"Ten to fifteen years ago simulation was the job of specialists. Now, merging with engineering teams, it is used by engineers in the product design phase itself. Anybody who is into virtual validation should take a look at the technology available," says Jean Michel Terrier, Director, Business Development, Altair - Radioss & Safety Technology.
RADIOSS, a finite element solver that simulates impact, safety-related performance and the manufacturing process, is being used in a variety of applications to improve safety features, maximize the durability of products, reduce noise and vibration, optimize designs and bring safe and innovative products to the market faster. As a powerful tool for crash safety analysis, the applications of RADIOSS include drop testing of consumer products, crash testing of vehicles and studying the effect of ballistics and explosives.“Almost 50% of our customers are from the automotive sector, 25% from Aerospace and Defense and the remaining from various other sectors,” said Jean Michel Terrier.
"One of the strengths of Altair is 'optimisation'. We will be able to run a crash simulation in a couple of minutes so it will be possible to cover a lot of cases and to take all these cases in the optimisation loop. We also have very good knowledge and process on how to optimise structures. This significantly helps the auto industry to design new cars."
"You can have a very nice tool but if you don't know how to use it you can make a very bad simulation. Learning it is like learning to drive a car."
"In the automotive space it is quite important to model and virtually test the behaviour of the driver and the passengers with the car during the crash. Regulations regarding crash safety (Euro NCAP in Europe, FMS in United States and regulations in China, Japan and India) are being improved. From protecting the driver and passengers the rules are now being extended to protect the pedestrians as well. A good number of road-accidents are due to pedestrian impact."
"Extensive simulation work is going on using Altair tools to reduce tyre noise in speeding vehicles to conform to the upcoming regulation on tyre noise control in the US. In 2008, Ford cars which used RADIOSS for crash testing got 5-star rating in IIHS (Institute of Insurance for Highway Safety) tests in the US."
Another interesting application of RADIOSS is in bio-mechanics simulation where finite element models of human beings are used to simulate injury mechanisms, prostheses implementation and wear (e.g., hip, knee and teeth) and understanding lesion mechanisms (e.g.: sporting injuries and safety).
"Most people are working with dummies, but people want to know what happens to a real human being. Currently we are working on the human representation with finite element. We have human model and we are working to design correctly all the organs etc. Our big interest now is to grow in terms of more and more detail in bio-mechanic and to make the connection between bio-mechanic and crash-analysis," Terrier added.
In India, Altair currently employs close to 360 people for simulation software tools development, marketing, support and services. Approximately 130 people are involved in the software development side.“In addition to offering Altair products and support, we also offer simulation services for a wide variety of CAE problems.”.said Pavan Kumar, Managing Director of Altair.
Altair is expecting a 25% growth this fiscal over last year's turnover of Rs.85 crore.
"India has a number of RADIOSS customers and the list is growing fast, " said Pavan Kumar.
IIT-Bombay evaluates static and dynamic analysis of tumour and knee prosthesis using RADIOSS which predicts critical dynamic stress and deformation areas significant to bringing design improvements for achieving the goal of developing a reliable low-cost prosthesis for Indians.
Volvo is using RADIOSS for full vehicle crash analyses and the simulation results correlate well with the physical test data. The CAE pulse from FEA crash analyses provides valuable test data which could be used confidently in many cases instead of going in for physical crash tests.
LG is using RADIOSS for drop test simulation of their air conditioners. A drop test is one of the key requirements of consumer electronic products. The simulated results were found to be in correlation with the actual experiment data.
Its other customers in India include Bajaj, Maruti Suzuki, TVS, Leyland, Volvo trucks, Piaggio, Federal Moghul, NAL, HAL, TAML, GE Tech center etc.
