Resources | Altair Inspire

DfAM with Inspire: Don’t be late to Lightweight

Engineers and Designers are under constant pressure to lightweight components, reduce cost, improve quality and increase the throughput of manufacturing. As additive manufacturing (AM) has become more widely adopted, there has been the promise of being able to take full advantage of weight saving opportunities offered by topology optimization and the freedom of geometry offered by AM. The reality is that design, manufacturing and geometry constraints still exist and vary dependent on the AM technology utilized.

Webinars

Validate and Optimize Manufacturability of Concept Design

Altair offers a unique set of simulation tools to evaluate product feasibility, optimize the manufacturing process, and run virtual try-outs for several subtractive and additive manufacturing processes, including casting, injection molding, metal forming, extrusion, and 3d-printing. In this session, users will learn how to validate designs early in the manufacturing process with the simplicity and affordability of the Inspire family of products.

Webinars

Evaluate the Dynamic Behavior of Complex Mechanical Systems

The motion module included in Altair® Inspire™ enables engineers to evaluate the dynamic response of products and optimize their performance. Dynamic motions of complex systems are easily generated, automatically identifying contacts, joints, springs, and dampers. Motors and actuators can be added and tuned interactively. In this session, you will learn how to simulate complex mechanisms, extract loads, and run analysis and optimization on individual mechanical components.

Webinars

Just Like Riding a Bike Altair - Startup Program Improves 3D-Printed Structures at Urwahn Bikes

Urwahn Engineering GmbH is a startup in the biking sector. While bikes must meet many requirements to pass globally recognized test and load case scenarios according to DIN ISO 4210 safety standards, they must also be light to reduce raw material usage and create the best possible user experience. For this aim, simulation has always played a key role at Urwahn, a team that strives to maximize functionality and performance by using state-of-the-art tools. Under the Altair Startup program, Urwahn received access to Altair® Inspire™. To meet the DIN ISO 4210’s safety requirements, they simulated five load cases on the steel frame structure, studied the behavior of the single 3D-printed parts, and explored the impact of the material distribution on the overall system behavior. Inspire’s integrated topology optimization solver enabled Urwahn to push the material usage limit, reducing weight and costs while keeping stiffness and other boundary conditions on target.

Customer Stories

Design Innovative, Structurally Efficient Products with Optimization

Applied early in the product development lifecycle, Altair® Inspire™ accelerates the creation, optimization, and study of innovative, structurally efficient parts and assemblies. Powered by Altair OptiStruct®, the industry standard for topology optimization, Inspire provides a simple, physics-based workflow for generative design of lightweight, manufacturable products. In this session, you will learn about different topology options including optimization objectives, stress and displacement constraints, manufacturable parameters, and design interpretation with PolyNURBS.

Webinars

Make Better Product Decisions Earlier with Conceptional Design

Altair simulation-driven design changed product development forever, enabling engineers to reduce design iterations and prototype testing. Discover how Altair® Inspire™ enables rapid design iterations through simplified modeling workflows to help deliver manufacturable, optimal designs early. Investigate structural and modal analysis on a model and visualize displacement, factor of safety, percent of yield, tension and compression, von Mises stress, and major principal stress with speed and accuracy.

Webinars

Enhancing Aerospace Design Processes While Lowering Development Costs Webinar

During this webinar, we will showcase a unique and game-changing simulation technology for structural analysis that can augment and complement established design and PLM processes. Built from the ground up to handle large, complex models, Altair SimSolid provides fast and accurate simulation results – unmatched in the industry – to drive early and timely design decisions.

Webinars

Research Report: Simulation-Driven Design for Manufacturing (SDfM) Experiences

Product engineers are under consistent pressure to reduce the costs, improve the quality and increase the throughput of manufacturing processes. This fast-paced environment is not well suited for trial-and-error manufacturing engineering. How are engineers responding to these challenges? Is simulation and simulation-driven design for manufacturing (SDfM) well established across the industry? When simulation is deployed, does it deliver on the promises of reducing costs while improving throughput and quality? And what are the barriers to the adoption of simulation during the early stages of product development? In this 2021 survey report conducted by Engineering.com, we discuss those questions and discover: • Top design priorities • Top benefits of SDfM • Top barriers to expanding and adopting SDfM • Risks to staying competitive in the market

Technical Document

Simulation at the Speed of Design

This presentation discusses the rise of intelligent design technologies used throughout industry to rapidly assess and optimize product performance before physical prototypes. The session includes a brief hands-on demonstration of some of the latest, easy-to-use simulation technologies that are empowering designers and design engineers around the world to capitalize on the digital design revolution. Speakers: Dr. Royston Jones, CTO, Altair Ken Welch, Senior VP Inspire Design and Manufacturing Products, Altair Duration: 20 minutes

Conference Presentations

Workshop: The Role of Simulation From Concept Development to Final Design

This workshop demonstrates how a simulation-driven design approach to product development can have a drastic impact on the performance, design time, and profitability of a new product. Using a belt sander tool as a demonstration model, our presenters show how Altair’s design and simulation technologies can conduct a concept design analysis and optimization of the sander external housing to improve stiffness and reduce weight. They go on to show how we can simulate the manufacturing process itself by looking at filling, packing, cooling and warpage of the plastic housing; before concluding with a series of stress analysis and validation studies such as a virtual drop test, 3-point bending simulation and even a study of the effect of the heat transfer of the electric motor. This is a valuable session to see how simulation technologies can be used throughout the design process, adding value and reducing development time at each stage. Speakers: Ujwal Patnaik, Global Business Development Manager, Altair Chris Sambell, Application Engineer, Altair Duration: 60 minutes

Conference Presentations

Altair Inspire - Topology Optimization Workflow

Inspire offers a number of topology options including: optimization objectives, stress and displacement constraints, acceleration, gravity, and temperature loading conditions.

Use Cases

Altair Inspire - Structural Analysis and Comparison

Investigate linear static and normal modes analysis on a model and visualize displacement, factor of safety, percent of yield, tension and compression, von Mises stress, and major principal stress.

Use Cases

Altair Inspire - Motion Analysis Workflow

Easily generate dynamic motion of complex mechanisms, automatically identifying contacts, joints, springs, and dampers.

Use Cases

Altair Inspire - Geometry Repair and Editing

Create, modify, and de-feature solid models using Inspire's modeling tools. Leverage the speed and accuracy of SimSolid to evaluate multiple variants.

Use Cases

Altair Inspire - Assembly Configuration and SimSolid Integration

Create multiple assembly configurations which can then be used to evaluate various design scenarios and the resulting concepts.

Use Cases

Driving Aerospace Competitiveness - INESPASA Accelerates Design of Aero Tooling Structures Using Altair SimSolid®

With more than 35 years of experience in research & development projects INESPASA has been working with companies such as Airbus, Alestis, Boeing, and Renault. To be successful in a highly competitive market, aeronautical tooling companies like INESPASA must deliver maximum quality and comply with highly demanding standards and regulations while meeting tight time constraints and limited budgets. Developing and testing aircraft component prototypes is time consuming and expensive, so INESPASA had to find new and faster ways – like Multiphysics simulation – to evaluate its aero-structure designs, identify problems before they occur, and ensure viability. INESPASA turned to Altair and applied tools such as Altair SimSolid®, Altair® Inspire™ and Altair® MotionSolve®. Thanks to fast simulation results, INESPASA addressed their challenge and found the solution with the best weight-stiffness ratio providing optimum usability of their aero structure elements.

Customer Stories

Bringing the Future Faster Through Innovation and Analysis, by American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM)

AAM has been providing mechanical drivelines to automotive customers for more than 25 years. As the automobile transitions to electrification, so too must the driveline. AAM has developed a suite of innovative, lightweight, compact and cost-optimized electric drive units and electric beam axles to meet the growing global technology demand as electric vehicles continue to expand over the next decade. Engineering simulation, optimization and validation tools were significant enablers to increase the validation confidence and reduce the time to market for these new products.

Future.Industry 2021

Real-time Design Modification and Optimization with Altair Inspire

Inspire’s new parametric modeling allows you to capture the evolution of your model’s shape by showing the linear sequence in which the geometry was created. You can roll the model backward or forward, as well as group, delete, insert, suppress, or edit entities in the History Browser. Inspire also features a new and improved sketching interface and several new sketching tools. See how you can use these new tools to seamlessly add, remove, and parameterize features in your model and then use the Variables table to quickly make design updates and see how they affect performance is in seconds to minutes.

Future.Industry 2021

From Product Feasibility to Process Optimization for Metal Forming: Inspire Form

Product engineers are under constant pressure to reduce costs, improve quality and increase the throughput of manufacturing processes. Applying a simulation-driven design for manufacturing (SDfM) approach to product development can help understanding the product manufacturability early in the design cycle, while considering various design alternatives and choosing the best performing, manufacturable design up front. After a brief introduction of the metal forming process, the presentation will explore a typical use case of a sheet metal part - subject to static and dynamic loading – showing how simulation can be very effective in reducing cost for parts redesign and dies modifications, while providing engineers with valuable insights on the manufacturing process and product performance.

Future.Industry 2021

Panel Discussion: Trends in Design and Manufacturing Simulations

The goal for any design, structural and manufacturing simulation is to predict and fix defects early in the product development. This panel will discuss how design and simulation tools are helping engineers to be efficient. Experts will share their thoughts on current and future trends in manufacturing, focusing on how designs evolve using manufacturing simulations.

Future.Industry 2021

Better Product Decisions Earlier with Simulation-driven Design

Altair® Inspire™ democratizes modeling and simulation making it accessible to all designers and engineers, particularly if they don’t have time for (or access to) traditional CAD tools. It now provides a robust history-based CAD modeling approach to create and modify geometry easily and quickly.

Quick Start

Using Integrated Simulation to Optimize Heavy Equipment Design

Heavy equipment manufacturers want to design products that are durable and perform at their peak under a variety of conditions. To accomplish this, Altair provides an integrated multi-disciplinary simulation environment to virtually test and optimize equipment performance and therefore, help reduce design and development costs. Using simulation-driven design, studying the full dynamics of a product or system is possible, from motion analysis to complete lifecycle durability testing.

Technical Document

What is Simulation Doing for Machine Builders

A key development goal of any machine-building project is to produce perfectly running, reliable machines that make high-quality products. By leveraging accurate virtual prototypes, seamless production can be ensured earlier in the development process to help assess and improve product profitability.

Technical Document

Fly High with Optimization - Optimizing Camcopter® S-100 Design at Schiebel

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are a rapidly evolving technology and used for a variety of civil and military purposes. To ensure airworthiness, UAS manufacturers rely on advanced simulation and manufacturing techniques to create efficient designs. Aerial systems active throughout Europe and operating with diverse payloads for different missions require a reliable vehicle architecture and fuel supply. To ensure perfectly tuned architecture and a lightweight design while increasing stiffness and strength, Schiebel used Altair solutions in combination with 3D printing. The engineers performed various simulations to optimize the design of AM engine parts. Using Altair’s topology optimization structural design tool, Schiebel reduced the weight significantly while maintaining high stiffness. Subsequently, the system was evaluated by laminar and turbulent flow simulation as well as conjugate heat transfer simulation using Altair CFD™. Contacts, NLFE and complex dynamic systems were modeled with Altair® MotionView® and Altair® MotionSolve®. Schiebel also took advantage of APA solutions.

Customer Stories

Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Rapid Design Exploration Technologies

Formula Student is an international motorsport engineering competition where teams from around the world design, build and then compete a formula style racing car. In this presentation, Team Bath Racing discusses how they make use of Altair Inspire for topology optimization and how it enables rapid design iterations.

Presented at the 2nd Altair Academic Outreach Event in June 2021

Speaker: Conor Smith, Outboard Suspension Designer, Team Bath Racing
Duration: 18 minutes

Conference Presentations

The Sound of Silence - Acoustic Analysis of a Rail Carriage Bellow using Product Alphacell

Noise reduction is an important issue when developing products and components for railway applications. Recently, Ultimate Europe had to perform an acoustic analysis of a rail carriage bellow. In addition to its own broad portfolio of simulation solutions, Altair offers a wide selection of complementary software tools through the Altair Partner Alliance (APA). With Altair’s unique, flexible licensing model customers have access to these solutions at no additional costs. Altair Units allowed Ultimate to leverage APA products and access the functionalities of AlphaCell to predict the acoustic response of the bellow. Results included reduced run time, a decrease in model set up time, and increased combined metric correlation.

Customer Stories

Altair Inspire - Rapid Design Changes with the Speed and Accuracy of SimSolid

Altair Inspire now integrates Altair SimSolid for fast, accurate structural analysis of complex assemblies, as independently validated by NAFEMS. In this short demonstration we'll show how to analyze the structural performance of an agricultural seeder, applying geometry modifications in seconds.

Use Cases

Optimizing Process Design at Renault - Faster and Easier Rim Optimization using Altair Inspire and HPC

As the traditional optimization process at Renault required many iterations, simulation engineer involvement, and a considerable amount of time, the company was looking for tools and methods to improve this process. They wanted to implement a new, easy-to-use simulation tool that would allow non-experts, part-time analysts, and designers to gain insight and accurate results in early design phases of Renault chassis projects. With the goal to enable designers to run simulation by themselves without being dependent on the engineer’s calculations, the team began using Altair Inspire. The implementation on the Altair HPC platform enabled the engineers to send their highly complex calculations to the HPC server while running calculations on their workstation. The results included time savings, an 80% increase in process automation and mass reduction up to 20%.

Customer Stories

Better Press Tools with Additive Manufacturing - Innovative Design, Less Material and Guaranteed Successful Manufacture

Etteplan offers engineering solutions to the world’s leading manufacturing companies for industrial equipment and plant engineering. Etteplan’s client Wärtsilä were looking to redesign their valve spring press tools used for mounting cylinder head valves. Altair OptiStruct™ and Altair Inspire™ were used to run topology optimization and finite element analyses to create design concepts, and Additive Works’ Amphyon software simulated the print process. This resulted in Etteplan’s additive manufacturing press tool design being ready to be printed within one week from when the project starting data was frozen.

Customer Stories

Optimizing Investment Casted Parts with Simulation and 3D-Printing

Investment casting is a valued manufacturing process known for its ability to produce detailed components with accuracy, repeatability, and in a variety of different metals, waxes, and high-performance alloys. Producing high-quality casted components is less prone to common design errors when a simulation-driven approach is used, leading to easier, more accurate analysis and optimization during the design phase.

Technical Document

Manufacturing Process Simulation The Right Model for the Right Decission at the Right Time

Brett Chouinard, President and COO of Altair discusses Development challenges in Industrial machinery and illustrates how Altair's scalable simulation solutions provide the environment for simulation-driven innovation and how machine learning expands the capabilities furter.