem for themembers and connections in such structures. This isnot the case with more recent platforms that usesteel yield strengths as high as 700 MPa Such designstypically deploy smaller member cross-sections andare inherently more vulnerable to fatigue failure.

Limit State Criteria are based on experimental datacharacterising SN-curves, and on the Miner-Palmgrenhypothesis (the linearity of cumulative damage):

where Δ describes the damage at fatigue failure; D isthe cumulated damage up to the actual time t and it

is defined by the ratios between the stress cycles numbern with amplitude si applied to the member, and the stresscycles number N with the same amplitude needed to leadit to failure.

Instead of the SN-curve approach (Miner's rule) a fracturemechanics approach (Paris' law) needs to be adopted toassess more accurately the different stages of crackgrowth, including the calculation of residual fatigue lifebeyond through-thickness cracking.

The above expression defines the difference between thecrack growth from ao to ac (resistance), and the crackgrowth corresponding to a number of cycles No to N (loadeffect). These terms depend on the following parameters:• Y(a) is the crack geometry function;• C and m are material parameters;

Fig. 4 - Graphical representation of the reliabilityindex.

Fig. 5 - Hasofer-Lind and Rackwitz-Fiessler (HLFR) algorithm

Fig. 3 - Space of uncorrelated standard normal variables: Rosenblatt transformation

• v0 is the average stress cycle frequency, so that v0(t-t0)=N-N0;

• is the expected value of the long-term stress range, from which the function G(a)depends and the major uncertainties are related to.

It is crucial that the fracture mechanics approach iscalibrated to the SN-approach for the initial stage of thefatigue life, to ensure that the initial crack size and thelocal geometry are properly represented.

Generally, while the fracture mechanics approach is usedfor inspection planning, the S/N approach is used for thestandard fatigue analysis of tubular joints, which involvesthe following steps:1. Prediction of the fatigue design wave parameters and

their likelihood of occurrence (see Table 1)2. Calculation of the nominal cyclic stress ranges and

number of cycles at the brace ends

3. Calculation of the stress concentration factors (SCF)and the hot-spot stresses range (HSSR)

4. Selection of the applicable s-n fatigue design curve5. Calculation of the fatigue damage ratio (miners fatigue

damage ratio)6. Demonstration

System Reliability Analysis and Failure Modes IdentificationThe main applications of structural reliability analysis canbe summarized as follows:• Optimization of design solutions, e.g. the fatigue life

factor can be estimated and combined with the fre-quency of in-service inspections so that an expectedlifetime cost is minimized. See Fig.6.

• Reliability updating of a structure based on new infor-mation obtained during the service life. In this con-text, reliability methods can also be an efficient toolfor assessment of lifetime extensions of structuresbeyond their original design lives.

• Inspection planning at the design stage. Here, the pro-bability of a fatigue crack is linked to the probabilityof detecting a crack in a considered structural detail.Reliability methods are used to estimate the time tofirst inspection and to determine the interval betweensubsequent inspections.

The structural system reliability analysis plays a crucialrole in each of the aforementioned applications. For astructure with a high degree of redundancy, the failuremode approach is used to evaluate system reliability. Thatis, all the potential failure modes (mechanisms) in astructure are modeled as elements of a series system (MCS,Minimum Cut Sets representation). See Fig.7.

An offshore structure has numerous failure modes, butonly some of them actually contribute to the systemreliability, while others have very low probability ofoccurrence. Depending on the complexity of the structureand the accuracy required, several methods have beendeveloped for the identification of the dominant modes,which can be divided into three basic categories:1. Simulation-based approaches (directional simulation)2. Plasticity-based approaches (β-unzipping method and

linear programming)

Table 1 - Two-dimensional scatter diagram for significant wave heights andzero crossing periods: P(Hm,Tn).


Case Studies

Fig. 7 - Minimum cut set representation of a system with three failure modes.

Fig. 6 - Sample modeFRONTIER workflow for multi-objective optimization


Case Studies

3. Enumeration approaches (branch and bound methodand incremental loading method)

The branch and bound is the most commonly used methodin the offshore field. See Fig.8-9.

The branch and bound method uses a probabilisticresearch algorithm for the identification of failure paths,i.e. the failure paths are enumerated depending on theirprobability of occurrence. In the process of pathenumeration, many paths have common elements and arehighly correlated.

For the above reasons, the branch and bound method,although theoretically rigorous, is very expensive for largestructures. To speed up the search, various deterministicapproaches are used (incremental techniques and plasticmechanisms analysis), by replacing the random variablesof stress and resistance by their characteristic values.

These methods are faster, but do not ensure theeffective identification of all probabilisticallydominant modes. To combine the demand of accuracyand computational efficiency, research undertaken inthe last decade has addressed the use of geneticalgorithms.

Reliability Updating and Inspection PlanningAlthough the main application of reliability basedmethods has been in requalification of existingoffshore structures, it is also feasible to applyfatigue reliability analysis at the design stage tooptimize inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR)strategies by using an event tree procedure (event 1= “crack detection and repair”, event 0 = “no crackdetection”, see Fig.10).

Given the inspection event IE, the fatigue failureprobability of a joint can be updated based on thedefinition of the conditional probability,

where g(t) is the fatigue limit function according to Paris’law.

The inspection event IE is defined by an expression similarto that of g(t), where the upper limit of integration ac inthe resistance term is replaced by the minimum detectablecrack size aD, and the lower limit depends on the repairshistory, as shown in Table 2.

This definition implies that IE is positive when the cracksize developed up to the time of inspection is smaller thanaD, thus, the event IND = IE>0 means "no crack detection"while the complementary event ID = IE<0 stands for"crack detection and repair".

The fatigue failure probability of a joint can beevaluated using the law of total probability; e.g.referring to Fig. 10, the probability of failure fortime T1<t<T2 is given as follows:

To perform an inspection implies the reduction ofthe uncertainty associated with the knowledge ofthe system. In mathematical terms, this fact isreflected in Fig.11 by an increase of the index ofreliability β both in the case of in-serviceinspection (green curves), and in the case ofinspection planning at the design stage (redcurve).

Fig. 8 - Truncated enumeration of dominant failuremodes through branch and bound method.

Fig. 9 Dominant failuremodes in a steel jacket.

Fig. 10 - Fig. 10 . Inspection and repair strategy for event tree analysis considering 4consecutive inspections with a frequency of 4 years []

Although the latter case has a smaller effect on thedamage curve, it plays an important role in reducing theconstruction costs. In Fig.12 is shown the effect ofinspection planning at the design stage on the reliabilityindex trend: the design solution given by red curvesatisfies the constraint on the allowable cumulativedamage (Δd = 0.1), despite the member is the result of anon-conservative design (it is designed to reach acumulative damage Δd = 0.2 if no inspections are carriedout). This results in a lower cost design.

Reliability updating and inspection planning cannot bedivorced from system reliability analysis, as the failure ofredundant offshore structures may result in a sequence ofoverload or fatigue failures of components. Since theupdating of systems reliability by inspection events mayimply lengthy calculations, simplifications should beimplemented, e.g. by updating the failure probability ofnon-inspected joints based on results of inspected joints.

This simplification is justified due to correlation betweenjoints in complex systems, which implies similarities inload effects and resistance among the components. Thusupdating the reliability of non-inspected joints may becarried out by utilizing inspection results from inspectedjoints and so the overall system reliability may be updatedaccordingly.

Conclusions and Future ResearchThe concept of component reliability was introduced asthe cornerstone of the reliability assessment of the entiresystem. In particular, its importance was emphasized withreference to the issue of inspection planning. Work isunderway to implement operations research strategies toidentify the dominant failure modes in the structure (e.g.branch and bound) and incorporate, within thesemethodologies, numerical procedures for the efficientprobabilistic assessment of reliability (eg. FORM).

This code will be fully developed in Scilab and integratedinto a routine to calculate the reliability of offshorestructures, based on their stress responses computed bythe Ansys ASAS software, linked to the optimisation ofinspection planning through the modeFRONTIER softwaretool.

M.N. CocconU. Galvanetto

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università di Padova - Italy

Per ulteriori informazioni:Livio Furlan, EnginSoft

[email protected]

Fig. 11 - Reliability updating of a tubular joint considering 1, 2, 3 and 4inspections with no crack found carried out at 4, 8, 12 and 16 years,respectively, compared with updating through event tree analysis

Fig. 12 - The allowable cumulative damage Δd in design can be relaxedwhen inspections are carried out: the target level Δd=0.1 with noinspections can be reached by a Δd=0.2 when inspections are carried outevery fourth year.


Case Studies

Table 2 Integral limits in fatigue limit function and IE function for the eventtree defined in Fig.10


Case Studies

Advances in simulation tools provide engineers and materialscientists the opportunity to streamline the computationaldesign of complex composite materials and parts. For examplethey stand to benefit from the integration of optimization andmaterial modelling software, such as modeFRONTIER andDIGIMAT. DIGIMAT is a non-linear multi-scale material andstructure modelling platform. Based on the materialmicrostructure, it predicts the non-linear constitutivebehaviour of multiphase composite materials. It providesinterfaces to processing software and FE solvers and enablescoupled analyses giving a realistic picture of the finalperformance of composite parts. For advanced studies, such asdealing with the material anisotropy, temperature and strainrate dependency or creep, such coupled analyses can becomechallenging to setup. These are efficiently designed thanks tothe integration with modeFRONTIER and its powerfuloptimization algorithms. Indeed modeFRONTIER together withDIGIMAT offers parametric optimization at different levels.First it drives the modulation of the required material modelstowards a desired optimum macroscopic response such asillustrated in the present article for the composition of amultiphase polymer composite. Secondly, it enables fitting ofmaterial models to experimental data. Furthermore, it couldtackle the parameterization of the coupled analyses such asstructural models. Finally, it could bring the processing stepinto the loop so that the processing parameters themselvesbecome design variables for theperformance of the final part. The linkbetween DIGIMAT and modeFRONTIER thusadvances the integration of computationalmaterial engineering and engineeringdesign, supporting collaboration andfaster development times.

IntroductionComposite materials are of ever increasingimportance in a huge range ofapplications. Among others, reinforcedplastics replace metal designs as theywere used in the past, targeting therequest to build lightweight structures, acommon driver. Hence they are used inmany industries including automotive and

aerospace. However they exhibit highly complex materialbehaviours imposing the assessment of various partperformances for the composite design. Covering performancesmeans to describe properly the stiffness and failure ofcomposites in static and dynamic load cases. Even fatigue as atopic meets increasing demand in order to approximate thelifetime of the final design.

The complex performance assessment of composite parts is dueto the influence of the underlying microstructure of thecomposite material. The microstructure causes anisotropic andlocally different material behaviour. A strong dependency onthe processing conditions is observed. Commonly, the materialresponse is non-linear as well as temperature and strain ratedependent. Hence each composite exhibits its own challengingbehaviour and needs individual treatment for its description ina computational approach.

Computational modelling of composite materialsMathematical and computer simulation models of compositesdate back many years, see for example the work by Fricke in1924 (Fricke, H. A mathematical treatment of the electricconductivity and capacity of disperse systems. Phys. Rev. 24,575-587). In this context the so-called mean-fieldhomogenization approaches have been key to effectivemodelling for these materials. At the same time, the molecular

Optimised Workflows for Composite Design

Improving the efficiency of complex material design and optimization, increasing the performance of composite parts and tuning the final property profile

Fig. 1 - Principle approach of material modelling in the Digimat-MF module. Mean-field homogenization isused to compute the non-linear response of multi-phase composite materials in terms of mean values. Agreat advantage of this technology is the enormous speed of the computation which allows to use itdirectly as a material model to compute properties on-the-fly. The resulting material model is fullyanisotropic.


Case Studies

and materials modellingcommunity developed moreexplicit models ofcomposites, in particular inthe context of the emergentnano-composites.

However, for a long timethere was limited industrialimpact largely due to a lackof a consistently integratedapproach. Explicit finiteelement models ofcomposites are expensive computationally, and more efficientmethods like the above mentioned mean-field approaches werenot integrated into CAE workflows. Also, the methods andfunctionalities offered within CAE packages do not take theintricacies of the materials into account. In particular, manyindustrially interesting composite materials are reinforcedplastics, and thus are based on some polymer matrix. Polymersare typically non-linear, visco-elastic/plastic materials, i.e.have complex response behaviour.

A breakthrough for industrial applications was achievedthrough the development of mean-field homogenization in acommercially available context and the dedication of thisapproach to its application on polymer composites. Roughlyten years ago, the founders of e-Xstream engineering decidedto develop the software DIGIMAT, which today provides anintegrated strategy towards multi-scale material modelling.This includes the prediction of macroscale compositeperformance from the microscopic level based either on explicitfinite element calculations or mean-field approaches andenables the design of composite parts by connecting tostandard CAE packages. Local microstructure effects on thecomposite properties are taken into account by coupling toresults delivered by processing software, nowadays covering

more and more technologies. In the past the emphasis was onshort fibre reinforced plastics and injection moulding. Todaydraping of unidirectional and woven composites orcompression and injection-compression moulding for short andlong fibre reinforced materials can be taken into account, andeven exotic technologies such as the microcellular plastic foamMuCell can be covered.

In the context of the proposed workflows, we focus on theDigimat-MF and Digimat-FE solvers which enable the predictionof composite properties based on separate per-phase input formatrix and fillers combined with information about thematerial microstructure (shape, amount and orientation offillers), see also Figure 1. Among a broad range of results thatcan be output are per-phase micro-stresses and strains formatrix and fillers as well as the macroscopic response of thecomposite material. Typically, the per-phase input is obtainedby reverse engineering these material properties based onanisotropic measurements on the composite of interest.

A multidisciplinary design optimization for the modellingof composite materials and structuresEngineers and scientists aiming to determine the bestmaterials choice for a particular application encounterdifferent tasks that benefit from an integrated optimizationapproach along their workflow, leading to a trulymultidisciplinary approach to engineering design. In thedesign of complex and tightly integrated engineering productsit is essential to be able to handle cross couplings andsynergies between different subsystems. Hence it is necessaryto combine models from several disciplines in order to obtaina holistic view of the system. Furthermore, to achieve anoptimal design, the product must be treated as a completesystem instead of developing subsystems independently. Toeffectively design and develop such products, efficient toolsand methods for integrated and automated design are neededthroughout the development process. Multidisciplinary designoptimization (MDO) is a promising technique that has thepotential to drastically improve such a concurrent design.modeFRONTIER provides built-in capabilities that naturallydrive the engineering design towards an MDO-based approach.MDO with DIGIMAT potentially includes coupling to the micro-and macroscale solvers available in DIGIMAT. In the context ofcomposite material modelling in particular, three importantscenarios can be devised for the integration between DIGIMATand modeFRONTIER:

1. Integration of Digimat-MF

Digimat-MF integration enables two subsets of cases to be studied

o Parametric studies of multi-component compositesFor a given composite material, parameter studies enableto find the optimal design in terms of its constitution (e.g.type & amount of fillers). Different kind of performancescan be defined as a target for such an optimization (e.g.stiffness, thermal properties, …)

Fig. 2 - Micrograph of glass bead andfibre composite. Copyright of Sovitec &e-Xstream engineering I All rightsreserved.

Fig. 3 - Case study for material design from collaboration between e-Xstreamengineering and Sovitec. Digimat-MF stress/strain results are shown togetherwith in-depth studies about the stress distribution based on Digimat-FE. Theobjective was to replace glass fibres (GF) by glass beads (GB) in apolyamide-based composite material. Targets were stiffness response alongand transverse to the main fibre direction together with improvements in thefailure and thermal anisotropy of the material. Among other benefits, theintroduction of the new optimised material led to a reduction of 20% inprice and 29% in cycle time per produced part. Copyright of Sovitec & e-Xstream engineering I All rights reserved.


Case Studies

o Reverse engineering (RE) of materials modelsThe quality of results of a coupled analysis stronglydepends on the quality of the material model used. Bestprocedures are to reverse engineer the material model toanisotropic measurements on the composite material.Depending on the targeted performance, a large number ofexperimental results have to be taken into account. Foranisotropy, it is common to measure at least 2-3 differentorientations. For temperature and strain rate dependencies,3 variations each can be seen as a minimum. Combining allthese easily increases the number of curves targeted in thefinal model.

2. Integration of Digimat-FEDigimat-FE interacts with CAE software (e.g. ANSYSWorkbench, Abaqus) as driver and solver, so this case wouldallow for optimization with a wide range of potentiallycomplex target functions regarding the material properties(e.g. stress distribution in different phases of thematerial).

3. Integration of Digimat-CAEDigimat-CAE integration can be used to enhance thereverse engineering approach. Whereas Digimat-MFperforms RE on the level of the material (integration)point, it can be also thought of doing the RE procedure onthe level of the test specimen, setting up the full testscenario in a structural FE analysis. This can be

advantageous if for example bending is the targetedperformance. Bending can per-se not be computed onone material point.

In addition, with the MDO approach an enhancement tothe processing and local microstructure workflow ispossible where the solver of the processing software istriggered to produce these results on-the-fly. Theoptimization dimensions are henceforth broadened bytaking into account directly the processing conditionsfor the composite part. However, this latter approach isvery demanding in terms of computational effort and willprobably only be used in some individual cases.

Application to the optimization of a multiphase polymer composite ESTECO and e-Xstream are closely collaborating on theimplementation of the MDO approach to create synergiesfor the design of composite materials (parametricstudies) and the application of reverse engineering incomplex scenarios (based on the Digmat-MF approach). In the following, some applied example of MDO materialdesign will be presented. It concerns the parametric,multi-objective optimization of a multiphase material,following a published case study by e-Xstream and theSovitec company on glass bead and fibre filled nylon. Atypical micrograph showing the glass beads and fibresexposed in the composite is shown in Figure 2.The aim of this case is to screen the properties of a

composite with at least two fillers, e.g. to see whether a givenfiller could be substituted at least partially by a cheaperoption. A specific example is the substitution of glass fibrefillers by glass beads. The case was previously studied usingDigimat-MF and Digimat-FE by e-Xstream and the glass-beadmanufacturer Sovitec.

The aim was to replace a fraction of the glass fibre fillers in apolymer composite by glass beads. This would not only lowerthe price, but also improve a range of other properties such aslower the thermal anisotropy and improve processing (cycletime and durability of the processing tools), while retaining anacceptable modulus and strength (compare to Figure 3).The key variables are the mass fractions of glass beads andglass fibres. The objective functions of the study includedretaining a high stiffness while lowering thermal anisotropy.While a full investigation of all of the potential objectivefunctions was beyond the scope of the current project, theintegration of Digimat-MF with modeFRONTIER was shown tobe very straightforward, and a trade-off optimization has beendemonstrated.

The basic workflow is very straightforward as shown in Figure4. Digimat-MF is run from a command line script inside ofmodeFRONTIER. The composite response under uni-axial strainis calculated for a range of material compositions, given byvariations of the mass fraction of glass beads relative to fibreswhile keeping the total constant at 30%.

Fig. 4 - modeFRONTIER workflow, integrating Digimat-MF to determine the trade-offbetween different properties as a result of variations in the material composition interms of the mass fraction of glass beads and fibres. The total amount of inclusions iskept constant, and the workflow objectives are to minimize thermal anisotropy whilemaximizing stiffness.


Case Studies

The composition design space is explored by modeFRONTIERusing a Design of Experiment approach (DOE) with GeneticAlgorithm (NSGA-II). The objective function of the workflow isdetermined from the average thermal anisotropies (using theso-called relative anisotropy measure) and stiffness which areread from the DIGIMAT Engineering Constants output file. The replacement of fibres by beads does not necessarily result

in a large loss in stiffness. Figure 5 shows the non-linearresponse behaviour as a function of filler composition whichresults from strain applied in the direction transverse to thefibres. The run indicated by the arrow, replacing 50% of fibresby beads, shows only a 3% loss in the stress levels that can besustained. These conditions and the relatively small loss instiffness are also illustrated in the corresponding Digimat-MFstress-strain curves shown in Figure 6, and correspond wellwith those observed in the previous case study carried out bye-Xstream and Sovitec (compare Figure 3).

In addition, the modeFRONTIER workflows enable a trade-offanalysis between different properties. For example,relationship between thermal anisotropy and stiffness as afunction of the fibre and bead composition is shown in Figure7. Note that in this case the Digimat-MF analysis was run withstrain applied in the direction along to the fibres (rather thantransverse as above). Indicated by the red arrow in Figure 7 isagain the case of equal amount of beads and fibres, showingfor example that the thermal anisotropy is obviously reduced,but only less than linearly. Hence one could conclude thatreplacing 50% fibres by beads retains substantial stiffness, butalso reduces anisotropy by less than half.

Conclusions and outlookThe integration of DIGIMAT with modeFRONTIER provides arange of opportunities for streamlining workflows for thedesign of composites. Several scenarios have been discussedincluding parametric studies of multi-component compositesand reverse engineering of material models, as well asoptimization of a wide range of complex target functions. As acase study, a multi-component composite consisting of apolymer with glass fibre and glass bead fillers has beeninvestigated.

The required Digimat-MF integration in modeFRONTIER provedto be very straightforward, and the parametric studyreproduced the trends observed in a previous, detailed studyvery well. The modeFRONTIER workflow captures the wholedesign space within one range of simulations and the analysisenables the user to consider the trade-off between differenttarget properties. The integration of DIGIMAT withmodeFRONTIER is currently investigated in the framework ofthe second scenario, the reverse-engineering of a materialmodel, which utilises the sophisticated optimization methodsavailable in modeFRONTIER to fit DIGIMAT model responsecurve to experimental data.

Gerhard GoldbeckGoldbeck Consulting Limited

Jan Seyfarth, Benoit Bidainee-Xstream Engineering

Danilo Di StefanoESTECO SpA

Fig. 5 - Transverse strain analysis showing the non-linear behaviour of strength

Fig. 7 - Thermal anisotropy versus the maximum stress as an indicator offailure strength. The bubble size indicates the fraction of glass beads.

Fig. 6 - Stress (Y) versus strain (X) of PA6 polymer filled with glass fibresand glass beads showing in green the case indicated by the arrow in Figure 5.


Case Studies

Surge PressureSurge pressure, (Water Hammer), is animportant design consideration for waterinjection systems in the Offshore Oil and GasIndustry and the following challenges arefrequently encountered:

• High operating pressures are required toinject large volumes of water intohydrocarbon reservoirs, resulting in highsurge pressures, and significant costs areincurred to design a system capable ofwithstanding a high maximum allowablesurge pressure.

• High fluid velocities are often encounteredas operators try to squeeze the maximumperformance from their systems, or whenan existing system has been expanded considerablybeyond its original scope. Higher surge pressures aregenerated when incompressible fluids at high velocitiesare suddenly halted.

• Long Pipelines, which can be several kilometres inlength, are often deployed to connect offshoreplatforms/FPSOs to Subsea water injection equipment.When fluid is halted (e.g. by sudden valve closure)pressure energy is transferred to the pipe wall and apressure wave is sent, at the speed of sound, from oneend of the pipeline to the other. The time it takes forthe pressure wave to reach the opposite end of apipeline is increased with the length of the pipeline;additional fluid flows into the pipeline during this timemust be compressed resulting in increased surgepressure.

In this framework, the use of numerical simulation plays afundamental role; by testing different operating andfailure scenarios at an early design stage it allows toensure safety while avoiding expenses of overly-conservative designs. In particular, the one-dimensionalsystem-level approach provided by Flowmaster iscomprehensive and effective from an engineeringperspective. Indeed, it allows to study pressure surge inthe entire system accounting for complex control systemsin a fast and accurate manner.

Identifying Surge CasesSurge analysis on water injection systems is performed todetermine the maximum pressure surges that can occur asa result of transient events such as rapid valve closureduring pipeline operation, or pump trip and restart

Using Flowmaster to Prevent Pressure Surge for Water Injection Systems in the Offshore Oil&Gas Industry

Flowmaster screenshot of a Topsides water injection system


Case Studies

operations. The first step in any surge analysisis to identify credible cases where surge canarise. For example, closure of a single valve ina complex water injection network is unlikelyto be an issue; however, closure of all wellswhile water injection pumps continue tooperate (e.g. due to malfunction of a facility’sshutdown system) is potentially a seriousconcern.

The role of FlowmasterAfter the surge cases have been identified, thenext step is to build an accurate simulationmodel using Flowmaster. Both the Topsides andSubsea systems need to be considered toensure confidence in any results obtained.Water injection models usually commence atthe de-aerator, which, due to the very briefnature of the transient events can beconsidered to be a constant-head flow source.The water injection pumps and any major fittings aremodelled downstream of the de-aerator. It is critical thatcontrol systems (e.g. minimum flow controllers), safetydevices (e.g. Topsides bursting discs) and shutdownsystems are included as they can have a significant impacton the results.For the Subsea system all the pipelines and wells areincluded. The model usually ends downstream of theinjection trees, or immediately upstream of the reservoir.Choke valves are modelled to control the flow rate to eachwell and the injection wing or master valves are slammedshut to create a surge event. Subsea risers, pipelines andjumpers should be modelled using the elastic pipes optionto improve simulation accuracy.When surge analysis is carried out at an early stage in thedesign of a water injection facility Flowmaster can be usedto predict the maximum surge pressure and this can beused to select system design pressure. For surge analysison an existing system Flowmaster can be used toinvestigate measures to mitigate surge (e.g. extendingvalve closure time) to ensure that the system’s maximumallowable surge pressure is not breached. It is importantthat surge cases considered are realistic otherwiseconsiderable expense may arise due to an overly-conservative design pressure on a new facility, or due tounnecessary modifications to an existing facility.The advantages of using Flowmaster for surge analysisinclude:• The fully elastic behavior of pipelines is accounted for.• Small time steps can be used to accurately simulate

fast-transients.• Simulation times for large models, with many

components and nodes, are relatively fast.• Complex control systems can be utilized including PID

controllers and advanced scripts(e.g. to trip water injection pumps upon detection ofhigh discharge pressure).

Ajmal Zia, Flow Assurance Consultant within the OffshoreOil and Gas industry explains how Flowmaster has beenused for surge analysis of water injection systems, rangingfrom conceptual studies to detailed design.“We recently conducted surge analysis for a Clientinvolving the tie-in of a new drill centre to an existingsystem. The design pressure of the existing water injectionsystem had to be adhered to, but significant changes tothe control system were possible because a new MCS(Master Control Station) was being installed to service thenew drill centre.” explains Ajmal Zia.In all cases, the mitigating measures either eliminatedsurge pressure entirely, or reduced it within acceptablelimits.

“Flowmaster was an indispensable tool on this project. Thesimulations made it possible to quantify the severity ofeach surge case and to assess the effectiveness of eachsolution.” concludes Ajmal Zia, Flow Assurance Engineerwithin the Offshore Oil & Gas industry.

For more information:Alberto Deponti - [email protected]

Pressure Vs Time for Umbilical Failure Case

Learn more about Flowmaster at theFlowmaster European Users' Meeting in theframe of the International CAE Conference(www.caeconference.com). Key-note speakers includeMorgan Jenkins (Mentor Graphics), Stefano Rossin (GEOil&Gas), Marie-Sadako Guelle (EDF France), GaëtanMalardé (DCNS), Javier Zornoza García-Andrade(Iberdola Ingenieria), Morten Kjeldsen (FDB), FellinFrancesco (Consorzio RFX).


Case Studies

modeFRONTIER’s application range has beenfurther expanded to the discipline of SystemsEngineering owing to ESTECO’s participationin the INCOSE Symposium 2012 held in Rome.The International Council on SystemsEngineering (INCOSE) is a not-for-profitmembership organization founded to developand disseminate the interdisciplinaryprinciples and practices that enable therealization of successful systems.Every year INCOSE organizes a challengedealing with a common use case derived froma practical problem to be solved by theparticipants and demonstrated in the exhibit area. This year’schallenge consisted in designing a Permanent EmergencyResponse Coordination Center (PERCC) for wildfires, in chargeof coordinating the Departmental Operation Centers (DOC).The two main expected improvements were to decreaseresponse time and optimize resource allocation.

The solution proposal presented by ESTECO focuses on thebenefits of modeFRONTIER’s integration, automation andoptimization tools for designing of complex systems andtheir deployment.

ContentSystem Engineering is based on a series of organized stepsand procedures. The macro-steps composing this process are"Definition and decomposition" of the problem,"Implementation" of the software/hardware system and"Integration and recomposition" phase, i.e. testing andvalidation.The application of modeFRONTIER proposed for the WildfireEmergency System shows that this multidisciplinary platformcan support both the implementation and the validationsteps of the process.modeFRONTIER supports the emergency management systemat two different levels:

· At sub-system levelConsider a Forest Watch System composed by a networkof towers, each equipped with a thermal camera with a

INCOSE 2012 modeFRONTIER supports implementation andvalidation steps in systems engineering

Fig. 1 - The V-model for the systems engineering process.

Fig. 2 - Interaction between systems and sub-systems diagram


Case Studies

given observation radius and integrated with GPSSatellites. modeFRONTIER can find the best deploymentof the Sensor network in order to maximize Efficiency andminimize Costs. The direct coupling with LabVIEWenables the integration of a number of hardware andsoftware allowing for efficient system management.Another element to be considered at this level are theUnmanned Aerial Vehicles, which are often used tomonitor and report wildfire position and extension.modeFRONTIER can be used to model and optimize UAVmissions under different conditions for the purpose ofcovering efficiently as wide region as possible andprovide valuable information about fire extension andspreading.

· At system levelAt system level modeFRONTIER can be used to enhancethe performance of an Emergency Coordination Center for

wildfires, in charge of coordinating 11departmental operation centers byidentifying the optimal allocation ofresources and minimizing the time for theresources to reach each center.The solution can be arranged as a WebService for PERCC to manage andautomate procedures andcommunications, providing the decisionmakers with a new optimal solutiongenerated each time the systemconfiguration is updated. Multiple services are set up and managed

through a central server in order to collect allinformation about the status of the assetsand to simulate possible scenariosautonomously. Imagine a resource allocationproblem under a massive fire alert occurringsimultaneously in different regions.Optimization is performed every time PERCCreceives an update of the system status (eg.a change of risk level from any DOC on thebasis of the reports of ground squads or waterbombers, a change of resource availabilitydue to holidays/illness/situationalawareness, weather forecast or military/civil

communications, etc.). The model is based on a fixed distance matrix (to computedistances between each DOC center) and on a definition ofinitial resource allocation, which is regularly updated.On the basis of the demand for resources from each DOC (inaccordance with the reports, in particular when crises arise)PERCC uses the Optimization tool to calculate the resourcesthat a given DOC should send to another DOC whichrequested additional units.modeFRONTIER’s capability to easily manage complex multi-objective problems allows finding the optimal allocation ofresources, minimizing the time required for the resources toreach the DOC that requested the units.

ConclusionsThe scenario outlined in this case study shows how theapplication of the modeFRONTIER multidisciplinaryoptimization platform can support both the implementationand the validation steps of a complex system engineering

process. System engineers and domain experts canuse this platform to execute models and check thecompliance with requirements or perform tradestudies throughout the design process. Executablemodels, even at a high level of abstraction, are cost-savers and help discover tricky problems,miscommunication issues, and missing or ambiguousrequirements.

Matteo Nicolich - ESTECO [email protected]

www.esteco.com

Fig. 3 - Service creation diagram

Fig. 4 - Workflow

Fig. 5 - Optimal solution

Software Update

Simulation technologies are becoming more and moreimportant for modern product design and development. Forexample simulation tools are used to predict the formingquality and thus help to significantly reduce productfailures and time for changes in tool and die design.Moreover, simulation tools have a beneficial effect onsearching unpredicted failures when we use new materials.For all these reasons, simulation technologies have becomestandard in today’s product design and developmentprocesses.

However, sometimes we cannot obtain highly accurateresults despite the fact that simulation accuracy hasreached the limit. The reason for this is that there are somegaps between the real physical phenomenon seen in thetools and dies, in the products factory floor and theboundary conditions of the simulations. For instance,originally designed (ideal shape) rigid body modelsare used for tools geometry in forming simulations.However, in fact, an elastic body model should bepreferred if we need higher accuracy results becausethe tools and die also forming machines deformduring operation. The same can be seen in thestructural simulation of the forming products. Thehomogenized material model is typically used as thematerial property for this type of simulation, but thereal forming products sometimes have heterogeneousproperties.

To solve these problems, coupled field analysiscapabilities able to connect manufacturing processsimulation and structural simulation have becomevery important and sought after recently.

The solution for technical problemsThere are 2 reasons because coupled field analysis has notbeen so common until recently. Firstly, the data size ofsimulation results of manufacturing processes is too largeto use for structural analysis. Secondly, the simulation dataexchange between different mesh models is impossible. Inthis article, we suggest ways to overcome scale limitationsand to execute large scale simulations, for example byincluding a mold assembly model within a practical speedby using ADVENTURECluster, a software which can handlesuper large scale models of over 100 million DOF. (Fig.1)

Features of ADVENTUREClusterThe main feature of ADVENTURECluster is its capability tocalculate super large scale analyses with higher speeds.This is realized by its high speed CGCG (Coarse Grid


ADVENTURECluster: An innovative structuralanalysis software for super large scale modelsExamples in manufacturing process simulation

Fig.1 - An example of a large scale mesh model (20million DOF)


Software Update

Conjugate Gradient) solver method, which is especiallysuitable for parallel processing. The CGCG is the originalsolver developed by Allied Engineering Corporation, thevendor of ADVENTURECluster. One of the largest scalesimulation examples of the past was a drop impact analysisof a full mobile phone model with 350 million DOF. Thecalculation time here was about one day using the implicitmethod with the IBM Blue Gene/L8 rack, 8192 nodes, 8192processes. The result was selected as a finalist of the SC06Gordon Bell Prize (which took place in November 2006 inTampa, Florida). Today, this solver is widely used mainly inthe automotive and electrical industries in Japan, becauseof the model size it offers and its overwhelming calculationspeed.

At the same time, coupled field analysis has become moreand more important as structural analysis tasks are gettingmore complex and are applied in wider application areasrecently.To allow engineers to use the analysis results from differentsimulation products for manufacturing processes,ADVENTURE Cluster has added interface capabilities forsome specific products.In the next chapter, we present some examples of highlyaccurate simulations with large scale calculation andcoupled field analysis of plastic molding dies, Fiberreinforced plastic products and press stamping dies usingADVENTURECluster.

Example - Coupled field analysis of plastic molding tools and dieOne of the factors that causes flash or major influence tothe product dimension accuracy in plastic injectionmolding is the deformation of molding dies and formingmachines. When we consider the molding structure, it hasbeen difficult so far to correctly take into account transientphenomena, such as filling pressure, holding condition andtemperature change. However, these problems can besolved if we use coupled field analysis. As a result, itbecomes possible to predict flash generation anddimension accuracy correctly, and to improve the productforming quality. In the following example, we show thesimulation of a relatively large engine cover.

The simulation process is as follows:1) Execute mold analysis to gain the temperature and the

pressure condition for structural analysis, and obtainthe filling pressure and the temperature distribution onthe mold surface for one cycle of the forming process.

2) Define the analysis conditions, such as initialtemperature and mold clamping force to the moldassembly, which represent the structural analysis model.

3) In addition to the definitions above, map the fillingpressure and the temperature distribution on the moldsurface obtained by the mold analysis in a chronologicalorder, so that it can be used as input data for transientthermal and stress analysis for one cycle. (Fig.2)

Using this condition, we evaluated the warping on theentire mold caused by the mold clamping force, and thedeformation on the forming surface by the thermaldeformation and the filling pressure. Fig.3 shows the result,we can see the mapped temperature and pressure and thedeformation by the mold clamping force. By analyzing eachcondition, we can perform the factor analysis. In thepresent case, it has been verified and became clear that thereason of the flash was the mold opening occurred by thepacking pressure.

Example - Coupled field analysis of mold products (Fiber reinforced plastic) In recent years, often plastic products have replaced metalproducts because they are lighter in weight. Along withthis trend, the use of glass/carbon fiber reinforced FRP hasincreased with the aim to strengthen plastic products. Suchcomposite materials have different intensities dependingon the mixture condition of the different materials and thefiber orientations, which leads to new problems, such assledge and residual stress. To simulate correctly and tosolve these problems, it is necessary to consider thematerial properties. They may entail local changes whichmainly depend on the forming conditions with microviewpoint, not on the homogenous material properties thatare commonly used. It is also important to perform qualityevaluations not only for single parts but also for theassembly model. In the present example, we demonstrate ahighly accurate stress analysis by means of a coupled fieldanalysis of a mobile phone model.

The simulation process is as follows:1) Execute the mold analysis to gain the ununiformed

mechanical characteristics and the residual stress. Inthis process, the mold analysis is done for the assemblyparts; this is necessary for the structural analysis.

Fig.2 - Mapping of the temperature and the pressure

Fig.3 - Stress condition inside the molding die (left) and deformation (right)


Software Update

2) Define the analysis conditions such as load, constraintand contact to the mobile phone assembly which isused in the structural analysis.

3) From the result of the mold analysis, map the materialproperties and the residual stresses of each element inaddition to the current definition, (Fig.4).

Using this condition, we have evaluated the influences ofthe fiber orientation and the residual stress on theassembly structural analysis. Fig.5 presents the results,which show the exact difference between the stressdistribution influenced by the fiber orientation and theresidual stress, as well as the stress distribution using theisotropic material. From these results, we can alsounderstand that the history information during themanufacturing process influences the product’s strengthconsiderably because of the fact that the higher stress isfound near the weld line.

Example - Coupled field analysis of press tools and diesAs plastic products have replaced metal products, hightensile steel has replaced mild steel in plastic components.Due to the fact that high tensile steel requires much higher

pressure during the forming process, we are facing the newproblem of tool deflection, which has not been an issuebefore with mild steel forming. Moreover, the accuracy ofthe forming simulation has decreased. When we do acoupled field analysis for such problems, the press formingsimulation considering the entire tool deflection and thedieface deformation, can be analyzed. In this example, weexecute the forming simulation considering the diedeformation by using the draw die of an automobile roofcomponent, and we point out the influence on the resultaccuracy of the forming simulation.

The simulation process is as follows:1) Execute the press forming simulation to obtain the

reaction force from the panel during the formingprocess.

2) In the structural analysis, define the pressure and theconstraint conditions and map the reaction force fromthe panel.

3) Execute the structural analysis to evaluate thedeformation of the dieface during the forming process,(Fig.6).

Using the deformed geometry, we have executed the pressforming simulation again, and evaluated the influence ofthe die deformation on the forming process, Fig.7 presentsthe outcome. With the help of the spring back simulationthat considers the die deformation, we could predict thepanel dent 10 % more accurately. The observance of theentire die deformation helps to predict the impact on the

panel and contributes to improveproduct quality.

Other examplesA similar analysis to what we havedone for plastic molding dies andplastic products can be applied to thecasting process by using a simulationtool like MAGMASOFT developed byFig. 6 - Die deformation at the bottom dead point

Fig. 7 - Difference of the spring back results

Fig.4 - Fiber orientation mapping

Fig.5 - Comparison of stress analysis results

MAGMA in Germany. Following are the results of theanalysis with MAGMASOFT.We also have other coupled field analysis examples fromusing forging simulation tools, such as FORGE (fromTransvalor.S.A, France) and general purpose CFD codes.

ConclusionsIn this article, we have introduced some examples ofcoupled field analysis between manufacturing processsimulation and structural simulation by presenting severaltopics. Without the use of CAE, it would have beenextremely difficult to evaluate the deformation behavior ofthe forming tools during the manufacturing processcorrectly, as they often have large dimensions andcomplicated geometries, and there are limitations as far asthe time to get the results and the simulation softwareitself are concerned.

To solve these problems, ADVENTURECluster providesefficient features for the handling of super large modelsand high speed calculations. ADVENTURECluster managesthe important task to simulate deformation behavior andstress distribution of the entire tool assembly and returnsfeedback to the design and development teams within afixed time frame.

Recent testimonials/examples show that ADVENTUREClusterusers can simulate the tool assembly also consideringdisplacement of forming machines and facilities to obtain

more accurate results. These approaches andthe successes that our customers experiencegrow our expectations to expand thesimulation range and scale ofADVENTURECluster constantly in the nearfuture.

For more information, please contact:SCSK CorporationE-mail: [email protected]://www.scsk.jp/index_en.html

SCSK CorporationWe can integrate the CAE solutions suitable for engineeringmarket. Our solution provides a suite of extensive analyticalresults for various processes, such as casting, forging andinjection molding in a very comprehensive manner. Coupledrespective result obtained with large-scale structural analysissoftware, "ADVENTURECluster", very complex and extensivelarge scale die structure analysis, such as deflection, stressconcentration, fatigue and etc., can be performed in a shorttime. We welcome you at our booth and are ready to provideintensive demonstration and introduction to our suite of CAEsolution. Please stop by our booth at any time.

Fig.8 - Temperature mapping

Fig.9 - Thermal deformation of casting tool and die


Software Update

Fig.10 - Residual stress of the casting product

Fig.11 - The influence from the residual stress

SCSK cordially invites you and your guests tovisit their booth at the International CAEConference on Monday, 22nd and Tuesday 23rd, October2012 in Lazise (VR). www.caeconference.com


Software Update

For the structural analysis of plastic products, it is commonpractice to treat the product material as uniform. During themanufacturing process however, most often, not even aslight non-uniformity can be found due to the resin flow inthe molding step. Typical molding defects such as flowmarks, silver streaks and sink marks, are the most obviousexamples of non-uniformity. Furthermore, also non-uniformities which are not discernible to the eye after themolding, may have an impact on the strength of the finalmolded products. If we want to evaluate this phenomenoncorrectly by using CAE and providing feedback to our productdevelopment, the structural analysis of the material definedas uniform is not sufficient. We will have to apply a structuralanalysis that also takes into account the resin flow history.

However, when we execute such multiphysics analysis ofresin flow and structure, very complicated operations andconsiderable calculation costs are inevitable in most cases.Also today lead time reduction is a crucial factor forcompetitive product development. For these reasons, asimulation tool capable of calculating resin flow andstructural behavior in the same environment, was stronglyrequired, to maintain competitive advantage. To meet thisrequirement, Cybernet Systems Co.,Ltd. whose headquarter isbased in Tokyo, has developed and launched “PlanetsX”, aninjection molding CAE system fully embedded in ANSYSWorkbench.

PlanetsX is an injection molding simulation tool that we canuse in the ANSYS Workbench environment (hereinafter calledWorkbench), the integrated platform of the multiphysicssimulation tool ANSYS. By making simultaneously full use ofthe characteristics of Workbench, its wide range ofcapabilities, easy to use GUI and flexible extensibility,

engineers who startperforming resin flowanalysis can work withPlanetsX easily andefficiently. The key strengthof PlanetsX is that it realizesnot only the consistentsimulation from the resinflow analysis to the warpanalysis, but also thecombination with structuralanalysis considering the flow history. Moreover, the softwaresystem is able to maintain high performance by using eachdifferent solver for resin flow analysis and structural analysis.

PlanetsX: The Injection Molding CAE System fully embedded in ANSYS Workbench

Fig.1 - The PlanetsX operating environment which is fully embedded inANSYS Workbench

Fig.2 - Menu for the injectionmolding analysis added to the ANSYSWorkbench project tree


Software Update

The analysis capabilities of PlanetsX1. Packing/holding/cooling analysis:• Packing pressure, short-shot (consideration about

capability of forming machine)• Gate balance (if there is a problem with the multi gates)• Weld line (if there is a defect in appearance)• Volume shrinkage ratio (in case of shrinkage and sink)• Product weight• Gate seal time (Is the cycle time okay?)

2. Warp analysis:• Evaluation of deformation (warp), stress and distortion

3. Mold and structure interaction analysis:• Deformation and stress by the external force while working• Warp deformation analysis considering contact effect

between mold and resin• Stress relaxation analysis of the viscoelastic material• Mold deformation

4. Mold cooling analysis:Mold temperature, cooling balance

5. Runner wizard:• Runner and gate geometry creationAdditionally, the following 5 optional capabilities areavailable.

6 Fiber orientation analysisPredicting fiber orientation and orientation rate bycalculating the orientation behavior of the reinforced fiberformed by thermal flow during the packing process. Young’smodulus and linear expansion coefficient that varydepending on the fiber orientation result, will be referred tothe warp analysis.

7. Thermosetting reaction analysis:The thermosetting reaction during packing, holding andcooling processes of the thermosetting resin is calculated.

Predicting heat generation and rising of viscosity, andanalyzing thermal flow considering cure shrinkage.

8. Injection press/press forming analysisAnalyzing the process of the injection press and pressforming, during which resin is pressed and packed by movingmold. Generally, the injection press and press formingimprove the formability as the forming pressure is kept downcompared to injection molding. The simulation result is usedto predict the necessary pressure for forming and forchoosing the right resin, and the benefits to consider in casethe expected formability can be obtained.

9. Optical quality analysis:Predicting distributions of surface accuracy, birefringence,optical path difference and refractive index, all these factorsare important for the plastic lens quality. This feature can beused for the prism and light guide panel.

10. Residual flow stress analysis:Predicting the flow stress relaxation process produced by thethermal flow in the packing process with the Leonovviscoelastic model, and evaluating residual flow stress,residual strain and birefringence corresponding to themolecular orientation conditions.

User’s voice: Ricoh Company, Ltd.One of the main reasons to introduce PlanetsX is that we canuse the ANSYS auto meshing capability for its moldingsimulation. In the past, huge effort had to be put intocreating the mesh for complicated models such as digitalcameras. After we started using the ANSYS Workbench automeshing capability, no more errors occurred in the meshing,and we could get ideal mesh models. Hence the system is veryefficient and helpful for us. We also welcome and appreciatethe easy to use operating environment and the coupled-fieldanalysis with structural and thermal analysis of ANSYS.

ConclusionPlanetsX is a powerful injection molding simulation tool,which can bring advanced plastic CAE solutions much easierand closer to the users. The primary goal of our developmentpolicy is that the proven solvers can be used for highlyaccurate mold and structural coupled-field analysis. Thiscapability will improve the operational efficiency of anyoneinvolved in the development of plastic products. Users of PlanetsX will experience continuous enhancementsin the future.

CYBERNET SYSTEMS Co.,LTD. [email protected]

http://www.cybernet.co.jp/pmd/enu/top_x.html

Fig.3 - Various output results of the injection molding analysis

Weld angle Pressure distribution

Melt front Hesitation

Cybernet cordially invites you and your gueststo visit their booth at the International CAEConference on Monday, 22nd and Tuesday 23rd, October2012 in Lazise (VR). www.caeconference.com

Software Update


Toroidal inductors are electronic componentsconstructed from a wire coiled around amagnetic (iron) core. They have a wide range ofapplications including high frequency coils andtransformers. Toroidal inductors can also be usedfor measurement of magnetic characteristics, asan alternative to the solenoid coil.

This case study takes a high resolution scan of atoroidal inductor and builds a finite elementmesh of the structure and surrounding air. Highfrequency magnetic simulations are performed toanalyse the current and flux density, as well asdistributions, through the inductor which cannotbe observed directly. The simulation results arevery useful for product verification and redesign, and itwill help the development of high accuracyelectromagnetic simulation.

IMAGE PROCESSINGThe toroidal inductor was scanned using a TUX-3200Tohken Co.,Ltd. CT x-ray inspection machine, at aresolution of 17μm. The images were imported intoSimpleaware ScanIP where the core and wire segmentedand reconstructed. In addition, the image was padded togenerate an appropriate air boundary for the lateranalysis. The size of the air region was configured byconsidering the leakage flux. In cases where magnetic fluxhas wide leakage it is necessary to expand the air regionsufficiently. The wire was then artificially extended to theboundary, through this added layer of air.

MESH GENERATIONA smooth, high quality, conforming multipart volumemesh of the coil was created using the Simpleware +FEmodule. Initially the default coarseness slider was used toachieve the required mesh resolution. After this, someparameters were manually adjusted to tune the mesh

Magnetic Simulation of Toroidal Inductor usingSimpleware and JMAG®

Fig. 1 - Segmentation of toroidal inductor core and wire and generation ofair boundary in ScanIP

Fig. 2 - Generation of conforming multipart volume mesh of inductor core, wire and air inScanIP+FE


Software Update

further. These included the maximum allowed mesh size,the internal change rate, and the number of elementsacross layers. This allowed meshes to be created rangingfrom around 100,000 to 1,000,000 elements.

RESULTS/SIMULATIONThe generated mesh was exported in Nastran format andread directly into JMAG for simulation. In order tosimulate magnetic phenomenon the material data andsimulation conditions must be defined within JMAG.

In this case study, a ferrite core and a copper wire wereused. The permeability of ferrite and conductivity ofcopper were assigned. The symmetrical boundarycondition was assigned at the boundaries.

From here the current density (c.f. Figure 3, left) andmagnetic flux density (c.f. Figure 3, right) were predictedand visualised. The process allows the non-destructiveevaluation of this small and complex component. Thisanalysis calculates phenomena that cannot be easilymeasured and thus provides an insight into the operationof the coil. Conventional measurement methods have

proved unsuitable for predicting themagnetic phenomena of these smallcomponents.

These results can show the effect ofstructure design and materialcharacteristics on product performance inmore detail. Additionally, it can verifythe difference between a design and anactual product, and hopefully improvethe quality of products by givingfeedback about variability andperformance. Thus making the analysisvery useful for the evaluation of productssuch as small magnetic components.

Using a similar technique within JMAG the analysis can beextended to investigate many other characteristics. Forexample, JMAG can perform thermal and structuralanalyses. This technique is widely applicable to theevaluation of various electronic components.

CAD EXPORTIn addition the new Simpleware +NURBS module was usedto convert the segmented image data directly into CADready NURBS files in IGES format. This opens up furtheropportunities for analysis and reverse engineering ofcomponents.

Yosuke IijimaR&D Center, Taiyo Yuden Co.,Ltd., Takasaki-shi, Japan

The current organization of Yosuke Iijima: Institute of National Colleges ofTechnology, Oyama National College of Technology

Miki MiyazakiJSOL Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

Ross CottonSimpleware Ltd., Exeter, United Kingdom

Fig. 3 - Prediction of current density (left) and magnetic flux density (right) in JMAG

Fig. 4 - Generation of NURBS model in ScanIP+NURBS

Simpleware cordially invites you and yourguests to visit their booth at theInternational CAE Conference on Monday,22nd and Tuesday 23rd, October 2012 in Lazise (VR).www.caeconference.com


Software Update

REASONS FOR AN INVESTIGATIONOver time developments in organization and marketingtheory, as well as in operational practice, have led to theemergence of increasingly specialized fields of companycommunications in complex organizations, both in the publicand private sectors.There are many and diverse reasons for this interest, but it isprimarily due to the increases of environmental speed andcomplexity, forcing companies to significantly change theirapproach and encouraging greater attention on personneland the way they relate to each other, speak to each other,listen and hence how they communicate with one another.This investigative choice has arisen from an underlyingquestion raised by the literature (Sinergie, Conference 2011)involving organizational communication as a whole. Thequestion regards what is the true role of communication aseffective support for the corporation’s decision-makingprocesses. A variety of functions has emerged to answer thisquestion, including value-strategic, operational, informationand social, as well with regard to content, instruments andareas of competence (Di Raco, Santoro, 1996; Barone,Fontana, 2005). In this article we provide a way to graphically depict one ofthese functions, the P.A.C.I. Matrix (E. Giaretta, A. Garofalo2011), aimed at quantifying cross-departmental topmanagement communications.

INVESTIGATION FIELDWe feel that cross-departmental top managementcommunication is particularly relevant in terms of its impacton the decision-making process, which is part of its intrinsicnature, but also on the corporate climate and the sense ofbelonging, as well also on the generation of intangibleresources such as knowledge, creativity and trust.To further concentrate the field of investigation, only one,albeit important, component has been considered. Excludingthe exchanges of documents, news, data and informationgenerated by everyday operations at every level of thecorporation, attention has focused on top managementinformation flows, which could be termed the strategicdecisions information flow or the decision-makingcommunication processes.

INVESTIGATION TOOLA way to focus on inter-departmental communication isthrough the P.A.C.I. Matrix. P.A.C.I. is a tool developed tounderline the communicationpatterns among the differentcompany areas, and to evaluatetheir goodness, by the point ofview of the internal customer.The P.A.C.I. output is a matrix that relates each departmentwith all the others and provides the number of existingcommunications, and the number of non-existingcommunications among them.

VISUALIZATION TOOLA matrix that contains a number is pretty difficult to read,especially as the number of lines (and consequently thenumber of columns) increases. So we used LIONsolver to visualize a P.A.C.I. case study, withdata taken from the RAI way internal organization. We builtsome ways to visualize the relationships among the

Internal communications management with LIONsolver

Fig. 1a – Drawing inter-department communications with LIONsolver's Flowmap with bubbles. The edge’s thickness represents the number ofcommunications from the starting department to the ending department, thedepartment colors represent the percentage of existing communications overthe total, the radius of the circle represents the number of existingcommunications outgoing from that department.

Fig. 1b – Zoom of Fig. 1a thathighlights the sales department.


Software Update

departments, in order to plot numbers as colours, thicknessof lines, distances and other visual ways to simplify andimprove readability of the P.A.C.I. Matrix.

VISUALIZATION STRATEGIESThere are pretty many options in LIONsolver to visualizerelations. We present a non-exaustive list of the main ones,with examples related to P.A.C.I., and we will discuss themshortly.

Flow map with bubblesOne of the nicest and immediate ways of visualizingrelationships is the Flow map with bubbles. It consists of a two-dimensional chart with different-sizedcircles and arrows. It allows also to link to each circle a label and a color andto display a legend.Note that each circle has an explicit position in theEuclidean space.

Similarity mapThe similarity map plot renders data as a graph. It consistsof a two or three dimensional chart with different-sizedcircles. As in the Flow map with bubbles case, different colorsand labels on circles/spheres are allowed. Unlike in the Flowmap with bubbles, the circles/spheres do not have an explicitnotion of position, but only a notion of distance, that can beset explicitly. The distance can be used to render thesimilarity of the entities.

Optionally it is possible to visualize undirected edgesbetween explicitly linked entities. In the three dimensionalversion this last setting improves the distance visualization.

7D plotIn the 7-d plot we can plot generic 3-d figures with differentshape, size, color and blinking frequency. Also in this casewe can assign labels to each rendered object. The 7D plot is recommended if you need to summarize anhigh number of variables.

An extended presentation of the P.A.C.I. approach isintroduced in the paper: Elena Giaretta, University of Verona,Alessandro Garofalo, Idee associate. Informative “blockages”in top management communication: an interpretive andprescriptive model.

Alessandro Garofalo, Idee associateElena Giaretta, University of Verona

Danilo Tomasoni, Reactive Search s.r.l.

Fig. 2a – Drawing interdepartmental communications with LIONsolver'ssimilarity map. The sphere’s dimension and color represent the number ofexisting communications and the percentage of existing communicationsrespectively. The distance represents the communication's intensity betweenthe departments (the lower the distance, the higher the number ofcommunications). In detail we used as a distance function 1/(1+c) where c is the number of communications between two departments.

Fig. 2b – Zoom of the Fig. 2a. The three departments are depicted veryclosely because they communicate a lot.

Fig. 3a – Drawing interdepartmental communications with LIONsolver's 7-dplot. On the X axis the number of existing communications, on the Y axis thenumber of non-existing communications, and on the Z axis the total numberof communications.

Fig. 3b – Zoom on the central part of Fig. 3a

Reactive Search cordially invites you and yourguests to visit their booth at theInternational CAE Conference on Monday,22nd and Tuesday 23rd, October 2012 in Lazise (VR).www.caeconference.com


Software Update

Last July, Anna Bassi M.Sc. defended her master thesis on "AScilab Radial Basis Functions toolbox". The thesis was doneas a collaboration between EnginSoft and the department ofMathematics at Padua University.The aim of this thesis was to develop a Scilab toolbox whereRadial Basis Functions (RBFs) are used for scattered datainterpolation. We shape our toolbox to be a powerfulinstrument to analyze data sets coming both from real lifeapplications and industry. The main advantage of using RBFsis that this class is very large, allowing to model various

situations, even highly non linear problems. The use ofmathematical tools to approximate, interpolate andunderstand complex real world systems is widely applied inmany scientific domains. These kinds of interpolation andregression methodologies are now becoming common even inengineering and the RBFs are now very popular.There exists a general theory that ensures high tractability ofRadial Basis functions models and there is empirical evidencethat such models give good predictions even with a reducednumber of data. This is particularly important when the dataare coming from very expensive or time consumingexperiments in order to avoid the evaluation of a fine grid ofpoints before having a good model of the problem.When creating a interpolation model, we are trying to find afunction which is a “good" fit to the given set of datameasurements. The model gives us a rule which allows todeduce information about the process we are studying also atunknown points. This means that, by means of a radial basisfunction model, we are able to predict the value of an outputin points different from those in which we obtained our

Data modelling: usingRadial Basis Functions in Scilab

Fig. 1 - Franke's bivariate test function interpolated and plot with the Scilabtoolbox.

Fig. 2 - The absolute approximation error on the Franke’s bivariate function.The chart is evaluated and plotted in Scilab using the RBF’s toolbox


Software Update

initial measurements. When the points in which themeasurements are taken do not lie on a uniform or regulargrid, then this approach is called scattered datainterpolation. RBFs can be used on scattered data and thisindependence from a mesh permits to eliminate the costs ofmesh generation, that is still the most time consuming partof any mesh-based numerical simulation.

This toolbox allows to create an interpolation model basedon scattered data from physical or computer experiments.Here, an experiment is a collection of pairs of input andrespective evaluation values. The input is likely to be highdimensional, whereas the measurements have to be scalars.Computation with high dimensional data is an importantissue in many areas of science and engineering in which

many traditional interpolation methods can either not handlesuch problems or be limited to very regular situations.

The toolbox is easy to use and very robust. It containsseveral basis functions and, if needed, it checks for repeatedpoints. As it is feasible that an experiment is repeatedseveral times with the same input values, a problem ofinvertibility of the distance matrix arises, indeed in thepresence of repeated points it becomes singular. In thesecases, it is therefore necessary to choose a single point withthe respective value given by the measurement and eliminatethe remaining. In the toolbox, we give the user the ability tochoose which of the data values will be used in the RBFinterpolation. In particular, the eligible options are: themode, the maximum, the minimum and the mean of all therepeated points.

The selection of the optimal shape parameter is totallyautomatic and transparent to the users. The strategy wechose to implement this automatic selection is a crossvalidation approach. In Rippa, S., “An algorithm for selectinga good value for the parameter c in radial basis functioninterpolation” an algorithm is described that corresponds toa variant of cross validation known as “leave-one-out" crossvalidation. In this algorithm the optimal value of the shapeis selected by minimizing the (least square) error for a fit tothe data based on an interpolant for which, at each step, oneof the point was “left out". A good feature of this method isthat the dependence of the error on the data function istaken into account.By adding a loop over the value of the shape, we cancompare the error norms for different values of the shapeparameter, and choose the value that yields to the minimalerror norm as the optimal one.We have chosen Scilab for creating this whole toolbox with adouble motivation. The first one is that it is an advanced androbust language that guarantees robustness and quickprototyping. In addition, it is an open source software,making our work available for free to any member of thecommunity and industrial partners. The complete Scilab toolbox is available for free atwww.openeering.com. The toolbox can be downloaded andeasily installed. Both the installation phase and the usageare well documented. A set of demos will be installedtogether with the toolbox, as shown in Figure 4.

For more information:Silvia Poles - [email protected]

Fig. 3 - Contour plot of an interpolation model created on real scatter data.With this plot, the user can have a global view of the problem at hand evenwhen the problem is known only by multidimensional experimental points.

Fig. 4 - The available demos in the RBF toolbox. New users can start fromthese examples to learn how to use the toolbox at best.

Scilab Enterprise cordially invites you andyour guests to visit their booth at theInternational CAE Conference on Monday,22nd and Tuesday 23rd, October 2012 in Lazise (VR). www.caeconference.com

Benimpact Suite: A toolfor ZEB PerformanceAssessment

In recent years, European policies and regulations onenergy saving have evolved significantly. The main reasonfor this is the common goal to reach the targets of 20-20-20.Buildings consume a lot of energy, hence the legalframework related to the reduction of their energyconsumption has experienced a tremendous evolution.The “nearly zero energy building” (nZEB) concept wasintroduced in 2010, eight years after the release of theoriginal EPBD directive (Energy Performance of BuildingsDirective).By 2020 all new buildings and buildings that are subjectto renovation should have very low energy consumptionlevels, and the major part should be covered by renewablesources. Designing and realizing such type of buildings isa very ambitious task which needs to be supported byappropriate tools and software technologies.This article introduces a new tool for the assessment ofthe performances of buildings: The BENIMPACT Suite(Building’s ENvironmental IMPACT evaluator & optimizer),developed by EnginSoft Italy. The suite is organized indifferent core modules that allow engineers to verify howa building’s performance level is influenced by differentdesign choices, such as envelope shape and materials,plant systems, use of renewable sources, etc.One of the test cases used to validate the BENIMPACTSuite energy performance evaluations is an interestingZEB (Zero Energy Building) in Italy, it was finalized in2010 and is called CasaZeroEnergy. It is located inFelettano, a small town in the northeastern province ofUdine.This building is an experimental house designed andmonitored by the Laboratory of Building Design of theUniversity of Trento (Italy) and built by the Polo Le VillePlus Group (Cassacco-Italy). The energy performance ofthis building was modeled and evaluated usingBENIMPACT Suite, the simulation results were comparedwith monitored data.

Barriers in achieving the nZEB targetThe ZEB concept could strongly help to reduce energyconsumption, environmental loads and operational costs.

However, even if the development of energy efficientconstructions is strongly stimulated by legislationrequirements, there is still a wide range of non-technological barriers to overcome in order to reach awide diffusion of the zero energy building standard.First of all, extra initial costs are far from the generalmindset of the construction business. Usually, bothcontractors and clients are mainly driven by short-termprofit-making and focus on the lowest price bidding andnot on the added value that can be achieved byimplementing environmental friendly measures.Moreover, ZEBs are non-conventional construction types.They require a high level of knowledge and skills which arenot always available among design and constructionteams.

EnginSoft and the University of Trento presented oneof the test cases used to validate BENIMPACT Suite(Building’s ENvironmental IMPACT evaluator &optimizer) energy performance evaluations at theZEMCH 2012 Conference.


Research & Technology Transfer

Zero Energy Mass Custom Homes(ZEMCH) 2012 ConferenceHousing is a system of energy and environment andrequires to accommodate wants and needs of individualsand society, which are usually considered to be diverseand dynamic.Albeit increasing market demands for achievement ofsocial, economic and environmental sustainability inhousing today, conventional homebuilders (and housingmanufacturers alike) who are often reluctant to spendingextra time, money and effort for information gathering ofnew products and services are still barely able to adoptrecently emerging innovations including mass customdesign approaches to the delivery of sustainableaffordable homes.ZEMCH 2012 aimed to establish an intellectual forum ofinteractive discussion on design, production andmarketing issues surrounding the delivery of low to zeroenergy/CO2 emission mass-customisable homes beingbuilt in developed and developing countries.

www.zemch2012.org

Several professionals are usually involved in the designprocess, and this might lead to problems if there are lacksin the communication among the different project teammembers. All the stakeholders must fully understand theissues and concerns of all the other parties and interactclosely throughout all phases of the project. This is whyan integrated design approach is needed to achievemultiple benefits and much more efficient and cost-effective buildings.The main problem today is the lack of tools that cansupport project teams to coordinate their work and toconsider and evaluate different design alternatives.In most mechanical industrial fields, from aerospace tobiomechanics, sophisticated 3D computer simulation toolshave been used for years to predict the responses ofmachines to specific loads and actions in specificenvironments, in order to integrate all the opportunitiesoffered by different materials and technologies. The samekind of tools should be used also in the constructionsector.In any case, despite many trials to develop a standardBuilding Information Modeling (BIM) approach, currentlyno software is able to take into account all the featuresthat a ZEB requires.

Therefore, there is an evident need to develop software forthe simulation of buildings which can help designers topredict how the structure will perform and enable them tomodel economic and environmental consequences ofdifferent design choices.

Short overview of the BENIMPACT SuiteBENIMPACTSuite’s primary goal is to provide an efficienttool to promote integrated design Computer-AidedEngineering (CAE) and intelligent Digital Prototyping(iDP) in the housing fields.BENIMPACT Suite is composed of a group of software. Itshould turn into a complete suite whose aim is to helpdesigners checking the quality of their solutions andfinding the “optimal” set of choices between differentconfigurations of building envelopes and energeticsystems.BENIMPACT Suite analyzes the whole life cycle of abuilding and searches for the “optimal” trade-off betweenopposing goals: energy consumption, environmentalimpact and cost. Today, every new building should bedesigned from the initial planning phase using all theresources given by nature and current technologies inorder to achieve the highest level of independence fromtraditional fossil fuel sources and the lowestenvironmental impact, in terms of materials use, energyconsumption and pollutant emissions to the atmosphere.The necessity to design “environmental friendly”constructions must be compatible also with the plannedinvestments, since our final aim is to spread theawareness of sustainable design in a spontaneous way.Realizing sustainable buildings should be a best practice

that every citizen should implement not only due tostrictly and mandatory regulations, but because of ourresponsibility to protect our planet from excessivedepletion and to allow future generations to live a goodand healthy life.For all these reasons, we believe that the opportunity tofind “smart” solutions will lead to an increment ofsustainable buildings (new or renewed ones), lessdepletion of natural resources and to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.BENIMPACT Suite is connected to databases that can beupdated by developers, companies and final users in orderto keep up with innovation.Each type of evaluation belongs to a specific functionalunit that can run in stand-alone mode.For each design, the energetic unit performs an annualenergetic dynamic simulation with hourly steps, andcalculates annual energy consumption.Other functional units then calculate global energyconsumption, environmental impact (Life CycleAssessment) and costs (Life Cycle Costing) for the entirelife cycle of the building.Thermodynamic performances are verified using “EnergyPlus” as energy module of BENIMPACT Suite.Environmental impact and costs are calculated usingspecific softwares implemented by EnginSoft.The multi-objective optimization is based on a geneticalgorithm that searches for the “Pareto Frontier”, whichcollects the best solutions and represents the ideal limitbeyond which every further implementation compromisesthe system. Today, it runs on modeFRONTIER, amultidisciplinary and multi-objective software, which isalso used to integrate the different functional units.

Validation of BENIMPACT Suite: case study selectionIn order to test the validity of the project, BENIMPACTSuite was applied to different case studies, both for newbuildings and energy retrofitting. The validation test inparticular was performed on two concluded buildings, ofwhich data from monitoring are available. The use ofmonitored data is definitely the best way to test andunderstand the strength and weakness of a software/tool.The availability of such data was the main criterion for theselection of the case studies.The first case study is based on the Palazzo Kofler whichwas built at the beginning of the 20th century, thenretrofitted three years ago with the ClimateHouseStandard and subjected to monitoring for a period of twoyears. The second case study presents a new building, theCasaZeroEnergy in Felettano (UD, Italy) concluded in 2010and currently under monitoring.The validation of the model performed on theCasaZeroEnergy can be explained as follows, themethodology has been divided into several steps:1. analysis of the local climate,2. analysis of the main building features,3. decision on which monitored data are important for





the analysis and validation of the thermal behaviorprediction,

4. analysis of the energetic behavior of the real buildingthrough chosen monitored data,

5. building model construction,6. dynamic energy simulation,7. comparison of energy simulation results and monitored

values.

CasaZeroEnergy “CasaZeroEnergy” is a detached house, finished in 2010and located in the hills of Felettano (UD, Italy) (Fig.1).

This smart green building was designed according to theprinciples of bio-climatic architecture, which means thatlocal climate conditions were studied and taken intoaccount before the beginning of the design phase.The site is characterized by mild and humid continentalclimate with an average annual temperature of 13°C.There is no dry season and the summer months are quitehot. Prevailing winds run from North to South and areuseful for passive cooling (Fig.2).

Every element of the building and the constructivesolutions were designed with the aim to minimize lossesand to maximize the available assets from nature usingpassive design strategies, both for heating and cooling.

The building has a compact shape with a reduced ratioSurface/Volume of 0,78 to reduce heat loss during winter.

CasaZeroEnergy was built using renewable, recycled andrecyclable materials to reduce the embodied energycontent and the carbon dioxide emissions during theconstruction phase. For example, the kitchen furnishingsare made from recycled glass and the walls are realizedwith bricks and stone slabs from the demolition of oldbuildings within a radius of 50 km, to avoid pollution fromlonger transport ways. The structure has a very low impacton the environment because of the choice to use wood asmain structural material.

The U-values are really low: 0,218 W/m2K for walls, 0.205W/m2K for roofs, 1,3 W/m2K for windows and 1,1 W/m2Kfor glazed parts.One of the main features of the building is that is notconnected to the gas network, it solely uses electricityproduced by a photovoltaic plant of 14,6 kW of peakpower. Other alternative energy systems are installed inthe building.One is the sun space on its south side, which allows solarradiation entering the building where it can beconveniently stored. The external glazes of the system arecompletely open and able to regulate the temperatureboth in summer and winter.In CasaZeroEnergy, exhausted air is naturally replacedthrough the openings in the north and south facades. Inthis way, good indoor environmental quality can beensured including natural day-time cooling of the livingspace and night-time cooling of the building elements.Shading systems are very important to avoid overheatingduring summer. For CasaZeroEnergy such systems wereproperly sized and selected, in order to control and adjustthe incoming heating from lighting and solar radiation. Moreover, on the building’s roof a solar collector plant forDHW production has been installed. An under-floorheating and cooling system is connected to a geothermalheat-pump that exploits the constant temperature of theearth at a depth of 2,5 meters under the garden surface.

CasaZeroEnergy monitoringThe building is currently monitored. Temperatures andelectricity use are measured respectively by sensors andmulti-meters in twelve different rooms of the house. Thepositions of the devices were selected based on thedifferent exposition and final use of the living spaces(bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathrooms, laundryroom, etc.).

The main scope of the monitoring is to understand whichis the real building behavior in order to validate thequality of the ZEB project, in light of the increasingnecessity and demand for these types of houses.Starting from monitored data, a typical day was calculatedand plotted both for summer and winter periods.

Fig. 1 - View of “CasaZeroEnergy” in Felettano, Udine – Italy

Fig. 2 - Bioclimatic concept of “CasaZeroEnergy” in Felettano, Udine – Italy



The typical winter day (Graph1) shows that ten of thetwelve monitored rooms display similar temperatures,with a difference from the average temperature of lessthan 1,5°C. The two exceptions are: the laundry room and the office.Generally these rooms have a constant set-pointtemperature of 18°C, warmer hours depend on internalgains and solar heat gains.Causes of the different behavior of the laundry room arehigher internal gains due to the presence of severalequipment, which release sensible and latent heat, andthe opening of windows during the early morning hourswhich reduces the room temperature.The different temperature evolution in the office is causedby a different set point and heating system. This spacehas a set point of 15°C and is heated during the day byan electric heater.There is another important space, which has not beenmonitored yet: the sunspace. It is very important for thepassive heating of the building, because of its capacity topreheat the air and store the heat. Properly managed, thegreen house can be used for maximizing passive solargains from October to March, reducing the energy demand.Also during a typical summer day (Graph2) the same two

rooms, the laundry room and the office, have aninhomogeneous behavior.

The laundry room is still warmer due to its higher internalgains except in the morning, when the windows areusually opened to allow the entire house to benefit fromthe passive cooling down effect of fresh winds from the

North. As for the winter day, the office curve presents anodd behavior, different from every other room. This is dueto the fact that this space is not conditioned. Inparticular, the results show that there is overheatingduring the afternoon because of its west window withoutsun protections.From the comparison of the two graphs (Graph1 andGraph2) it is possible to understand and appreciate thatthe summer and winter behavior of the office is indeedsimilar: the two curves have an identical shape, they arejust shifted along the temperature axis. The difference oftemperatures here depends on the higher amount of solarradiation which enters the room in the summer months.

Validation of BENIMPACT Suite on CasaZeroEnergyThe first step required to prepare an energy analysis modelfor a building is to divide it into thermal zones. A highernumber of thermal zones affects the time required to runan energy simulation. Therefore, it is important toindividuate the lowest number of zones in order to be ableto correctly reproduce the building’s behavior.Based on the previous analysis, this model was dividedinto four thermal zones: sunspace, laundry room, officeand the rest of the house (Fig.3).Some hypotheses on set point temperatures, air changerates and internal heat gains were made. Set point

temperature values were deduced from monitored data,while for internal gains the starting points used werevalues provided by Italian directives. As a first step, a model without the sunspace was preparedand verified using monitored data from the summer. Then,summer thermal simulations were run and the buildingbehavior was checked by varying inputs until the modeland the real building converged.The living space was easier to adjust because it is used asa standard living space, according to the final useestablished in the regulation. For the laundry room,increasing internal heat gains were simulated in order tomeet the real behavior of the room, strictly related to thepresence of equipment.Data from the scheduled opening of the windows, asmonitored before, was then added. The introduction ofthis ventilation ratio was necessary for the overlapping ofthe model with the real building.

Graph 1 - Monitored temperatures: typical winter day

Graph 2 - Monitored temperatures: typical summer day

Fig. 3 - Thermal zones of the building model



The sunspace was added subsequently. For modeling thiselement, the most difficult part was defining the air ex-change rates between the living space and the sunspaceand between the sunspace and the external environment.Furthermore, an appropriate schedule for the sunspaceopening management had to be defined owing to the lackof real data.

When the whole building model with all four thermalzones was ready, the winter thermal simulation wasverified. For performing this analysis it was necessary tocomplete the office thermal zone definition with theintroduction of a standard electric heater. The schedule ofthe heater was supposed to look at the monitored data.As shown in Graph3 and Graph4, the building model withthe four thermal zones simulates well the real temperatureevolution of the entire building.Small differences are due to the faster response of themodel, which has less internal mass, since most internalwalls and the furniture are not simulated.

By means of the simulations not only energy consumptionand temperatures were verified, but also the timeconstant of the entire building, which depends on thethermal capacity and thermal transmittance of theconstructions.It is interesting to see the real difference between thecalculated time constant for the real building and for themodel.For performing this kind of calculation for the building, itwas necessary to use monitored data of a period duringwhich the home was empty and all systems inside werenot in use (end of November – beginning of December2011).The time constant τ0 was calculated using the followingformula:

where:tf is the final temperature of equilibrium between the

building and the environment, and it was supposed tobe equal to the average external temperature of theconsidered period,

t is the instantaneous temperature at the time τ,ti is the initial temperature of the building, when the

heating system of the building was switched off.

For the monitored data, the result of this equation wasequal to 100 hours and for the model the time constantresulted in nearly 70 hours.This second value is more similar to the one calculatedduring the design stage using the following formula:

where:Cm is the total thermal capacity of the building,Htot is the total thermal loss coefficient.

The result was in fact equal to 58 hours with the samevalues for thermal capacity and the thermal losscoefficient also used for the model. There is an evident similarity between these two results,which are both calculated without taking into account thepresence of internal thermal masses, such as partitionsand furniture. This confirms the hypothesis made whencomparing the real behavior of the home with itssimulation (Graph3 and Graph4).

Once the model with all the considerations above isvalidated, it is possible to affirm that the calculated netheating and cooling needs of the building are reasonable.They are respectively 20 kWh/m2year and 12 kWh/m2year,and they could be even lower than expected thanks to thehigher thermal mass contribution. It is important to note that this building is not equippedwith a mechanical ventilation plant with heat recovery.Therefore, the calculated energy demand is very low andthe possibility to implement such a system would givegreater energy results, but at the same time it wouldaffect the concept of the bioclimatic architecture of thebuilding.In any case, with the current configuration, all thermalloads can be totally covered by the renewable energyproduced onsite by solar collectors and PV panels.Regarding the energy efficiency of the geothermal heatpump in both heating and cooling mode, 14 MWh are stillleft and they can be used for domestic electric energyneeds and the left over can be sold to the grid.Another analysis was performed to check the effective

Graph 3 - Monitored vs. simulated temperatures: typical winter day

Graph 4 - Monitored vs. simulated temperatures: typical summer day



contribution of the sunspace to reduce net heating energyconsumption. The values for the average day net heatingpower for the living space with and without sunspace werecompared (Graph5). The results prove that the greenhouse contribution is a true asset, as it reduces the netheating need of the building by 4 kWh/m2year.

The last analysis focused on the possibility to furthersimplify the energy model by unifying the zone of theliving space with the laundry room and the office. The aimhere was to have a model which is composed of only twothermal zones: the house and the sunspace.

For this model, standard ventilation rates and standardinternal gains were used and the calculated net heatingand cooling needs were respectively equal to 19 and 10kWh/m2year.Given the the small dimension of the office and thelaundry room, this model could be used to assess thebuilding’s energy needs as well as for heating and coolingplant sizing. However, due to its lower level of detail, themodel is not suitable to show the inhomogeneousbehavior of the two rooms.

A summary of the analysed building models and theirresults is reported in the following Table 1.

ConclusionsSimulations allow to determine the thermal behavior ofthe building, to verify different potential design choices,possible constraints and help to find solutions to fixdesign errors.

To effectively reduce the energy demand of a building,both winter heating and summer cooling loads have to beconsidered through an integrated design process based onconsistent energy concepts.There are several design choices that affect the building’senergy demand, these are mainly:• building form (surface/volume),• building orientation towards 4 cardinal points as well

as size and orientation of windows,• shading systems that protect against the sun in the

summer and not during winter,• building orientation towards prevailing winds and

natural ventilation strategy,• internal distribution.

All these variables also mean, reflect that each buildingdesign is different, particular, and that it cannot bedefined only through statistic and scientific research.In order to implement very good solutions, high energyperformance constructions and systems are not enough asstand-alone elements. They have to work well together, asa unique organism, in the specific environment. This iswhy the designer has to strongly consider also the specificmicro-climatic conditions and users’ habits through adynamic simulation model.

The test case of CasaZeroEnergy demonstrates thatBENIMPACT Suite can be used to assess the building’senergy needs, for heating and cooling plant sizing, and toverify the thermal behavior of different rooms. It alsoshowed that it is very important to individuate parts ofthe house which might behave in an odd way and toseparate them in the model.

In order to spread the awareness of sustainable design,“environmental friendly” constructions have to becharacterized by “smart” investments. The conveniencefor all parties involved has to be proved in a scientificway, as done and reflected in this article by thethermodynamic performances.

The energy model is the first step of a more complexprocess. The other modules of the BENIMPACT Suite canthen calculate the environmental impact and cost of eachconfiguration, and search for the “optimal” trade-offbetween environmental and economic sustainability.

Full paper and references available on www.benimpact.it

Silvia Demattè, Maria Cristina Grillo, Angelo Messina & Antonio Frattari

For more informations:Angelo Messina - [email protected] Demattè - [email protected]

Graph 5 - Net heating power required by the living space without or withthe sunspace (GH)

Table 1 - Simulations summary



INTELLIMECH is one of the first entirely private-heldresearch consortiums which aims at representing abenchmark for innovative enterprises, science institutes,advanced research and development organizations in theItalian panorama. It counts 20 enterprises and promotespre-competitive projects in the mechatronics field.

The Consortium converts R&D and interdisciplinaryexperimental activities into pre-competitive technologicalplatforms and pre-production prototypes in innovative cross-industry applications, involving directly the Consortium’spartners.

ESASIM – Project overviewThe electromagnetic simulation tools today are not verypopular at the enterprise level, especially looking at theworld of SMEs.

INTELLIMECH has implemented the project ESASIM(Electromagnetic Sensors/Actuators SIMulation) with theaim of promoting the knowledge and use of simulation toolsfor electromagnetic components in low frequency, showingtheir potential, deepening scientific and technologicalaspects in the field of technical design of electromagneticsystems and facilitating their deployment in theconsortiated companies.In addition to the initial bibliographic activities targeted tothe topic of study, particular attention was paid to thechoice of the simulator. A market and technical analyses ofcommercial software for the electromagnetic simulation atlow frequency identified the software Maxwell (Ansoft /ANSYS) to support the project activities.

This choice is motivated by a series of advantages in termsof software modules as a support for the modelization ofelectromagnetic actuators and sensors.These modules facilitate the setting of the solvers, and theproperties to simulate both the electromagnetic phenomena

and the interactions with the system including forces, bothin static and dynamic mode.Training activities have been carried out through tutorialsillustrating the results from simulations of simple modelsdeveloped on the basis of classical academic examples of

ESASIM Projecton ElectromagneticSensors/Actuators SIMulation

Fig. 1 – Generic cycle of operation of a simulator FEM.

Fig. 2 – Longitudinal section of the solenoid actuator with Clapper Armature.



electromagnetism. Finally, specific examples from industrialautomation, and most of all, case studies developed oncommercial devices have been examined. Here are twoexamples of the investigated electromagnetic actuators.

Simulation activity with experimental verificationTwo different types of industrial actuators of particularinterest were identified.

In the first application, the activity has been focused alsoon the validation of the simulated model throughexperimental verification.

In the second application the main theme has been the useof various features of the simulator for the design andoptimization of the simulated device.The actuator is composed of: a movable armature, a coil, astator and a spring back (Fig. 2, marked respectively with 1,2, 3 and 4). The stator and the armature are made of ferromagneticmaterial. The block stator / coil, when the latter is traversedby current, behaves like an electromagnet which attracts themovable armature with a certain force. Regardless of thedirection of the current in the coil, the force is alwaysattractive. The spring back is used to restore the distancebetween stator and movable armature in rest condition.

The validation process of the model took place through thecomparison between simulation data and measures. A model

Fig. 3 – Block diagram of the measuring system for the force exerted on thearmature and current absorbed by the coil.

Fig. 4 - Comparison between simulation results and measurements performedon the solenoid actuator with Clapper Armature (the figure represents theattractive force exerted on the armature and the current absorbed by thecoil).

Fig. 5 –Solenoid actuator with Plunger Armature.

Fig. 6 – Phases of operation of the actuator with Plunger Armature.



of the system has been created and the data of thesimulation procedure has been obtained and compared withthose obtained from the experimental measurement.

A particular set-up has been implemented with the aim tomeasure the main parameters of interest of the device (forceof attraction on the armature and current absorbed by thecoil).

The test session was carried out by exciting the coil with asinusoidal voltage of 230 Vrms at 50 Hz. The measurementprocedure consisted in setting decreasing values of distancebetween armature and stator (air gap), and, for each airgap, acquire the rms value of the signal at the terminals ofthe shunt resistor, and the peak-to-peak value of the forcesensor output, with system at regime. The results are shownin Fig. 4.

This actuator is composed of: case, movable plunger, spring,coil and permanent magnet (Fig. 5, marked respectively with1, 2, 3, 4 and 5).

The actuator is a bistable device (Fig. 6). The Stable State 1presents the plunger in low position, attracted by thepermanent magnet. The Stable State 2 instead presents theplunger in high position, thrust by the spring against itsupper end position. The transition takes place by means ofthe effect on the plunger of the demagnetizing fieldproduced by the coil in opposition to that of the permanentmagnet, which enables the spring to prevail over themagnetic attraction force, with consequent release of theplunger. The excitation takes place through a current pulsewith adequate direction.The simulation software was used to analyze differentaspects of the project. First, an estimation of the effect onperformance of the variability of the main design parametershas been obtained. The main parameters were: spring force,air gap (Gap) and permanent magnet (PM). The monitoredquantity is the total force on the plunger (ie the sum of allthe forces acting on it), with not energized coil. The test hasallowed to classify the sources of greater variability, givinguseful data about some critical constructive aspects (Fig. 7).

Then some parametric analyses of the model in order tooptimize the device have been performed. Fig. 8 shows theresults of the analysis carried out to determine thecombination between the number of turns and wire diameterof the coil that generate the maximum demagnetizing effecton the armature, with no variation in the excitation of thecoil.The simulator has also been used to estimate magnitudesnot measurable experimentally, such as eddy currentsinduced in the structure.

Fig. 9 shows the estimate of the portion of input energy intothe system dissipated by the Joule effect by the eddycurrents, as consequence of the driving pulse. The software

Fig. 7 – Variation of the total force agent on the plunger relative to thestandard condition, following the variation of the model parameters.

Fig. 8 – Minimum magnetic attractive force on the plunger as a function ofthe parameters of the coil.

Fig. 9 – Comparison between the energy input into the system and theenergy dissipated in the coil and by eddy currents (it can be seen also thevertical position of the plunger which describes its motion over time).



also allows you to calculate density and direction of thesecurrents in the volume of the device, allowing to assess anysolutions to the phenomenon.With a view to limiting consumption, it was considereduseful to parameterize amplitude and duration of theexciting pulse, in order to find the most efficientcombination that ensures the release of the plunger withinthe required specifications. Fig. 10, for example, concernsthe simulation of the interruption of the excitation pulse attime intervals ever smaller.

The advantage of performing transient analysis with objectsin motion through simulator, is to solve the dynamics of themoving object, coupling the forces generated byelectromagnetic interactions to the inertia related to themass in motion, and also to any external forces.

ConclusionsThe case studies developed in the ESASIM project show thata correct setting of the model leads to results consistentwith the real behavior of the modeled object. The analysisconducted was useful to characterize in detail the operationof the device (both in terms of static and dynamics), and tohighlight inefficiencies or possible causes of malfunction.The results obtained from this series of activities haveactually allowed the designers involved in the ESASIMproject to deepen their knowledge both in electromagneticdevices and in advanced tools for their design andoptimization.

Prof. Emilio SardiniUNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI BRESCIA

Eng. Marco [email protected]

INTELLIMECH

Fig. 10 – Change of motion of the plunger as function of the instant ofinterruption of the driving pulse.

Nuova feature in ESAcompLe esigenze lavorative portano,oggi, sempre più persone a doversispostare fisicamente presso uncliente od un fornitore, di parteci-pare ad una conferenza o di tenereuna lezione in Università. È spessonecessario avere con se un portati-le per dimostrare o presentare il proprio lavoro e, tal-volta, i sistemi di floating licensing costituiscono unvero e proprio collo di bottiglia in questa direzione,costringendo gli utenti ad essere collegati alla rete edal server di licenze, per poter accedere alle licenzenecessarie.EnginSoft è oggi lieta di annunciare che, dalla sua ver-sione 4.3.1, il software per lo studio dei materiali com-positi ESAComp mette a disposizione una nuova licen-sing feature, in grado di venire incontro proprio alleesigenze di questi utenti.

È infatti adesso possibile utilizzare un sistema di bor-rowing delle licenze ESAComp, tale da permettere, ad ipossessori di una licenza flottante del software, di“prendere in prestito” una delle task disponibili sul ser-ver ed utilizzarla su di un qualsiasi PC come fosse unalicenza Node Locked (senza più il bisogno di essere col-legati al server di licenze).Questa feature permette quindi di utilizzare il softwarenon essendo più vincolati al proprio ufficio od alla pro-pria rete aziendale, ma ovunque ed in qualsiasi momento.

Per maggiori dettagli su ESAComp: Marco Perillo - [email protected]

Verme Projects is a yacht consulting company founded byMassimo Verme. The company, which Mr Verme started in 1996as a freelance engineering supplier to a famous yacht designer,has become an integrated service supplier to shipyards andshipowners within the last five years. “Integration makes thedifference” was the tagline in 2005, it was born from the lackof teamwork that Verme’s CEO experienced at times when wor-king with shipyard managements. Where the stylist excels, theengineer sometimes fails. Many projects suffers from this pro-blem. Verme Projects are using their specialized engineeringcapabilities: hull structure FEM optimization, hydrodynamicsof planing hulls, composite materials design, CFD analysis,yacht noise and vibration consultancy, together with high-endstyling: both for interior decorations and boat exterior styling,plus professional consulting: yacht surveillance, yacht con-struction management, Owner assistance. The Verme Projectidea is to offer an integrated solution which helps our custo-mers in developing better projects.

Ingegner Verme, come è diventato progettista specializzato in Yachts?Sono partito da tutt'altra esperienza scolastica. Si pensi adesempio che il lavoro di tesi, durato un anno, riguardava lasimulazione di impatto aereo su centrali nucleari...Per mantenermi gli studi, ormai quasi vent'anni fa ho inizia-to a lavorare in un piccolo studio che serviva uno dei guru,allora in voga, della progettazione nautica. Lì è iniziatol'amore per la nautica e per le barche. Non fu solo la passio-ne per il mare a guidarmi. Quello che mi affascinò fu la pos-sibilità di sviluppare e coordinare un progetto di un'imbarca-zione nel suo assieme, dall'idrodinamica agli interni, ad un li-vello sicuramente molto più basso di altri veicoli quali l'ae-reo o l'automobile, ma comunque con grandi soddisfazioniper il designer. Nel progetto di un'auto o di un aereo il sin-golo designer al massimo può essere responsabile della pro-

gettazione di un componente o di un sottosistema. Nellanautica ancor oggi è possibile che il Progettista abbia la vi-sione e la competenza su quasi ogni dettaglio del prodotto.L'artigianalità della nautica, vista da qualcuno come un limi-te, è al contrario fonte di grosse soddisfazioni per il proget-tista. Decisi così di dedicarmi quasi esclusivamente al mon-do unico della nautica da diporto.

Lei ha una preparazione tecnica ingegneristica, come equando ha deviato anche verso un tipo di progettazionepiù prettamente di design?Fino a circa dieci anni fa non pensai mai a curarmi del de-sign. Ero infervorato ad analizzarecarene, idrodinamica, strutture incomposito e quant'altro fu il miocavallo di battaglia per cercare diaffermarmi nel settore. Poi ungiorno, dieci anni fa, FernandoAmerio di “PerMARE” mi chie-se un giudizio su dei bozzet-ti di linee esterne della suanuova barca. Io mi schermiie dissi: "Io sono un inge-gnere, non so se sono ingrado di dare un giudizioautorevole". Lui mi rispo-

Progettazione navale: intervista a Massimo Vermedella Verme Projects

Interview



Interview

se “Il Bello è Bello, indipendentemente da chi lo disegni oda chi lo apprezzi". Quella risposta mi colpì e da quel giornocominciai a provare e riprovare a disegnare qualcosa di mio.

Quali sono le fasi del suo lavoro?Il flusso di lavoro è articolato e varia anche in funzione del-la tipologia di progetto. La sua nervatura portante è ilConcept Design iniziale, cardine di ogni progetto ed alla ba-se del suo successo. L'individuazione delle esigenze di mer-cato nel caso di produzione seriale o delle esigenzedell'Armatore di una barca custom rappresenta la fase inizia-le più sfidante e se vogliamo divertente dell'intero processodi progettazione. Lo sviluppo progettuale a valle di questafase è fatto in maniera parallela ed integrata. Sia per la par-te di design sia per la parte tecnica. Segue una stretta colla-borazione col Cantiere, all'interno del quale spendiamo buo-na parte del nostro tempo in fase esecutiva. Un buon proget-to non può prescindere infatti dalla conoscenza delle fasidella sua produzione.

Come integra la parte tecnica con quella di design?Da un punto di vista informatico, e gestionale, sono all'inter-no del mio studio strettamente legate. Cerco insomma di farparlare la stessa lingua a tecnici e designer, facendo ragiona-re da designer i tecnici e da tecnici i designer. La curiosità èche nella fase di sviluppo concettuale e creativo del proget-to, da un punto di vista personale, spesso perseguo l'oppo-sto. Cerco in sostanza di dimenticare di essere ingegnerequando faccio il creativo. Mi preoccupo degli aspetti tecnicidi dettaglio solo in un secondo tempo. È chiaro però che nonmi dissocio a tal punto da disegnare oggetti industrialmentediscutibili.

Quali sono i vantaggi e gli svantaggi di rappresentare la figura sia dell'ingegnere che del designer? Per il Cliente e per l'Armatore vedo solo vantaggi. Ho svoltoin passato funzioni di direttore tecnico in più Cantieri.Spesso si perdeva più tempo a far mettere d'accordoDesigners ed Ingegneri che a sviluppare concretamente ilprogetto. Nel nostro caso il problema non si pone.Gli svantaggi che ho vissuto sono stati solo a carattere per-sonale e commerciale. Difficile far capire in maniera credibi-le che potevo svolgere per davvero entrambe le funzioni.Qualche premio e tanti progetti sviluppati ci stanno peròdando una mano. Difficile infine proporsi quale Ingegnere inCantieri feudi d'altri Designers...

Qual è il suo rapporto con le tecnologie informatiche in ausilio alla progettazione?Posso dire che sono nato davanti al computer e morirò conla matita in mano. Il CAD è stata per me la partenza.Disegnavo per passione col CAD quando ancora molti, alme-no nella nautica, non sapevano cos'era. Mi sono appassiona-to alla modellazione tridimensionale delle forme (inizi anni90') cercando di sfruttare al massimo la tecnologia informa-tica dell'epoca. Poi però mi sono reso conto che il CAD por-tava via risorse mentali. Pensavo cioè al 50% al prodotto ed

al 50% ai tecnicismi della sua modellazione. Oggi ho decisodi pensare al 100% al prodotto, specie nella fase iniziale del-la sua impostazione. Se Gordon Murray, progettista vincentedi una Formula 1 ipertecnologica e con risorse quasi illimita-te la pensa allo stesso modo forse ci sarà un perché...Il discorso è diverso per la fase di sviluppo di dettaglio. Inquella fase il CAD, specie tridimensionale, è un aiuto insosti-tuibile ed imprescindibile. Giocando con le parole si potreb-be dire che il “LA” lo preferisco dare a matita ma la mia or-chestra deve suonare col CAD e contestualmente con il CAEper la simulazione e la prototipazione virtuale.

Lei ha un rapporto frequente con il cantiere Permare per ilquale ha disegnato la nuova Amer 100. Ci fornisce maggiori dettagli sull’approccio progettuale e le soluzionitecnologiche adottate?L'idea dell'Amer 100 è nata due anni fa nel periodo più buiodella crisi. Sembrava che l'unico tipo di barca vendibile e'Politically Correct' per i prossimi anni fosse la navetta dislo-cante. Io ero invece convinto che per un'ampia fetta di clien-tela la barca potesse e dovesse essere sportiva ed accattivan-te. L'idea fu quella di vestire spazi interni da navetta con li-nee più sportive, per un bacino di potenziali Clienti diverso.Tale impostazione ovviamente fu estesa alle sue caratteristi-che tecniche, disegnando una carena che consentisse non so-lo di planare efficacemente ma anche di navigare a bassa ve-locità con consumi ridotti. Da ultimo abbiamo voluto aumen-tare gli spazi a disposizione dell'Armatore realizzando una so-luzione wide-body inusuale su una barca sportiva che abbia-mo mantenuto omologabile come barca da diporto sotto i 24m di lunghezza CE (prua e poppa sono smontabili).Una volta identificato questo concept design, rigorosamentea matita, si è iniziata la fase successiva dello sviluppo di det-taglio dello styling e dell'engineering, ciascuno con le pro-prie sfide. Dall'armonizzare le linee esterne contenendo gliampi volumi interni a disegnare una carena efficiente in tut-te le condizioni. Dall'ottimizzare pesi e strutture ad utilizza-re ogni più piccolo spazio utile senza trascurare l'aspetto le-gato a rumore e vibrazioni. Ci siamo avvalsi della nostraesperienza ma anche di risorse esterne e tra queste diEnginsoft, con cui collaboriamo in altri settori e che ci hamesso a disposizione importanti risorse per il calcolo fluido-dinamico e strutturale. Crediamo che al momento Amer 100possa rappresentare un prodotto unico nel suo segmento eche ci potrà dare grandi soddisfazioni.

A cura della redazione


EnginSoft Network

Marie-Christine Oghly is the president of EnginSoft France andat the same time the head of the French association of femalebusiness leaders and the president of Medef's Ile de Franceregion. Marie-Christine recently gave interviews to BBC UK andthe Grand Journal on French TV. To bring some of her views toour readers, the Newsletter Editorial Team spoke to Marie-Christine before this edition went into print.

Marie-Christine, can you tell us about EnginSoft France, itsbackground and where the company stands today?M-C: EnginSoft France was established in 2008; since then wehave become an important partner to industry, the academiaand research institutes for modeFRONTIER and foroptimization projects in general. I believe that we coulddevelop our business relatively fast despite difficult timesbecause our customers value our complete package: software,reliable support and full training for the technology, ourconsultancy services, and above all the expertise anddedication of our engineers. It was in 2009, when we started

to offer the Flowmaster system simulation software in France,the whole of Southern Europe and in the French-speakingpart of Switzerland. In the meantime, we have widened ourengineering simulation portfolio, for example, we nowprovide the Sculptor and CHARles software to engineers inFrance. To complement our CAE portfolio for our customers,we also offer a broader range of consultancy services.

Marie-Christine, can you briefly summarize the goals thatyou and your team have for 2012 and beyond for EnginSoftFrance?M-C: We want to develop our capabilities further, to exceedour customers’ and our own expectations. We are observingthe trends in product design and CAE usage. Our focus is onthe needs of our customers and the country’s emergingmarkets, for example, the energy sectors, specifically therenewables, and also on the biotechnology fields. Ourparticipation in several research projects has always beenand is very useful in this context. We want to expand our

support, also in view of the situation thatmore and more of our customers operateglobally. Another key topic for us iseducation and formation for computationalengineers.

How would you assess the impact of CAEto product design and development inFrance ?French Industries are nowadays using CAEacross the entire design process. This iscertainly the way forward for innovativedesign and the only one for Frenchcompanies to gain competitiveness in themarkets, especially for SMEs.We see us as a reliable partner for Frenchcompanies to better assess and implementCAE in their design process, through ourtechnical competencies, our support andour diverse consulting services.

EnginSoft Network News from France

Marie-Christine Oghly, President EnginSoft France Présidente Medef Ile de FrancePrésidente Nationale Femmes Chefs d'Entreprise (FCE)Vice President World Association of Women Entrepreneurs (FCEM)

CANNES, 11-12 Giugno 2012Una nutrita rappresentativa di utenti italiani ha preso partea giugno alla Conferenza Internazionale degli utilizzatori delsoftware Forge, che ha visto la presenza di oltre un centinaiodi persone nella splendida cornice di Cannes, Costa Azzurra.

EnginSoft, distributore in esclusiva dei prodotti di Transvalorper l’Italia, è presenza fissa di questi appuntamenti da ormai15 anni. Nelle sessioni tecniche è stata presentata la nuovarelease del software FORGE, chemigliora in modo significativol’efficienza del lavoro di preparazioneed analisi dei risultati. Durante laserata di gala gli ospiti hanno avuto lapossibilità di cimentarsi in una sfidatra i tavoli alla rolulette ed al

blackjack, nella quale alcuni utenti dell’”Italian Team” hannoconquistato la prima posizione brindando con champagne.Come di consueto, EnginSoft da appuntamento a tutti gliinteressati il 23 ottobre a Lazise (VR), dove all’interno dellaInternational CAE Conference 2012 (www.caeconference.com)sarà organizzata una sessione dedicata, il “Forge Users’Meeting Italiano”, nel quale verranno riassunte le novitàdell’ultima release e sarà inoltre possibile assistere allepresentazioni di alcuni utilizzatori italiani.


EnginSoft Network

Marie-Christine, in some of your recent interviews thathave been broadcasted in France and in the UK, youhighlighted the idea of political union in Europe, the needfor advanced education and training for the young, as wellas the role of women in higher management in France. Canyou briefly summarize some of your views for our readers? Marie-Christine: France on its own is a small country actingon a global market, this applies to most European countries.All together though, the 27 countries represent one of thelargest markets globally. The first step should be a realeconomical federation followed by a political one.France has always been relatively well advanced in regards tosocial structure. However, some aspects and circumstancesneed to be improved. The unemployment rate among theyoung people is very high; we have to offer suitable andpractice-oriented training, and create jobs. I believe that thebest approach for this is the “Alternace” System which allowsstudents to go to school and work in a company during theyear. This model enables the students to gain experiences inindustry and to receive a salary. It has already been

implemented and is available to those with medium leveleducation (below baccalauréat) and up to masters. Today,many of the Engineering Schools are adopting this system.In France, as in a lot of other countries, women oftenencounter a “glass ceiling” inside the company they work for,this applies in particular to executive positions. There arefew associations, such as the FCE (Femmes Chefsd’Entreprises) that are lobbying for women, to have access topromotion in the workplace and to managerial positions. Anew law has been introduced, to set up quotas and toimplement changes in corporate governance, for examplecompanies with more than 500 employees should have aminimum of 20% of women in their board of directors in2012, this should reach 40% in 2017. When we consider that we are at 15% on average today, weknow that we still have a long way to go!

If you would like to discuss with Marie-Christine Oghlydirectly, please contact her: [email protected]

EnginSoft insegna all'Università di Padova - DIILo scorso 22 maggio l'ing. Marcello Gabrielli di EnginSoft è stato invitato al corso"Progetto e prototipazione virtuale dei processi produttivi" gestito dalla Prof. StefaniaBruschi del DII - Università di Padova. L'intervento ha riguardato l'esposizione deivantaggi ottenibili dall'utilizzo di tecnologie di simulazione nella progettazione edottimizzazione di particolari stampati a freddo, tiepido e caldo. Nel confronto con i 20studenti presenti al termine dell'intervento è scaturito un notevole interesse ai temitrattati, con la possibilità per alcuni di loro di un approfondimento nei prossimi lavoridi tesi e una possibile scelta di questo settore per un prossimo impiego.

Il “Forge Italian Team” è presente a Cannes per loUsers’ Meeting 2012 di Transvalor



The EASIT2 project, a 2 year EU funded project under theLeonardo da Vinci Scheme, has come to an end on 30thSeptember 2012. The project team, represented by Jim Wood(Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde), TimMorris (NAFEMS) and Giovanni Borzi (EnginSoft), presentedthe innovative project results to the international Analysisand Simulation Engineering community during a highlysuccessful webinar titled “New tools for competencedevelopment, management and recognition in engineeringanalysis and simulation”.The tools presented were the Analysis & SimulationEducational Base, Competence Framework, and theProfessional Simulation Engineer – PSE qualification.

About the EASIT2 Educational Base and Competence FrameworkA competence framework is a structure that sets out anddefines the competencies required by individuals working ina field or organization: such frameworks typically exist inspecific sectors, e.g. Advanced Manufacturing, but nonepreviously existed in the area of engineering analysis andsimulation.The EASIT2 Competence Framework is based upon a databaseof “standard” competencies, called the Educational Base,composed by over 1400 statements of competencesubdivided into 23 areas of competence.The benefits of the Educational Base for the individualengineer include the ability to assess his/her own existingcompetencies with a clear rationale to identifying

development needs and training, with the aim to improveinternal /external mobility and employability.The Competence Framework software extends the usagescenarios of the Educational Base, allowing individuals torecord and track their learning progresses, and companies totailor and/or extend the base to suit company needs,facilitating competencies monitoring, reporting and planningand providing for interfacing to broader HR systems.

About the Professional Simulation Engineer – PSE qualificationThe Professional Simulation Engineer is a NAFEMSprofessional qualification, successor to the existingRegistered Analyst Scheme. The Professional SimulationEngineer will replace the existing points based scheme witha competency based scheme, based upon a formal record ofstaff competence and training. The Professional Simulation Engineer will provide to theAnalysis and Simulation engineer a distinctive qualification,attesting enhanced analytical skills, able to increase value toemployers and to enhance technical career prospects.In fact, PSE employers will benefit by the formal record andindependent assessment of staff competence and training,that will turn into higher productivity, less supervision,reduced risk of error and improved staff motivation.Requirements to obtain the Professional Simulation Engineerqualification include education requirements, training formalrecords, appropriate simulation experience and evidence tosupport the competencies claimed through the CompetenceFramework.

For further information:Giovanni Borzi, [email protected]

Over 200 engineers joined the online EASIT2project webinar titled “New Tools for CompetenceDevelopment, Management and Recognition inEngineering Analysis and Simulation”

The online Educational Base and Competence Framework

Professional Simulation Engineer logo


Events

Dolomites Workshop onConstructive Approximation andApplications

The 3rd Dolomites Workshop on ConstructiveApproximation and Applications (DWCAA12) was held inAlba di Canazei (Trento, Italy) from 9th to 14thSeptember. It was hosted by the University of Verona inits summer courses building in the Dolomites, at about1500 meters altitude.More than 120 people from international Universities,research centres and private companies participated inthe Workshop. EnginSoft played an important this year, bysponsoring the event and introducing a "Best Paper" prize.This award is to be given to the best paper submitted tothe proceedings of the conference by either a student,PhD student or post-doc. The selection of the best paper

will be made by the Scientific Committee of DWCAA12.The program of the week included six different sessionswent on for the entire week, dedicated to differentmethods and difficulties related to approximation (e.g.approximation in high dimension, polynomial and rationalapproximation, kernel methods).EnginSoft also contributed a special session dedicated toreal case applications for approximation algorithms to theorganization. Silvia Poles and Vito Primavera fromEnginSoft presented a couple of applications in whichRadial Basis Functions were used to interpolate real data.

Figure 1: Presentation of the “best paper” prize.

Alfonso Gambardella

“Innovazione e Sviluppo – Miti dasfatare, realtà da costruire”Egea 2009

Ultimo libro pubblicatodal prof. Gambardella,docente di economia emanagement pressol’Università LuigiBocconi di Milano,“Innovazione eSviluppo” affronta, conl’aiuto di dati statistici eanalisi di trend storici,alcune “certezze” chevengono tuttoraquotidianamente spac-ciate dalla stampanazionale ed interna-zionale, e aiuta l’imprenditore e il manager a guardare iltema della innovazione con uno sguardo più ampio e menoconvenzionale.Vengono brevemente introdotte alcune teorie economicherelative all’innovazione, come ad esempio il modello diSchumpeter sui processi di crescita delle imprese e deisistemi economici, allo scopo di evidenziare alcuniconcetti chiave utili per il seguito della trattazione.Vengono poi affrontati alcuni miti relativi alla Ricerca eSviluppo, viene espresso il ruolo della grande impresanelle attività di ricerca, e vengono proposte strategieattraverso le quali l’imprenditore, ma anche chi ha ilcompito di definire politiche locali e nazionali, puòcercare di sfruttare al meglio le opportunità associate alleasimmetrie esistenti, relative ad esempio allabrevettazione. Segnatamente l’Autore, mentre ribadisce il ruoloimportante del progresso tecnologico, disvela comel’innovazione si generi in realtà da un complesso difattori, che includono ad esempio investimenticomplementari, nuovi metodi produttivi ed organizzativi,nuovi modelli di business capaci di intercettare ladomanda, e anche fattori finanziari. Le tecnologie quindivengono più utilmente ricondotte al ruolo di produttrici dinuove opportunità e di idee, solo poche delle quali peròsaranno in grado di incontrare una domanda, di generareun mercato, e quindi di generare reale innovazione. Nella parte finale del libro emerge centrale la figuradell’innovatore, inserito in un sistema aziendale,economico e politico in grado di stimolarne, sostenerne eamplificarne creatività ed imprenditorialità.

Figure 2: Silvia Poles, EnginSoft Padua presenting the "Best Paper"prize to the audience

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Numerical analysis technologies are more and more present in the industrial world. They are absolutely essential to the product andprocess innovation at each level and in every industrial sector. The International CAE Conference will present the state-of-the-art of CAE indiverse industries. Significant user testimonials will prove how such technologies help increase the product efficiency and ROI. This annualappointment is a major, an efficient platform for designers, analysts, IT managers, engineers, professors, researchers, associations andstudents involved or interested in virtual simulation tools.In the field of numerical analysis, the International CAE Conference is the most important event in Italy and one of the leading conferences inEurope. It features two congress days and some Users' Meetings of the main technologies developed by the most important worldwideCAE players, such as ANSYS, Flowmaster, MAGMA, Forge, modeFRONTIER and many others.An accompanying exhibition will run parallel to the Conference Program. The exhibition traditionally offers a networking platform, whereCAE technology solution providers offer their knowledge, advice and expertise to the participants. A special section of the exhibition areawill be dedicated to members of associations and scientific bodies, the technical press as well as to hardware vendors who provide thenecessary know-how to implement machines and components in order to perform today’s more and more complex analyses.


Events

22 OCTOBER 2012 - AFTERNOON

PLENARY AND MAIN SESSION

(Room Arilica) (Room Riva)

14.00

Stefan Luding, University ofTwente - From Particles towardscontinuum theory: Crossingmultiple scale

Andrea Remuzzi, Ist. Mario Negri- Clinical validation of computerbased modeling forsurgicalplanning of vascularaccess in hemodialysis patients

14.25

Eugenio Onate, CIMNE -Advances in the particle finiteelement method (PFEM) formultidisciplinary problems inengineering

Tim Bogard & Chris Wilkes,Sigmetrix - 7 Phases to RobustDesign: How GD&T, FeatureFunctionality, & ExactConstraints Define RobustAssemblies

14.50

Andreas Vlahinos, AdvancedEngineering Solutions - ImminentAdvance EngineeringEnvironments

Tim Morris, NAFEMS - How toGain, Manage and Assess CAEExpertise

15.15

Aronne Armanini, University ofTrento - Mathematical Modelingfor Debris Flows and HazardMapping

Michael Olsson, Tetra Pak - Thevalue of simulations inpackaging industry

15.40

Mikael Törmänen, Volvo Cars -Enhancing Multi-DisciplinaryOptimization by InitialSystematic Screening

Antonio Navarra - Euro-Mediterranean Centre forClimate Changes

16.05 COFFEE BREAK

(Room Arilica) (Room Riva)

16.30

Keith Hanna, Mentor Graphics -Back to the future: trends incommercial CFD

Fabio Marcuzzi, Università diPadova & Fabiano Maggio,EnginSoft - An InnovativeSimulation-Based Approach toDevelop MicrocontrollersApplications

16.55

Erik Lönroth, Scania - How weintend to pursue a market edgewith HPC

Hironori Imai, SCSK - The approachto the reliability by coupledanalyses between manufacturingand structural analyses. Realisticanalysis with ADVENTURECluster

17.20

G. Meneghetti, University ofPadova, & S. Giacometti, - OZRacing - Design andmanufacturing of a single-seatformula SAE racing car

Jean Luc Lacome, IMPETUS -Modelisation of blast loading ona steel structure usingadvanced numerical particlemethod

17.45

18.30 INTERNATIONAL CAE POSTER AWARD

19.00 COCKTAIL PARTY

PLENARY SESSION

(Room Arilica)

9.30 Stefano Odorizzi, EnginSoft - Welcome Address

9.45Parviz Moin, Stanford University - High Fidelity numericalsimulations of multiple-physics turbulent flows in complexgeometries

10.30 Andreas Ennemoser, AVL List GmbH - Help! Where are mydata?" Subtitle: "Don't worry, solved. We can deliver

10.55 COFFEE BREAK

11.15 Mikael Lundblad, Sandvik Coromant - Knowledge drivendesign

11.30Gianluca Iaccarino, Stanford University and CascadeTechnologies Inc., - Forward and Backward UncertaintyAnalysis - Tools for Engineering Design

11.55Thomas B. Masservey, IMS Regional Coach - LeveragingInternational Collaboration through the IntelligentManufacturing Systems (IMS) Program

12.20 Marc Wintermantel, EVEN - An America's Cup EngineeringStory

12.35Clovis Maliska - SINMEC/CFD Lab Federal University of SantaCatarina - A joint industry-academy project for thedevelopment of integrated reservoir-wells tools

13.05 BUSINESS LUNCH

22 OCTOBER 2012 - MORNING


Events

INDUSTRIES PERSPECTIVES ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

INDUSTRIAL SESSION / CFD(Room Rocca)

INDUSTRIAL SESSION/MECH.(Room Cisano)

LS-DYNA It. Users Meeting(Room Laciusium)

COMPOSITIES (Room Bardolino)

Scilab (Room Vela)

Ansaldo Nucleare -Preliminary 3D analysis ofthe flowfield in the steamgenerator of thelead-cooled ALFRED nuclearreactor with ANSYS/FLUENT

Pierburg - Correlationbetween Multibody Flexsimulations andexperimentalmeasurements on aVaccum Pump for Porsche

Indesit - Indesit drasticallyreduces the packagingcost thanks to the newCAE driven designapproach

Verme Projects - Stylingand engineering from seato land: examples ofintegrated compositedesign development

Scilab Enterprise - What’sNew with Scilab?

14.00

Faber - Fluidodinamicoptimization of arangehood blower

Vision - A new wirelesspower supplyimplementation for electricvehicle batteries charging

ZF - Virtual Prototyping forSafer ProductDevelopment: IntegratedMarine Propulsion andSteering System Example

WhiteHead SistemiSubaquei - MultidisciplinaryConcurrent Engineering: V-FIDES UnderwaterAutonomous Vehicle hulldesign example

CNES - Scilab for spacemission design

14.25

Pierburg - Dynamic analysis ofaVariable displacementOilPump shaftundercrankshaft torsionalvibrations and internalpressureloads evaluated via CFD

Ansaldo Energia -Anisotropic Plastic CreepAnalyses for Gas TurbineHGP Components withANSYS

Brabant Alucast - Processand Product integration forHigh Strength Magnesiumalloy components

Componeering - Design-Optimization of CylindricalComposite Structures inPreliminary Design

Università di Padova - AScilab Radial BasisFunctions toolbox

14.50

Università di Ferrara -Numerical Analysis of aMicroGas Turbine Can-Combustorfed by Synthesis gas:numerical evaluation of thecombustor geometry influence

General Electric - Silencesystem development in oiland gas through ANSYSsimulation

Thales Alenia Space -Inflatable Module

EVEN EvolutionaryEngineering AG - ACP -ANSYS Composite PrePostV14.5 Special and newfeatures for CompositeVirtual Prototyping

EnginSoft - Solvingoptimization problems withScilab

15.15

Tetra Pak - Fluid StructureInteraction of a rigid body:simulation of a floating deviceused to detect the liquid levelinside the filling system of apackaging machine

CADFEM - CADFEM ANSYSExtensions - an Overview

CRF - An integratedapproach for full processsimulation aimed to PC/PDdimensional qualityimprovement

WhiteHead Sistemi Subaquei -The RubeeComp Project:composite materialcomponents incorporatingunfriendly environments wirelesscommunication systems

Openeering - Modeling inXcos using Modelica

15.40

COFFEE BREAK 16.05

LS-DYNA It. User Meeting(Room Laciusium)

modeFRONTIER Italian UM (Room Bardolino)

R&D ROUND TABLE (Room Gardesana)

Franco Tosi Meccanica -The role of virtual analysisand new numericaltechnologies inturbomachineryapplications

Daunia Solar Cell - Thermalpress optimization forsealing of new generationphotovoltaic modules

DYNAmore - New Featuresand Future Developmentsin LS-DYNA

Workshop: HandlingUncertainties withmodeFRONTIER:Introduction to RobustDesign Optimization

with FIAT - Industrial CaseHistory: Overview of RobustDesign Optimization inChassis and Vehicledynamics

Imprese e competitività:insieme per il successo

Reti, innovazione e progettiR&D: finanziare la ricerca sipuò!

Soluzioni concrete e nuoveprospettive per scoprirepercorsi di successo intempi di crisi.

16.30

SACMI - The economicaladvantages of the newapproach in theevaluation of the fatiguelife for the new generationpresses

MATFEM - AdvancedModeling of Metals andThermoplastics for CrashApplications underConsideration of theProcess History

16.55

Petrolvalves - Aeroacusticof the Valves: problemsand solutions

Università di Padova -Simple solar collectors forshower

BETA CAE - Recentadvancements in LS-DYNApre-processing for crashsimulation 17.20

Politecnico di Milano -CFD Simulations ofwindage losses of agearbox

Simpleware - NewDevelopments in Image-Based Mesh Generation of3D Imaging Data

BASELL - Simulating Failurewith LS-DYNA in GlassReinforced, Polypropylene-based Components 17.45

INTERNATIONAL CAE POSTER AWARD 18.30

COCKTAIL PARTY 19.00


ANSYS ITALIAN USERS’ MEETING modeFRONTIER Italian Users Meeting

(Room Rocca) (Room Riva) (Room Arilica)

9.30

Piaggio Aero - Optimization of wingefficiency vs. sweep angles using meshmorphing

Piaggio - CAE analysis of a con rodformotorbike application

Workshop - Efficient Optimization with mF:how to use advanced algorithm strategies

9.55

CINECA - Delayed Detached EddySimulation of Yacht Sails with experimentalvalidation

Pierburg - Vane Oil Pump CFD ANALYSIS:pressure fluctuation and waves reflection

10.20

University of Pisa - Research Activities onSlot-Coupled Patch Antenna Excited by aSquare Ring Slot

Università dell’Aquila - Classical andscale-resolving turbulence models in wind turbineaerodynamics

10.45

Key to Metals - New developments in adatabase of advanced material propertiesfor cae use

SUPSI - CFD modeling suitable forconcentrated solar power applications:thermalinsulation based on radiation shieldsand thermal energy storage systems

11.10 COFFEE BREAK

(Room Rocca) (Room Riva)(Room Arilica)

11.40

NVIDIA - Industry Benefits of GPU-Accelerated ANSYS Software

CYBERNET - PlanetsX: Injection Molding CAESystem on ANSYS Workbench - For all thepeople in the development of plasticproducts

Ferrari GES - Composite laminatesoptimization on Formula 1 car components

12.05

Ozen Engineering - How to performelectromigration simulations in ANSYS

Università di Bologna - Design andOptimization of bioreactors for hydrogenproduction by computational fluiddynamics

Magneti Marelli - Air intake manifold design:a geometrical dimensioning for engineperformances optimization

12.35

NICE - Visualization Tools: remote access toyour simulation

Consorzio SIRE - CFD transient simulation ofthe Piaggio P180 internal cabin ventilation

SACMI - Mechanical optimization of theinjection system in a compression moldingmachine

18.30 BUSINESS LUNCH

23 OCTOBER 2012 - MORNING


Flowmaster European Users Meeting MAGMA Italian Users Meeting

FORGE Italian Users Meeting

(Room Cisano) (Room Bardolino) (Room Lacisium)

Welcome and introduction MAGMA - MAGMA core and molds TRANSVALOR - Roadmap & Forge NewGraphical Interface

9.30

GE Oil&Gas - Enhancing design throughsystem level simulations at GE Oil&Gas

MURARO - Production Process of a bearing ring

9.55

FDB - Bringing the power of expert CAEsoftware to spread-sheets: Solutions forthe study of hydropower plantperformance using Flowmaster and Excel

TRANSVALOR - Open Die Forging Enhancementsin Applications - Dual Mesh Method

10.20

Mentor Graphics - Morgan JenkinsKeynote: Keeping Flowmaster apacewith Industry Trends

MAGMA - Hardware and Benchmark

10.45

COFFEE BREAK 11.10


EnginSoft - Industrial assesment ofFlowmaster applications

MAGMA - New Release MAGMA5.2 Feat Group - Optimization study of a hot forgedsteel part: reduction of material and fatigueresistance of the dies

11.40

Flowmaster interactive workshop withJohn Murray

TRANSVALOR - Induction Heating

12.05

12.35

BUSINESS LUNCH 18.30


ANSYS ITALIAN USERS’ MEETING modeFRONTIER Italian Users Meeting

(Room Rocca) (Room Riva) (Room Arilica)

14.00

ANSYS CFD Update - Introduzione MECHANICAL UPDATE: News 14.5 overview BETA CAE Systems - Multi-objectiveoptimization of a crankshaft using theefficiency of ANSA, μETA andmodeFRONTIER

14.25

ANSYS CFD Update - Ambiente WB -Paradigmi parametrici e tools dimeshatura avanzata

Bottero - Mold opening-closing mechanismoptimization through modeFRONTIER

14.50

Pierburg - Integrated Procedure to Designa New VOP (Variable Oil Pump): DesignFlowchart and Optimization Algorithm

15.15

ANSYS CFD Update - Solutori CFD-ANSYS EnginSoft - BENIMPACT SUITE: OptimalConfigurations of Windows andAccessories for Standard Nordic PrivateModular "nearly Zero Energy Buildings"depending on the site of construction

15.40

EnginSoft - HPC: i vantaggi dellaparallelizzazione

Linköping University - Information Entropybased Performance Index and MetaOptimization

16.05

ANSYS CFD Update - Modelli fisici enumerici avanzati: Aeroacustica, FSI,Adjoint solver

ANSYS Electromechanical Tools: NewFeature Updates and Future Roadmap.

Politecnico di Milano - StructuralOptimization of Cable Systems

16.30

Questions & Answers Enginsoft UK - Advancing the usability ofautomated processes in verification andoptioneering studies

23 OCTOBER 2012 - AFTERNOON


Flowmaster European Users Meeting MAGMA Italian Users Meeting

FORGE Italian Users Meeting


DCNS - Flowmaster: How to migrate inOracle version

Centro Ricerche Fiat - Integrated study ofcasting and assembly simulations for analuminum inner door frame

TRANSVALOR - Rolling Ring &recrystallization

14.00

EDF France - Using Flowmaster for the EPRauxiliary system design

Bruschi - Pressofusi in leghe di zinco: sistemiavanzati di progettazione

DIMEG Università di Padova - DuctileFracture Prediction in Cold Forging ProcessChains

14.25

Iberdola Ingenieria - Nuclear Power PlantCircuit Modeling: Hydraulic and ThermalCalculations

DTG - Correlation between NumericalSimulation Results and Empirical Ones inPermanent Mould Gravity Casting ofAM60B Magnesium Alloys

TRANSVALOR - Muti-Material simulationMaterial Data

14.50

Tristone - Automation in Flowmaster 7 :Pressure Drop Calculations Automation,Workflow and Time Savings

iGuzzini - Studio di fattibilita' preliminaredel getto pressofuso per un vano ottico diapparecchio stradale a LED

TECNALIA - Rotary forging: simulations,apllications and link with microstructuralcalculations

15.15

Consorzio RFX - Monodimensionalsimulation of SPIDER Cooling Plant usingFlowmaster code

Customer presentations TRANSVALOR - Best Practice - RollingApplications

15.40

Events

Si terrà a Lazise, Verona - Lago di Garda, Lunedì 22 Ottobreore 18:30 presso il Centro Congressi Hotel Parchi del Gardanell’ambito dell’International CAE Conference, la cerimoniadi premiazione della prima edizione del “Poster Award”.L’iniziativa, promossa e sostenuta da EnginSoft, è unconcorso internazionale che premia i migliori lavorisviluppati da laureandi, dottoranti e tecnici impiegatinell’industria, che vertono su tematiche e ricerche condottemediante l’impiego di tecniche e strumenti di simulazionecomputerizzata CAE.

Padrino ospite d’onore e co-promotore dell’iniziativa,nell’edizione “numero uno”, sarà il Professor SilvioGarattini, fondatore e Direttore dell’Istituto di Ricerchefarmacologiche “Mario Negri” di Milano. Garattini, che inoltre 50 anni di attività ha firmato molte centinaia di lavoriscientifici pubblicati in importanti e autorevoli rivistenazionali e internazionali, è considerato dalla comunitàscientifica internazionale tra i più geniali e prolificiscienziati italiani. L'Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche"Mario Negri", sotto la direzione di Silvio Garattini, haprodotto oltre 13.000 pubblicazioni scientifiche e circa 250volumi, in cancerologia, chemioterapia e immunologia deitumori, in neuropsicofarmacologia, in farmacologiacardiovascolare e renale. Sono circa 7.000 i laureati etecnici di laboratorio, specializzati in seno all’istituto,nell’arco temporale della guida Garattini. Anche il CAE edaltre tecniche di simulazione computerizzata vengono

ampiamente impiegate nei laboratori di ricercadell’istituto: sia per simulare sistemi biologici in generaleche per valutare l’efficacia del farmaco e la diffusione inorgani umani “virtuali” simulati al computer.

Il Concorso si pone soprattutto l’ambizioso obiettivo difocalizzare l’attenzione di manager e imprenditori presentiai lavori dell’International CAE Conference, sulla genialitàdegli individui avvicinando così l’offerta, costituita daigiovani talenti, alla crescente domanda, da partedell’industria, d’ingegneri, progettisti e ricercatori. IlComitato Scientifico, presieduto dal Professor Parviz Moindirettore del Centro per gli studi sulla turbolenza presso laStanford University of California - USA, e ospite d’onore ailavori congressuali dell’International CAE Conference,selezionerà tra i Poster ricevuti i migliori 10 provenienti dalmondo accademico ed un numero equivalente provenientedall’Industria. Tra i 20 nominati, nel corso della cerimoniadi premiazione, verranno rivelati i 3 migliori lavori perognuna delle due sessioni: accademica ed industriale. Ivincitori riceveranno in premio un Tablet Computer offertoda EnginSoft. All’interno dell’area espositiva dellaConferenza sarà allestita un’area dedicata ai poster cheaccoglierà e renderà fruibili al pubblico tutti i 20 lavoriselezionati. Gli autori avranno l’opportunità di illustrarel’originalità e il contenuto tecnico-scientifico del lorolavoro a congressisti, manager e imprenditori.Approfondimenti su: www.caeconference.com

Silvio Garattini al “PosterAward” promosso da EnginSoftnell’ambito dell’InternationalCAE Conference

Fig. 1 - Professor Silvio Garattini


News

Si terrà dal 7 al 9 Novembre p.v., al Grand Hotel Trento –Trento, il 34mo “Convegno Nazionale AIM” organizzatodall’Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia.Il Convegno, unico nel suo genere in Italia per la vastitàdei temi trattati, desidera ri-confermarsi come il momentodi ritrovo e confronto per gli operatori dei diversi settoridella Metallurgia. All’evento EnginSoft parteciperà daprotagonista sia in veste di sponsor sia con contenutitecnico-scientifici. Nel corso del primo giorno di lavori,infatti, Andrea Pallara e Marcello Gabrielli presenterannoun lavoro sul tema della Fattibilità produttiva attraverso lasimulazione Numerica mentre il giorno successivoGiampietro Scarpa presenterà un tema d’attualità nelprocesso di pressocolata ovvero l’analisi delle difettologiee il contributo positivo indotto dalla simulazione numerica.L’intervento si terrà all’interno della sessione dedicata allaPressocolata, presieduta da Piero Parona – presidente delComitato AIM per questa tecnologia fusoria, che riuniscelavori ad alto contenuto tecnico-scientifico provenienti daimportanti atenei e gruppi industriali.L’appuntamento di Trento, perché ricco di contenuti tecnicie scientifici di alto livello, oltre a richiamare i tecnici dellaproduzione, delle lavorazioni meccaniche in generale, è unpunto di riferimento anche per docenti e ricercatori legatialla metallurgia. Per approfondimenti: www.aimnet.it

EnginSoft al Convegno AIM di Trento

EnginSoft parteciperà al congresso sull’alluminio, che si terrà aMilano dal 14 al 18 Marzo 2013, con una relazione focalizzata sutematiche “Automotive” ovvero il dimensionamento ottimizzato diuna biella-motore realizzata in lega leggera. L’esperienza, riassunta inun Paper a firma Gramegna- Lago – Scarpa di EnginSoft e – LucaBellati di ABOR Spa, porrà l’attenzione sulle relazioni tra: disegno delcomponente, i sistemi per produrre e l’impiego di tecniche diottimizzazione multi-obiettivo volte a realizzare il migliocompromesso tra aspetti tecnici progettuali, processi produttivi edaspetti economico-finanziari.Per approfondimenti: www.aluminium2000.com

Enrico Boesso, esperto in processi fusori presso il Competence CenterEnginSoft di Padova, interverrà alla Giornata di Studiodell’Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia in programma il 14 Novembrep.v. a Sirone (LC). In particolare l’intervento di Enrico Boesso –Product Manager della soluzione software “MAGMA” dedicata allasimulazione dei processi e fenomeni fusori, porrà l’attenzione sullostudio delle deformazioni cicliche del contenitore-pistone “con” e“senza” termoregolazione. Il gruppo Pistone-contenitore costituisceil punto di partenza del processo di pressocolata in camera fredda. Leforti sollecitazioni termiche e meccaniche al quale il sistema èsottoposto riducono la vita utile delle attrezzature, traducendosi nonnel solo costo della sostituzione e nell’interruzione della continuitàdi processo ma anche nell’aumento di difettosità riscontrabili neiprodotti, e nei possibili danneggiamenti della macchina stessa.Partendo da queste considerazioni il Centro Pressocolata di AIM,nell’ambito del piano di formazione continua destinato agli associati,ha promosso e organizzato la Giornata di Studio sull’efficienza delsistema pistone-contenitore, anche in risposta alla sempre crescentedomanda in tal senso da parte degli utilizzatori. Per approfondimenti:www.aimnet.it

EnginSoft al CongressoInternazionale “Aluminium Two Thousand”

Contributo scientifico diEnginSoft alla Giornata di Studiosulla Pressocolata

Italia22-23 Ottobre 2012 – Lazise, Verona, Lago di Garda; “International CAE Conference”22 Ottobre 2012 – Lazise, Verona, Lago di Garda; “Poster Award”22 Ottobre 2012 – Lazise, Verona, Lago di Garda; Convegno “Imprese e Competitività: Insieme per il Successo”7-9 Novembre 2012 – Trento; “Convegno Nazionale AIM”14 Novembre 2012 – Torino; “Corso propedeutico all’utilizzo delle tecnologie CAE”

International24-26 October 2012 – Kassel, Germany, ANSYS Conference & CADFEM Users' Meeting9-12 June 2013 – Salzburg, Austria, NAFEMS World Congress

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22 Ottobre 2012•dalle 16.30 alle 18.30Hotel Parchi del Garda - Via Brusà - Loc. Pacengo, Lazise (Vr)

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