Enhancing CAE Effectiveness: The Next Steps

Proceedings, 7th International Meshing Roundtable, Sandia National Lab, pp.3, October 1998

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

7th International Meshing Roundtable
October 26-28, 1998
Dearborn, Michigan, USA

Dr. Marc Halpern
Director of Research; Engineering, Manufacturing, and Design
D. H. Brown Associates, Inc.
222 Grace Church Street
Portchester, NY 10573

Keynote Speaker
Across all industries, companies have embraced the concept of early problem solving or "front-end loading"; to improve product development lead times. As a critical component of the strategy, companies adopt FEA-based simulation tools to construct models of components and products. If these models effectively capture the essence of the problem to be solved, the simulations provide insight to design decisions earlier in the product development process than higher fidelity physical prototypes which take longer to build and cost more.

Historically, model preparation has been a major barrier to fulfilling the promise of finite element analysis. Reliable results were often delivered too late to have a significant impact on design decisions. Fortunately, technological innovation has enabled substantial progress towards improving model preparation time since the early 1990s. Recent innovations promise additional reductions in model preparation times.

Our research over the past year suggests that the next wave of productivity gains will derive from data management that supports finite element analysis requirements. For example, major manufacturers report that they still face substantial challenges making the right data and models available to their analysis specialists in the form they need it. A new wave of technology should facilitate effective reuse of accumulated data, models, and product development knowledge.

This presentation explores these trends. It will highlight progress made, the current status of commercial technology, and the critical issues shaping further advancement of CAE technology.