Perkins Selects solidThinking Inspired for Industrial Engine Structural Optimisation

Altair Engineering, Inc announced today that Global engine manufacturer Perkins has deployed solidThinking Inspired to optimise the design of industrial engine components.

“Perkins has a reputation for delivering durable, long lasting industrial engines,” said Martin Dirker, Engineering Team Leader at Perkins Engines. “We were looking for an affordable tool that could help us optimise the design of our engine brackets to meet stiffness targets and reduce overall design iteration time.”

In 2011, Perkins invested in solidThinking Inspired 3D conceptual design software to help visualise, explore and evaluate designs in less time.

“solidThinking Inspired has helped us optimise bracket designs to meet stiffness targets and therefore improve the overall system stiffness by more than 10 times,” said Martin Dirker. “We have also significantly reduced the design iteration time. Whereas we were previously taking up to two weeks to optimise a single component, we are now able to do this in just an afternoon. This means that we have been able to reduce the overall design time from six weeks to just over four weeks.”

The ability to use Pro Engineer geometry directly, together with the ease of learning the software, were key drivers for Perkins’s selection of solidThinking Inspired.

“We know about Altair and are very enthusiastic about solidThinking,” added Martin Dirker. “It’s easy to use, delivers results quickly and has given us the confidence to meet our targets. solidThinking Inspired has impressed us and is the most effective structural optimisation tool I’ve worked with.”

“We are very pleased to see Perkins Engines use our tools to enhance their development processes,” said David Mason, Managing Director, Altair Engineering, U.K. “solidThinking is the industrial design software of choice that is redefining the way CAD models are visualised and optimised. It accelerates the overall design time and offers customers a cost-effective solution. I expect to see more manufacturing companies in the U.K. turning to solidThinking Inspired thanks to the business benefits the product offers.”