In late May 2023, Altair released its Simulation 2022.3 update which focuses on simplifying the simulation experience through cloud computing, collaboration tools, new simulation workflows and AI-enabled design space exploration.
By bringing AI features to design of experiments (DOE) studies, through Altair DesignAI, the company aims to streamline the decision-making process. The tool will be able to vary part and element properties as it explores the design space. Users will then be able to generate responses and make better links between variables. The system will also automatically update models with the new design variables determined by the exploration.
The Cloud Innovation Gateway on Altair One, the company’s cloud-based platform offering, will help teams to reduce data silos by targeting IT constraints and information access barriers. The ecosystem will also see digital thread workflows that connect Altair one to Altair HyperWorks. This digital thread will help users to see, modify, track and access data, libraries and other design information while within a single ecosystem.
The last big news in the announcement is the added workflows to Altair Hypermesh, Inspire and SimLab. For example, users can modify, create and change a part or assembly within Inspire Fluids to meet hydraulic needs. There are also new battery module tools for thermal analysis and modeling. Additionally, Inspire now supports Linux user interfaces and includes new geometry creation tools.
After all the hype of ChatGPT, it’s good to see more AI-enabled goodies entering the engineering CAE toolbox. Though a short conversation with these AI tools shows that they won’t be replacing engineers anytime soon, the technology’s ability to streamline processes will create the risk of engineers sleeping on AI to be displaced by other engineers.