This paper shows how MSC SimXpert is used to bring powerful CAE tools to design engineers at ITW Delfast, a global supplier of fasteners to the automotive OEMs. A template is used to setup, run and report results from an MD Nastran non-linear analysis involving complex geometry, sliding contact and large deformations. The paper will outline gains with the MSC SimXpert / MD Nastran approach.

In 1987, Kristian was hired as designer in ITW and in 2000 appointed Head of Design at ITW. In 2001, CAE introduced to simulate the mold process using Moldflow. In 2003, non linear FE (Marc and Patran) was introduced to simulate reaction forces and strength for a clip insert-extract cycle. In 2008, a project was initiated to standardize upon a common CAE environment and common best practice within ITW using SimXpert and MD Nastran.

In recent years Virtual Development has become an essential part of the design of vehicles for Magna Steyr. To meet the requirements in terms of function, development-time, quality and costs of modern cars the investigation of the mechanical behaviour of components, modules and complete vehicles with FEM-models is crucial. With information coming from these models decisions in early project stages have to be made. A huge amount of parameters like material data, geometric data, stiffness data, mass data have to be handled for the complete vehicle. Most commonly these parameters are treated with their nominal values. But reality shows differes from these nominal values. A typical vehicle model has a huge amount of parameters like material, thickness, stiffness and mass data. A high amount of computational power is needed for stochastic calculations. This requirement is enhanced by the size of used models. A calculation time for a typical NVH-Model lies between 4h and 12h yielding a total calculation time for 300 calculations between 1200h and 3600h. As this computational load is usually a "peak load" and to save costs of a permanent installation the calculations were carried out on a "On-Demand-Cluster". IBM and MSC realised the environment to enable stochastic calculation at the IBM-Computing-On-Demand-Center in Poughkeepsie / USA. The presentation shows how Magna Steyr, IBM, FE-Design and MSC successfully implemented a cost efficient way to do stochastic calculation and how these improved capabilities can be used within automotive NVH-calculation.

Mr. Alexander Rabofsky is responsible for NVH-FEM simulation within the complete vehicle engineering department at Magna Steyr Fahrzeugtechnik CoKG in Graz. Within the development of complete vehicles, the main focus of the NVH-FEM-Simulation-Team is the improvement, optimisation and balancing of vibrational and acoustical behaviour of body-, drivetrain- and chassis-structures. After finishing his studies of Mechanical Engineering and Economic Sciences at the University of Technology in Graz in 1998 Mr.Alexander Rabofsky gained experience in different fields of simulation at Prisma Engeneering GmbH and joined Magna Steyr in 2004 where he currently leads the NVH-FEM-Simulation-Team.

The presentation will provide information on the integration strategy taken by an French automotive OEM for the integration of SimMgr in its PLM World. OpenPDM from PROSTEP AG was chosen as integration platform. The Integrat The first project phase with the integration of SimMgr with VPM was successfully concluded in April. Based on the lessons learned from that project best practices will be provided which are helpful of planning and performing SimMgr integration projects in a distributed PLM world.

Dr. Martin Holland studied engineering at the technical University of Clausthal. From 1989 until 1994 he worked at the Institute for Mechanical Engineering of that University and was involved in several industrial projects related to the Integration of IT-Systems. Dr. Martin Holland wrote a doctor thesis subject: "Company-wide integration of quality information". Since 1994 he works for PROSTEP AG. He has over 15 years of experience in the context of PLM System implementation and PLM-System Integration and managed projects at many well known companies. Between 1998 and 2000 Martin Holland was responsible for sales and delivery of projects in the Area North. Since 2001, he is VP of Sales for the PROSTEP Group and also responsible for the partner management. PROSTEP AG is an independent company specializing in business management services and engineering solutions. PROSTEP provides leading manufacturing companies worldwide with the support they require for designing, implementing and optimizing their internal and cross-enterprise processes.

AIM - To optimize the engine mounting of a prototype motorcycle in order to minimize the vibrations transmitted from the engine to the chassis. Through the location of two silent blocks, the transmitted vibrations can be reduced and more comfortable driving can be achieved.

DEVELOPMENT - The first phase is the Benchmark: identification of the performance parameters of a Reference Vehicle. Preliminary FE calculations must be done with Patran/Nastran (SimXpert) to address where to instrument the vehicle using different transducers. The next step is to do the Instrumentation of the vehicle. Defining different events in a Test Bench and in the Road Load Data Test and with the Data Acquisition System, motorcycle's reference parameters can be defined (stiffness, stresses, displacements...). The second phase is to reproduce all the test events in a FE System to achieve a structural analysis in order to do the correlation of the real measurements with the FE results, to validate the analytical model. The third phase is to design the Engine Mounting. It must hold two silent blocks, the responsible for the filtering of the vibrations. To define more exactly the rubber's properties of the Silent Block, a compression test must be done. The following step is to do a multibody study with SimXpert. Dynamic analysis is used to get an approximate set up of the suspension parameters. In terms of durability, a life prediction is done on the frame's welds, using MSC.Fatigue.

Mr. Mikel Garbizu is the Associated Director, BEng Mechanical and Manufacturing (Honours) & MSc in Engineering with Management. Mr. Garbizu is in charge of a team of 20 engineers involved in the different nature of FE Simulation. With more than 15 years experience in the field of virtual analysis, he leads within the company the following subjects, regarding simulation: Head Supervisor of development projects, such as: - Design and Structural validation of a frame for a 150cc scooter; Instrumentation and data acquisicion in field and test bench, Finite element analysis, simulation of manufacturinf process, correlation and final prototype validation tests. - Design and Structural validation of Solar trackers. - Design & Optimization of Structural Windturbine components. - Definition an develpment of an automated process for meshing and analysis the Airbus 380 horizontal stabilizer.

Management of the data input to CAE (i.e. materials properties and boundary conditions) has long been established as a means of improving the quality of simulation. However, disjointed systems prevent complete traceability of the use of even the highest quality data. This presentation addresses the use of SimManager to ensure the ability to answer the "What if" and "Where used" questions with regard to material usage that inevitably arise during the product development and product lifecycles.

Mr. Nacy is the Director of Product Marketing at MSC.Softwawre Corporation responsible for MSC SimManager. Previous to MSC, he managed many large scale engineering projects at General Motors Corporation.