Conceptual and Systems Design Fuels Open-Architecture Integrated CAE

Image courtesy of Chad Jackson, research analyst, Lifecycle Insights.

There is a need to bring simulation into conceptual design. And not just any simulation, but multiphysics and systems level simulations. By conducting these assessments earlier, teams are able to catch errors early in the design cycle. This will help to reduce costly changes to the design if prototypes were to fail.

In a study conducted by Lifecycle Insights, prototype failures risks the design team missing milestones, needing to conduct more prototype testing and even putting in considerable amounts of overtime.

Image courtesy of Chad Jackson, research analyst, Lifecycle Insights.

These costly consequences of failed prototypes should be avoided with early CAE and simulation. However, conducting these assessments early in the design cycle have their own challenges, including limited analyst availability, large mesh generation, limited concept geometry and time.

To combat this, many industries have opted to provide their library of tools in open-architecture CAE solutions with an integrated platform. These platforms tend to help design teams gain access to their CAE tools, ensure the tools communicate with each other properly and keep track of licenses. Additionally, a growing number of vendors claim to assist in conceptual and systems level design.

One example is Altair HyperWorks. “HyperWorks has the ability for I/O communications with all the most popular CAE and CAD tools in the market,” said Antoine Poussier, vice president of global partner programs at Altair.

“All CAD and CAE interfaces are included, with no additional license required,” he explained. “The platform is designed for collaboration for simulation data management and automation, enabling users to generate and execute complex CAE workflows and tasks.”

HyperWorks and APA Enable Conceptual and Systems Level Design

Altair Partner Alliance offers HyperWorks users access to various products.

The major benefit of using Altair HyperWorks is the large pool of CAE tools available at your fingertips.

One particular tool that will help with early conceptual and systems level design is HyperWorks integrated model-based design. The tool allows engineers to integrate 1D systems simulations (equation-based simulations) to the 3D multiphysics simulations. This will help to ensure that what you have learned early in the conceptual and systems level simulations is integrated into your detailed part simulations later in the design cycle.

Included in the platform is access to more than 50 third-party CAE applications created by the Altair Partner Alliance (APA). Many of these tools are also aimed at supporting conceptual and systems level design such as additional 1D systems simulation and model-based design tools.

However, these APA tools are not limited to systems level and conceptual design tools. By tapping into the APA, engineers can gain access to various multiphysics simulations and manufacturing simulation tools for various parts of design cycle.

“Perhaps the most innovative feature of the HyperWorks platform is that users can directly access a broad range of complementary software programs from leading providers within the APA,” said Poussier. “Altair is effectively extending the HyperWorks platform to over 50 applications with the addition of new partner applications.”

Many of the APA members are just starting up, so Altair users will be able to try these tools as soon as they join HyperWorks’ global market using Altair’s pooled licensing systems. Following those that join the APA can be a great way to find the tool you were looking for when you need it.

Altair Cloud Solution: Power and Flexibility for Conceptual and Systems Level Design

In addition to both on- and off-premise cloud systems, aka private and public cloud, Altair HyperWorks is optimized to operate on a variety of HPC (high-performance computing) platforms.

Altair works with major vendors like Intel to optimize the scalability and performance of their HyperWorks application software. Engineers can also leverage Altair’s supercomputing workload management suite, PBS Works. These should ensure that you will optimize the computing resources when conducting conceptual and systems level designs, as well as when performing more complex multiphysics simulations and optimizations.

As for the Altair Cloud Solution, Ravi Kunju, vice president of cloud strategy and business development at Altair, explains how the systems offers secure options for both private and public clouds. “Altair’s complete set of cloud-based solutions include an intuitive, secure web-based portal to manage simulations, lifecycles and projects. Additionally, we offer both private and public cloud appliances, brining software, platform and infrastructure as a service – SaaS, PaaS and IaaS – to Altair customers within a single and intuitive CAE portal,” he said.

However, users should know the benefits and drawbacks when choosing a public cloud service.

Benefits of public cloud	Drawbacks of public cloud
Democratization of large-scale computing and application software Instant scalability of HPC Affordable and flexible	Hard to find optimal cloud for use case Licensing cost for software when scaling up HPC Large files Perceived concerns with security

To alleviate some of these concerns with off-premise cloud services, Altair introduced HyperWorks Unlimited. This secure cloud option is not only optimized for Altair software, it allows unlimited use of Altair products as they scale up the solution with more computing power. The infrastructure is managed by Altair and can be deployed for off-premise through the HyperWorks Unlimited Virtual Appliance (HWUL-VA) or on-premise with the HyperWorks Unlimited Physical Appliance (HWUL-PA).

“No two clients are exactly the same, so Altair has embraced technology and business models that allow clients to choose from a variety of options that is best suited for their demand and scale,” said Kunju.

HWUL-PA offers an on-premise solution that can integrate the HPC into the customers’ current network. The HWUL-VA, however, allows for on-demand access for instant scalability from one to hundreds of nodes instantly through the Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure.

“Users can access the HyperWorks appliances using the same HPC middleware technology many use to access their privates clouds, PBS Works,” said Kunju. “PBS Works provides complete HPC workload lifecycle management with web-based GUIs for users to access, submit and manage jobs in Compute Manager. In addition, Altair’s Display Manager, part of the suite, allows remote visualization of large data for end users to avoid large data movement.”

Altair Simulation Cloud Suite’s lifecycle management abilities will be crucial to ensure that all the information collected in the early conceptual and systems level design stages will be included in more complex assessments later in the design cycle. When working with the large cloud databases, and your own private HPC, it will help to ensure the design team doesn’t continuously reinvent the wheel.

Altair’s Licensing Model Supports Conceptual and Systems Level Design

Considering you will be using various different APA and HyperWorks software options to support your systems level and conceptual design, one might wonder how to keep track of all of those pesky licenses.

To that point, Altair offers their centralized pool of license tokens called HyperWorks Units (HWUs). Each member of the team can log into HyperWorks at the same time using this pool of licenses. Additionally, each member of your team can use multiple HWUs to gain access to various tools available through Altair and the APA.

HyperWorks Unit licensing systems tracks token usage based on the most expensive Altair product. Usage is stacked only when APA product is used.

“These units are like currency — each HyperWorks application draws a specific quantity of HWUs when a user invokes the HyperWorks product, and returns the HWUs back to the pool when the HyperWorks application is closed,” said Simone Bonino, vice president of marketing at Altair.

“Customers can concurrently use as many products from the HyperWorks suite as they desire for a flat rate, rather than paying for each license in use, until the total quantity of units in the pool are exceeded,” he added.

In other words, when a user uses multiple Altair products at once, they are only billed for the product that costs the most amount of HWUs. The license tokens do not stack as in traditional licensing schemes.

Unfortunately, the non-stacking billing of HyperWorks Units doesn’t apply to products from the Altair Partner Alliance (APA). In other words, when using multiple APA products, the usage of HWUs will stack for each APA product on top of the current Altair product usage. This is done to ensure that each APA partner is paid for the usage of their product.

“End users consistently express satisfaction with the HyperWorks licensing model,” expressed Bonino. “It simplifies license management and planning. Note as well that it gives users flexibility to devote licenses to interactive work during the day and then to reuse those same licenses to run batch applications at night on their desktops or HPC clusters.”

As a result, global organizations are ordering Altair’s licensing pools to be used by their whole organization around the clock. The flexibility and simplicity of the licensing model help to improve the overall ROI of the organization.

It is clear that Altair offers the flexibility needed for conceptual and systems level design. With the various tools offered through HyperWorks and the APA a user can perform various CAE assessments. Additionally, the HWU licensing system and Altair Cloud Solutions ensure you can access these tools and the power to use them.

To learn more about HyperWorks, follow this link: http://www.altairhyperworks.com/

Altair has sponsored this post. They have no editorial input to this post. All opinions are mine. —Shawn Wasserman.