WHITEPAPER: Concurrent CFD Analysis Methods Boost Automotive Design Productivity

A Strategic Engineering Tool for the Automotive Industry

Abstract
A new class of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis software, Concurrent CFD, is proving to be highly effective at performing heat, fluid and airflow analyses, enabling Engineers to accelerate key decisions at their workstations and without the need for CFD specialists. This intuitive MCAD embedded process allows designers to optimize a product during the design stages reducing manufacturing costs across a wide range of automotive parts and systems such as heating, cooling, fuel delivery systems, braking systems, exhaust systems, body panels etc, etc. Traditional and up-front CFD approaches have either been difficult, cumbersome or time consuming in their use, but with Concurrent CFD, mechanical design teams can accelerate the design process, increase their productivity workflow, reduce re-spins and increase profits. This paper includes two case studies using Mentor Graphics Concurrent CFD technology for automotive design applications.

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Its now common knowledge that computer modeling/virtual prototyping in the form of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can make major contributions in reducing product costs and accelerating time to market. However, many managers fail to realize that the latest software advances are now making these benefits both accessible and affordable to small- and mid-sized enterprises. This is in part thanks to a new design/analysis technology known as Concurrent CFD, created by leading simulation software company Mentor Graphics. Aimed specifically at the mechanical design engineer, Mentor Graphics have introduced FloEFD, a Concurrent CFD software that is embedded concurrent, in a users MCAD system. With it there is no longer the need to hire or train CFD specialists, outsource analysis to consultants, or conduct tests on expensive multiple physical prototypes; instead, a design engineer - with standard training and working in any size company, can use their existing knowledge to successfully perform flow and heat transfer analyses all within their already familiar MCAD environment, helping increase workflow and dramatically reducing the number of physical prototypes needed.

This breakthrough arose because FloEFD is able to simplify the process of setting up and running a flow or heat transfer analysis. Certainly, there will always be a few very demanding applications where a more advanced CFD knowledge is needed to fine-tune the meshing and solver settings in order to converge to a solution. However, experience shows that using their existing knowledge, design engineers with no specific training in CFD codes can correctly perform an analysis in roughly 80% to 90% of the situations they encounter. This ability to take CFD out of the exclusive domain of specialists and bring it into the mainstream represents a fundamental change in the design process. Just as the shift from 2D to 3D CAD required a mental leap, so does FloEFD and the results are perhaps even more significant.

Using their existing knowledge, design engineers with no specific training in CFD codes can correctly perform an analysis in roughly 80% to 90% of the situations they encounter.

Because of these factors, the scope of applications for CFD is expanding tremendously. Although many managers in the automotive industry might think that flow analysis is dedicated to studying the aerodynamics of a vehicles exterior, this is only the start of where FloEFD can be applied. Another application that might come to mind is the study of flow through a valve in order to size it or the air flow

through ventilation ducting to control cabin comfort temperatures. However, FloEFD is actually being used to optimize the design and manufacture of a wide variety of parts such as pumps,

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braking systems, filters, fuel cells, manifolds, lights, transmissions and a multitude of other components both mechanical and electrical. It is also important to note that fluid-flow effects inevitably have a result on the movement of heat from a device or process and FloEFD is equally good at studying these heating effects in components and systems of all sizes.

The purpose of simulation and modeling is to inform and confirm important decisions about an emerging product, and to do so as early as possible in the design process. These benefits are especially critical when the product in question is complex. Most Automotive-related products are considered to have either high or very high complexity levels. The latter category can encompass systems containing many thousands of individual parts. The development process can span weeks or years, depending on the complexity of the end product; and with each passing day, costs mount up. Figure 1 depicts the time and cost of prototypes at various levels of complexity. It is important to note that this is not the whole project timeline, but only the portion devoted to building a prototype.

Figure 1: The cost of building physical prototypes. Source: Aberdeen Group study The conclusion after examining Figure 1 is that it pays, literally, to avoid physical prototypes. Not surprisingly, best-in-class companies strive to substitute virtual prototypes for physical ones as much as possible. This is a fact that has been verified by pragmatic market research.

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Potential savings in the millions for just one project

The bottom line for procurement of any hardware or software for an engineering team is: Can it save us time, can it save us money? FloEFD packages which cost in the range of $20,000 to $30,000 for a perpetual license, can generally pay for themselves in the first project in which they are used with the benefits continuing on for years.

Convincing proof of this claim comes from a study conducted by the Aberdeen Group (Engineering Decision Support: Driving Better Product Decisions and Speed to Market). The study first compares 190 companies by means of several key performance criteria related to meeting cost/revenue targets and hitting product-launch dates; it then categorizes the organizations it studied into three groups: best-in-class, industry average and laggards.

Time and Cost Saved with 1.1 Fewer Prototypes

Source: Aberdeen Group, 2007

Product Complexity Low Moderate

Number of Parts <50 50 1000

Length of Development 1 week 1 year 1 month 5 years

Time Saved (days) 14 26

Cost Saved ($)

$8,360 $63,800

High Very High

50 10,000 1000 100,000

1 5 years 1 20 years

51 109

$143,000 $1,320,000

Table 1: A study by the Aberdeen Group shows that even with 1.1 fewer physical prototypes - made possible by the use of virtual prototypes in software, the savings in both time and money are considerable.

Not surprisingly, the strategy adopted by best-in-class companies is to trade physical prototypes for virtual ones as much as possible. These top companies conduct a mean number of 7.3 virtual iterations whereas laggards perform only 2.8. The obvious consequence is that with fewer virtual prototypes, the laggards need more physical prototypes: a mean of 3.8 for laggards compared to only 2.7 for best-inclass organizations 1.1 fewer physical prototypes. The savings accrued in these 1.1 fewer physical prototypes can be enormous (see Table 1): For a product of low complexity, a cost savings approaching $10,000; for a product of very high complexity, the savings are well over a million dollars!

Financial benefits also span the products useful lifetime. As stated by the AUTOSIM Consortium (a project funded by the European Commission), a product that is six months late to market, even if on budget, will generate an average of 33% less revenue during a 5-year period than it would if introduced

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on time and, as Figure 1 shows, having just one fewer physical prototypes can eliminate anything from 14 to 100 days from the project development timeline.

The key message today is that these time and cost savings are now available to virtually every design engineering team. Awardwinning

FloEFD moves CFD into the mainstream

Although the computer modeling of engineering systems is now available to every engineering team, the underlying concept is nothing new. For centuries, scientists have used mathematical models to describe the world around us. Newton and Leibnitz independently developed differential calculus to allow them to add dynamics to models. In fact, with a relatively simple model, Newton was able to predict planetary orbits. This feat was so revolutionary that it even challenged the then current view of the universe.
Engine water-cooling jacket

The skills required to operate FloEFD software are simply knowledge of the CAD system and the physics of the product, both of which the vast majority of design engineers already possess.

In the following decades and centuries, researchers discovered the formulas that describe various physical phenomena whether mechanical, structural, chemical or across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. For the flow of a liquid or gas, the most basic relationships are the Navier-Stokes equations, which were initially developed in the early 1800s. Their use was limited though, because realistic problems became so complex that it was impossible to find an analytical solution and it became necessary to find solutions using the brute force of approximate numerical methods bringing what we now know as Computational Fluid Dynamics.

Only with the emergence of computers in the 1950s did CFD studies start to become feasible, but they were based on programs - also known as codes, developed and written by researchers, usually in academia or government-sponsored programs. These codes were custom programmed for each individual case. Only in the 1980s did commercial codes become available to bring CFD to a wider audience, but they also required specialists who could understand how to properly set up the software such as getting a good mesh and then selecting the best solvers and tuning their results. Even so, with such packages, engineers were able to model any flow field if they could define the geometry, identify the underlying physics and prescribe some initial conditions.

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These early adopters started to solve a wide variety of problems with commercial CFD codes, and providers of such software have used the past decade to refine the underlying meshers and solution engines. The next step, taking place now, is to leverage these advances to achieve a breakthrough just as significant as the introduction of the first commercial codes; the emergence of Mentor Graphics Concurrent CFD technology and its software FloEFD.

FloEFD software was designed for use by everyday design engineers, not just specialists. It removes all the barriers to the mainstream use of CFD. Until now, the greatest obstacle has been that traditional CFD codes require users to have a deep understanding of the computational aspects of fluid dynamics in order to obtain accurate results. In contrast, FloEFDs groundbreaking features its use of native 3D CAD data, automatic definition of the flow space and the creation of a computational mesh for it, and the management of flow parameters as object-based features handled via a convenient wizard interface eliminate the need for engineers to understand the computational side of CFD. Instead, they can focus on the fluid dynamics of the product, an aspect that is already part of their responsibility and for which they are trained and experienced. The skills required to operate FloEFD software are simply knowledge of the CAD system and the physics of the product, both of which the vast majority of design engineers already possess.

One major aspect that differentiates FloEFD is that it can be either fully embedded or at least tightly integrated with most mechanical CAD packages engineers are familiar with. After installation of the software, all the menus and commands necessary to run a full CFD flow or heat analysis are created in the CAD packages menu system. This close interaction between the CAD and CFD functions within FLOEFD - see Figure 2, brings with it several major benefits:

Engineers no longer have to export a file from their CAD environment into an analysis package or spend time making the geometry CFD-ready, a process that can take hours, sometimes days. Instead, FloEFD uses the same geometry the engineers have created in their mechanical CAD package; any modifications to the CAD geometry are carried over automatically to the analysis.

Automatically detects the fluid regions of interest; this contrasts to conventional CFD software, which requires users to define the computational domain of interest.

Transparently sets up and runs the mesher and solver. CFD software, to be all things

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to all people, offers a wide range of choices, most of which are never needed whereas FloEFD software automatically chooses the appropriate solver and sets it up to find the solution.

Engineers do not have to worry about identifying when or where flow characteristics change because FloEFD fully supports laminar, transition and turbulent flow.

Its only necessary to set up the boundary conditions once; because of the unified environment, these parameters remain fixed to the geometry unless the engineer chooses to modify them.

FloEFD also accelerates the iterative design process; engineers can quickly and easily incorporate knowledge gained in an analysis into an improved design. With traditional CFD software, after each geometrical change it is necessary to re-create the mesh which usually involves timeconsuming manual intervention. In contrast, FloEFD software operates immediately on the changed geometry; creates a new mesh automatically, and works with the previously defined boundary conditions. Thus, the step from a changed geometry to running the solver and examining results is greatly accelerated.

The overall result is a much faster workflow with FloEFD that because of the tight integration of CAD and CFD functions, eliminates the need to perform several steps in subsequent analysis runs.

Exhaust Manifold

Flow analysis of an intake manifold being performed within Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire changes to the physical design are immediately available to the FloEFD software for analysis purposes.

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Vehicle Turbo

Vehicle Ventilation

With FloEFD, manufacturers can apply simulation at the concept stage so they can explore design alternatives, detect design flaws, and optimize product performance before detailed designs or physical prototypes are created. FloEFD also makes it easy to conduct what-if analysis. Engineers can modify the solid model without having to re-apply loads, boundary conditions and material properties. The software also aids in parametric analysis, for example, running an analysis multiple times with various wall thicknesses in a valve to determine the optimal thickness.

A multitude of applications
Until recently, a common thought among managers was, I dont see how FloEFD can help my staff design their products better. After all, fluid flow isnt a major factor in our designs. Meanwhile, best-in-class suppliers have discovered the enormous benefits of FloEFD go far beyond traditional applications such as aerodynamics.

In the automobile industry alone, engineers use FloEFD software for optimizing the following products and processes; Pressure drop in fuel injectors, heat transfer in radiators, fluid flow in catalytic converters, exhaust and emission control systems, and:

Under-hood airflow and thermal management Passenger comfort and environmental control systems Coolant flow in water jackets, engine blocks and cylinder heads Cooling of electronic systems, braking systems, powertrain components, headlamps etc. Performance of heat exchangers and heat sinks Flow and pressure drop through filters Fuel cell performance Hydraulic systems

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Aerodynamics of whole vehicles or components such as wing mirrors, windscreen wipers, spoilers, etc.

It becomes clear that FloEFD can prove invaluable in many other industries beyond vehicle manufacturing. In fact, there are very few industries or product areas that cannot benefit from Mentor Graphics Concurrent CFD software!

Why Concurrent CFD Speeds Up a Designers Workflow, and a Companys Profits

Figure 2. Diagram shows both Conventional and Upfront CFD need to Import/Export users MCAD geometry to Third Party software for analysis during the design process. By comparison, Concurrent CFD is embedded into the users existing MCAD design software.

Figure 2 shows that in conventional CFD or as it is sometimes known, traditional CFD, the model geometry is first captured and then exported from the users MCAD system. The geometry then needs to be imported into the users CFD tool, cleaned, meshed, solved, the results postprocessed and then reported back to the design team. This work is usually done by a specialist analysis group, or outsourced to a consultancy, so its necessary for the design team to communicate accurately just what needs to be analyzed and how. However, by the time the _________________________________________________________________________ Mentor Graphics: Accelerate Automotive Design with FloEFD 10

results are captured and reported on, the analysis model has become stale, as the design due to time restrictions, has progressed, often making it difficult to act on the results. Any significant changes to the models geometry then need re-analyzing. The penalties of conventional and traditional CFD are increased manpower, time and cost.

Upfront CFD attempts to improve this situation by aiming to streamline the interfacing between the MCAD tool to the CFD tool. Usually this is done by incorporating a solid modeler within the analysis suite. The result are a cleaner import of the geometry; However, the actual CFD analysis process is still performed outside of the users MCAD system, so a user needs to learn a separate and often complex piece of software, increasing a users learning curve and the products eventual time-to-market. It still carries the penalty of time, and the need to repeatedly export the geometry from the MCAD software and re-import it into the CFD software.

Concurrent CFD operates very differently. Its MCAD embedded, so the work is performed within the MCAD environment in an interface the user is already familiar with. Embedding CFD inside an MCAD tool delivers very significant benefits. Design changes necessary to achieve the desired product performance are made directly on the MCAD model, so the design is always up-to-date with the analysis.

Figure 3. Diagram shows how both Conventional and Upfront CFD require extra workflow processes to perform their analysis programs. Embedded Concurrent CFD uses the live MCAD geometry. This saves time and effort allowing the design to perform more iterations of a design in less time.

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In Figure 3 it becomes apparent why concurrent CFD is different to conventional and upfront CFD. By expanding the CFD workflow procedures, we can see they involve a number of process steps to obtain a full analysis report on a design. Both conventional and upfront CFD require geometry transferring from the MCAD system and cleaning it up so its suitable for analysis. This process has to be repeated each time a design change occurs, to keep the MCAD geometry and CFD analysis synchronized. Typically this approach will require the geometrys fluid spaces to be watertight for the analysis. In MCAD terms this is referred to as healing the geometry to make it manifold, whereas analysts often refer to it as cleaning the MCAD model. This is a generic requirement for CFD analysis, so it appears in all three approaches. Another process in both conventional and upfront CFD is the Create Cavity step. Most conventional CFD meshing tools work by meshing a solid, so they require a solid object to mesh. For a CFD simulation the solid object is the flow space, which for conventional and upfront CFD tools has to be created as a dummy part within the MCAD system by Boolean subtraction of the entire model from an encapsulating solid. This is usually done in the MCAD system and its this inverted flow space that is transferred to the external third party CFD software for meshing and analysis.

By comparison, MCAD embedded concurrent CFD works rather differently. The geometry used for the analysis is native to the MCAD system. This means that there is no geometry transfer step because the designer never has to leave his/her MCAD software. Concurrent CFD therefore eliminates the transfer geometry and create cavity steps, and effectively meshes in one step. Meshing still takes place, but only takes minutes rather than hours of iterating back and forth. This speeds up a users workflow, allowing them time to explore what if optimization changes which could enhance still further a designs reliability and overall manufacturing costs.

Concurrent CFD provides one final benefit thats not shown in the diagram. As mechanical designers undertake their own analyses they quickly learn how to build analysis-friendly geometry within their MCAD software, further eliminating the clean geometry step, so the time savings can be even greater than those indicated!

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Users tell the story

Vendors can make all the claims they want, but the true test of a software packages value comes when engineers tell about the benefits they receive. Here are just two stories from the thousands of satisfied users now working with FloEFD software:

As explained earlier in this whitepaper, performing virtual prototypes instead fabricating physical prototypes brings enormous savings in time and costs. This was clearly the experience of Ventrex Automotive GmbH in Graz, Austria. This company is a supplier of compressors and airconditioning valves to all major automobile manufacturers.

Ventrex Automotive: Eliminate 50 prototypes and reduce time to market by 4 months

One recent challenge was to develop valves suited for new CO2 refrigerants that are supplanting those based on hydro fluorocarbons. These new fluids operate at pressures 7 to 10 times higher and requires a redesign of many air-conditioning system components such as the valves used to evacuate and charge the system. A key advantage of FloEFD is that the simulation describes the pressure drop in a new design without the need to build a prototype; it also provides diagnostic information such as the flow velocity and direction at every point in the flow field so engineers can determine the optimal design.

Figure 3: Valve production at Ventrex Automotive GmbH. FloEFD software cuts the time to market of a new valve by 4 months.

Ventrex has long used CATIA, so they selected FloEFD V5, which integrates directly into that CAD environment. Without leaving that mechanical CAD environment, Ventrex engineers could simply execute a menu selection that invokes the FloEFD software to simulate the design using the native CATIA data. It automatically identified the voids within the valve where fluids could _________________________________________________________________________ Mentor Graphics: Accelerate Automotive Design with FloEFD 13

flow, and the engineers simply had to specify the boundary conditions, in this case the inlet and outlet pressures. Within a few hours we had a complete simulation of the initial concept design and were able to turn our attention to improving it, says the firms project manager.

The result? CAD-embedded CFD makes it possible to determine simulation results nearly as fast as we can change the design. We were able to improve the flow rate of our new CO2 valve by 15% while eliminating roughly 50 prototypes and reducing time to market by 4 months.

Miniature Precision Components: Quickly evaluate 12 design alternatives

A recognized leader in the innovative design and production of world-class thermoplastic parts for the automotive and commercial industries, Miniature Precision Components (MPC) supplies functional thermoplastic injection, extrusion, and suction blow molded assemblies/subassemblies. Headquartered in Walworth, Wisconsin, USA, the company has roughly 1500 employees.

As an interim step towards a long-term mandate for zero-emission vehicles, which will require the production of vehicles driven by electricity or hydrogen fuel cells, several states in the USA allow the licensing of partial zero-emission vehicles (PZEVs) that continue to use gasoline engines. In order to qualify as a PZEV, a vehicle must meet the super ultra low emission vehicle standard and have zero evaporative emissions from its fuel system. A key feature of a PZEV vehicle is a hydrocarbon trap in the air intake that prevents stray hydrocarbons from migrating out of the engine after shutdown -- but it must do so while avoiding a significant increase in backpressure for air entering the engine because that would adversely affect fuel efficiency and performance.

In designing a cost-competitive hydrocarbon trap, engineers at MPC started by creating the physical design as a CATIA model. They started by analyzing various rib configurations based on experience. Doing so with FloEFD V5 software was easy because they simply defined the boundary conditions and ran a flow analysis. They soon found that a 5-spoke versions backpressure was the lowest, but it was not low enough. The engineers then ran through roughly a dozen iterations of the 5-spoke design, each time changing the spokes geometry and the spacing of the carbon elements. Says the engineer in charge of this project, By the end of this process, I had beaten the target for backpressure, at least in the software. We built a rapid prototype and found that its backpressure was within 0.1 in. of water of the CFD predictions.

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An easy step to dramatically higher productivity

FloEFD can make a large contribution to your efforts to reduce costs and speed time to market, all while optimizing product design and thus customer satisfaction. The investment in the software will most likely pay for itself in the first project:1. Because the software is embedded into the CAD system your engineers are already familiar with 2. Because it is so intuitive to use, there is a very small short learning curve engineers can be productive with FloEFD software in a matter of hours.

Catalytic Converter

If you are working with any of the following 3D CAD packages, which together dominate the automotive market, we offer an integrated FloEFD solution that you can put to use immediately: FloEFD V5: For CATIA V5 FloEFD Pro: For Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire FloEFD: Here you import the CAD model into the FloEFD 3D environment and immediately gain all the features and functionality of the FloEFD design and analysis process. for virtually all other CAD package including: Autodesk Inventor Siemens NX Solid Edge CoCreate

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For detailed information

Minimal investment, maximal gain: If your company isnt already using FloEFD software, you should be. Speak with your design team and encourage them to get in touch with us well be happy to explain how they can get on board with this exciting new technology quickly and easily. For additional information, please contact: Mentor Graphics Corp Mechanical Analysis Division 81 Bridge Road Hampton Court Surrey KT8 9HH UK Tel: +44 (0)20 8487 3000 Fax: +44 (0)20 8487 3001 Info-mechanical@mentor.com Mentor Graphics Corp 300 Nickerson Road, Suite 200 Marlborough Massachusetts 01752 US Tel: +1 (508) 480 0881 Fax: +1 (508) 480 0882 info-mechanical@mentor.com

2008 Mentor Graphics Corp. All rights reserved. All products mentioned are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

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