Simcenter portfolio. (Image courtesy of Siemens PLM Software.)
The purpose of Simcenter is to create a digital twin that incorporates the mechanical, electrical and software behavior of a product. The aim is to better predict how physical products will react in the real world and throughout their life cycles.
The benefit of a digital twin is that engineers can innovate products earlier by performing tests faster and at a reduced cost when compared to physical testing.
Simcenter’s portfolio includes technology from:
- 1D System Simulations
- 3D Simulations
- Virtual to Physical Testing
Simcenter also has Internet of Things (IoT) functionality that will link the data collected by connected devices to help maintain the digital twin as the product is in the field. This will allow engineers to better design products based on how they are used in the field and to better predict how the products will react in a given situation as more use cases are understood.
“Think of a vehicle used in Siberia that develops a vibration,” explained Jan Leuridan, senior vice president at Siemens PLM Software. “You can collect the [IoT] usage data and process it in analytics to figure out where the problem is coming from. You might find the problem is from an engine mount that isn’t behaving well in this cold weather. You can then study this using [Simcenter] simulations and with design of experiments to understand why it isn’t behaving the way it should.”
“Manufacturers are under a great deal of pressure to evolve their product engineering practices to meet new challenges, or risk becoming obsolete,” said Peter Bilello, president, CIMdata, Inc. “Through its Simcenter portfolio and predictive engineering analytics vision, Siemens is proactively addressing these challenges by utilizing its strong collection of existing technology combined with its acquisition of LMS and, more recently, CD-adapco. As a result, Siemens is able to continue helping its customers solve the engineering challenges for today’s products while setting the stage for the new generation of future products.”
Simcenter 3D to Become New Simulation Flagship of Siemens PLM Software
Siemens also announced the release of Simcenter 3D, a CAE platform that spans various simulation disciplines. This platform will become the new simulation flagship for the company and will replace NX CAE.
The platform will integrate Siemens NX technology with the 1D system simulations and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology provided from the LMS and CD-adapco acquisitions, respectively. As predicted, Siemens wasn’t going to stay tight lipped about how its acquisition of CD-adapco was going to fit into its CAE portfolio for long.
“When you virtually and physically test, you generate a lot of data. There is an increasing need that you process this data across the domains of engineering and the life cycle of the product,” said Leuridan. “To address these needs, you need to move away from looking at CAE as a set of activities that companies are executing in a disconnected way. We are moving to a stage where we are connecting these different technologies and domains to create a digital twin to interrogate a product digitally and properly understand and predict the product’s behavior.”
How Simcenter’s Workflow Will Be Set Up
Simcenter looks to combine disconnected CAE models and data into one digital twin. (Image courtesy of Siemens PLM Software.)
The workflow will also look to develop synergies between the multiple domains and CAE applications. The applications will grow together with Simcenter, be combined, and work together, or work separately, as needed.
“Because we have a set of complementary technologies within the Simcenter Portfolio, we are in a unique position to create relations between these technologies,” said Leuridan.
The release of Simcenter 3D and the Simcenter Portfolio follows the trend to bring various CAE tools into one unified platform. In fact, judging by the description offered by Siemens, the relationship is rather reminiscent of Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPEREINCE, with Simcenter playing the role of the 3DEXPERIENCE as the unifying platform. Simcenter 3D, in contrast, plays the role of SIMULIA: the simulation branch of the 3DEXPERIENCE CAE platform.
If that is the case, and Simcenter is aiming to take some of the space occupied by the 3DEXPEREINCE, then expect to see more design and CAE tools to be added to Simcenter in the near future. Also expect to see a close integration of the UI between each of the Siemens PLM products as they begin to align to Simcenter. Finally, it is likely that in the near future all of these applications will be available on the cloud.
In fact, Leuridan has already confirmed that we should expect to see more CAE applications join, and be replaced by the Simcenter. He said, “We will have a first significant release with a lot of the applications that will form the existing workflow map of Simcenter. We will not have everything there yet. We have a road map that is a 5-year plan. We will keep a number of the applications in parallel. But the strategy is to obsolete these applications once they are rolled into Simcenter.”
Simcenter will launch with NX 11 on August 5, 2016. To find out more about the release, read: “Sneak Peek at Simulation Improvements for NX CAE 11.”