Core Competencies

Innovation in industry (Fig.1) is driven by the facts that

  • The environment needs to be protected and global warming needs to be curtailed
    (i.e. by reducing CO2 emission)
  • Water and food supply have to be assured
  • Renewable energy generation has to be investigated further
  • Energy consumption must be reduced as fossil fuels are vanishing sooner or later
  • The everlasting human desire for " personal mobility " needs to be maintained.

Fig. 1: Challenges to master today and tomorrow

Fig. 2 shows a small cut-out of the progression of improvements in vehicle design . The first electrified trolley bus was already "on the road" in 1882 in Berlin . Later on, there was a dramatic break-through in the development of internal combustion engines and power transmission. Nowadays, new drive line concepts and completely new vehicle designs are under investigation also using "new" materials . Hence, there is still room for improvements

Fig. 2: Innovation in Automotive

However, improvements are not limited to automotive only.

Innovation needs to "draw a bow" across all industry branches, e.g.
  • Fig. 3 represented by FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) like "tissue" and "packaging solutions for beverages"
  • Fig. 4 by some sports activities from the Leisure Industry .

Fig. 3: Fast Moving Consumer Goods

Fig. 4: Leisure Industry

Bulk commodity, stand alone analysis disciplines like linear or non-linear statics and dynamics have been widely accepted in Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM) . Nevertheless, there are application fields which become increasingly important like the incorporation of nonlinear manufacturing effects or the assessment of damage and failure for composites and foams.

The availability of powerful computer hardware will open up the opportunity to analyze physical phenomena by coupling of numerical disciplines ( multi-disciplinary analysis ) and for the inclusion of test data .

Sometimes, our CAE world is hardly manageable and requires some unification effort at least in certain areas. Experts as well as non-experts need to talk the "same language" using a multiple user-suited interface. The deployment of CAE tools for the conceptual design phase is a pre-requisite for innovation, both, in terms of functional requirements and cost considerations . These new application areas require a re-thinking in the currently applied commodity procedures. Results' data need interpretation in a compact, understandable and reliable way to support decision making in quality and time.

"Robust Design & Complexity Management" tools could significantly help in that respect and might lead to a paradigm shift gaining a deeper understanding of the design behavior on component level, on assembly level as well as in a generic holistic approach (Fig. 5). This requires a view beyond one's nose .


Fig. 5: Robust Design & Complexity Management

The call is yours! Let's take the challenge on together.

 
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