Hatch Mott MacDonald (HMM), a leading North American consulting engineering firm, specializes in the design of underground ventilation systems. One of their key areas of expertise is the prediction of fire and smoke movement in these systems. The challenge they faced was the comprehensive modeling and design analyses for existing tunnels and transportation facilities from a fire/life safety and ventilation perspective. The objectives were to provide good environmental conditions for users during normal operation and safe conditions for evacuation in emergency modes. Fire and smoke modeling required a consideration of turbulent, buoyant, chemically reacting flows and a need to assess tenability conditions, based on visibility, temperature, and toxicity. However, physical measurements in such large structures rarely led to an understanding of the subtle thermal mechanisms that control the environment.

The Grand Central Terminal (GCT), a principal hub of the MTA Metro-North Railroad, faced a significant challenge in ventilating its trainshed, one of the largest underground structures in Manhattan. The trainshed, which occupies 2.5 million square feet, was designed long before the advent of air conditioning, and the widespread use of air-conditioned equipment added waste heat into the facility. The existing ventilation, provided by sidewalk grilles and a few small vent shafts, was insufficient for the large area of the trainshed. During summer months, ground level temperatures were typically 15 degrees Fahrenheit above ambient. Previous attempts to improve ventilation had been costly and ineffective. Hatch Mott McDonald (HMM), a full-service engineering firm, was contracted to conduct a preliminary study using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to understand the current ventilation conditions and the impact of changes made in recent years.

Steven Aguirre, the owner of Billet Designs, a small engineering firm, was faced with the challenge of balancing various aspects of his business, including product design, marketing, order fulfillment, sales, manufacturing, and general product line development. His primary task was to design a CO2 dispenser for a beverage growler, with the aim of creating an optimal product while efficiently utilizing limited resources within a typically short product development cycle. A few years ago, Aguirre had shifted his business model to outsource assembly, order fulfillment, and inventory management, allowing him to focus on product design. He had experience with popular 2-D and 3-D CAD tools, but he needed a more efficient way to create 3-D models and make changes quickly. The tools he had tried were either too cumbersome or inadequate, making speed and efficiency a significant challenge.

Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), the world’s largest supplier of diesel-electric locomotives, was under pressure to develop the SD70ACe locomotive that meets high standards of performance, reliability, fuel economy, crashworthiness, and operator comfort. The locomotives are expected to operate economically and safely for decades under harsh conditions with minimal downtime. Durability of components undergoing repeated fatigue cycles was a major concern, as most units log more than 1 million miles during the first six years of operation and have a useful life of nearly 30 years, with some major components lasting more than 50 years. Achieving these goals while shortening the development cycle was particularly challenging due to significant time and cost factors associated with running physical tests on such large, complex machines.

The University of Colorado Health Science Center's cardiology research engineers were seeking to gain a deeper understanding of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a condition characterized by persistently high pressure in the vessels that transport oxygen-poor blood from the heart's right ventricle to the small arteries in the lungs. Over time, the increased load due to PAH can lead to premature heart failure and death. The current clinical methods for diagnosing and evaluating PAH are invasive and only consider the mean flow rate and pressure drop across the vasculature. The challenge was to simulate transient hemodynamics and arterial motion, which required a solution for the coupled solid and fluid domains. The geometry definition was derived from medical imaging, and the constitutive modeling of the vasculature was complex due to hyperelastic materials and complex constraint relationships. Additionally, the fluid boundary conditions could not be simply characterized.

Delta Marine Industries Inc., a leading megayacht builder, faced a significant challenge in meeting the high customization demands of their clients. The company's clientele, purchasers of 100-foot plus megayachts, expected the ability to highly customize the interior design of their yachts. This demand for customization, particularly the freedom to place walls or partitions wherever desired, created structural design challenges by increasing the complexity of the load paths. The non-alignment of pillars made it difficult to determine how loads would distribute across various structural elements. Traditional design methods were inadequate due to the highly nonlinear and difficult to discretize load paths. Furthermore, Delta Marine was tasked with building a megayacht that not only had a luxurious interior and high cruising speed but also optimized weight and structural elements for strength and vibration resistance.

Murray Inc., a global manufacturer of outdoor power equipment, was faced with a significant challenge. The company had a narrow window of opportunity to get its new product, the Power 2 Steer snowthrower, into production before losing business from one of its strategic snowthrower retailers. The Power 2 Steer featured a unique steering system that required a new clutch assembly, the effects of which on stress and deflection levels needed to be evaluated for various components and subsystems throughout the snowthrower. This included the drive shafts, bearings, subframe, and the sheetmetal main chassis. Designing these components for the necessary strength was critical to ensure adequate fatigue life of components without adding prohibitive cost and material. The tight product development schedule left no room for numerous physical prototype test cycles.

Hi-Tech Outsourcing Services, a leading architectural engineering construction (AEC) and industrial services provider in India, faced a challenge in the design of computer storage racks. These racks, used to mount servers or desktops, must provide structural support for computers and comply with Bellcore testing standards, the most common set of safety, spatial, and environmental design guidelines applied to telecommunications equipment. The challenge was to ensure compliance with these standards while also meeting the increasing demand for quick turnaround during product development. The company needed to develop products using fewer prototype tests to deliver a faster time to market, all while ensuring the racks could withstand seismic tests.

Champion Elevators Inc., a Texas-based leader in the design and installation of rack-and-pinion driven elevators, faced the challenge of redesigning cost-effective, yet safe elevators that conform to the stringent building and electrical codes of the high-rise construction industry. The company had to ensure that their elevators met two different sets of standards - regulatory building and electrical codes, and safety standards that are essentially physical properties. After almost three decades in the business, Champion Elevators knew that conformance to building codes was a must. Given the obvious risks, engineers at Champion ran every job through analysis. Assuring safety and conformance to the codes and regulations fell into two very different types of engineering analyses. Safety assurances of the elevator — essentially measuring maximum stresses and ensuring adequate safety margins — was handled with ANSYS DesignSpace® software for finite element modeling and finite element analysis (FEM/FEA) from ANSYS Inc.

Dana Corporation, a leading supplier of parts and assemblies to the automotive industry, faced a significant challenge in designing suspension systems and other assemblies for heavy trucks. The task was formidable due to the heavy loads, harsh environments, and long life requirements of these components. Historically, these components were over-designed and heavier to meet reliability requirements. However, in the current economy, the weight of commercial trucks and its impact on vehicle cost, ride, and fuel economy became a significant concern for both truck manufacturers and end users. The challenge was to design these parts with minimal material yet still maintain adequate strength and stiffness. This had to be achieved while meeting tight budgets and product launch schedules that ruled out building and testing numerous hardware prototypes.

Segway LLC, the company behind the innovative Segway Human Transporter (HT), faced significant engineering challenges in the development of their product. The Segway HT, a two-wheeled, self-propelled scooter, was designed to revolutionize personal transportation. However, the device's compact design required the integration of numerous hardware and software components into a small space. This complexity presented significant challenges for the Mechanical Integrity group at Segway, who were tasked with ensuring that the device's features and functionality conformed to specified performance criteria. The group faced particular difficulties with the Segway HT's chassis, which had to accommodate the weight of an operator up to 250 pounds, house the device's motors, batteries, and electronic components, and be lightweight. The complex geometric configurations of the design made standard mechanical analysis techniques ineffective or extremely difficult to conduct.

RF2ANTENNA, a company specializing in wireless communications and charging, faced a challenge in designing a customized wireless charging system for wearable electronics. The traditional approach of experimental design was deemed time-consuming and costly as it required building different size coils and creating a measurement setup. The specific needs of wearable devices necessitated a custom design, which called for engineering simulations for a reasonably short, cost-effective design cycle. The challenge was to find a simulation software that could integrate a circuit solver with the electromagnetic solvers, to optimize the coil design process.

The continuous casting of steel, particularly when casting different grades in the same sequence, produces transition billets. These billets do not conform to any specific grade and thus need to be downgraded or diverted. The challenge lies in identifying the extent and location of this intermixed zone to minimize production and quality issues. The process of billet casting to convert liquid steel to solid billets is fraught with uncertainties and variables. For instance, the casting speed may change or certain strands may become non-functional, altering the flow in the tundish and changing the transition tonnage. Predicting and optimizing the transition tonnage during the grade change under different plant scenarios is a significant challenge. To better understand and manage this process, a CFD model was developed.

Grantec Engineering Consultants Inc. was tasked with the development of a water quality monitoring float designed to carry a sensor for capturing environmental data. The engineering team faced challenges in minimizing drag and ensuring stability of the float, as well as developing specifications for the mooring system and structure. The original design of the float had a bow that would have been driven below water, primarily due to a moment generated by current loading on the sensor. This posed a significant problem as it would affect the float's performance and the accuracy of the data collected by the sensor.

Plantool Oy, a leading production automation company in the Nordic countries, faced significant challenges in its operations. The company specializes in tailor-made special machines, standard circular saws, system solutions, and production lines for metal industries. However, the custom nature of their machines did not allow for prototypes. Each new order posed a major risk as the initial creation had to be the final product, necessitating perfect design from the outset. Additionally, these special machines often had to be designed from scratch, requiring a flexible design and simulation process. The use of existing 3D models for simulation was crucial, but the company lacked an efficient system to facilitate this.

Ballard Power Systems Inc., a Canadian company that designs, develops, and manufactures zero-emission PEM fuel cell stacks, faced a significant challenge with their MK9 series of cell voltage monitoring (CVM) systems. These systems, used in automotive fuel cell stacks, monitor the voltages produced by cells during operation. However, the company was experiencing CVM chip solder joint failures, which could prompt a false failure signal to the vehicle control unit, potentially shutting down the operation of the fuel cell and even the entire fuel cell engine. This issue was directly impacting the reliability of the entire fuel cell stack. The thermal expansion of the PCB and potting material, which protects the CVM from the environment, was causing deflections that resulted in stress on the solder joints. The company needed to gain insight into the structural load on electronic components during thermal cycling, identify probable areas where excessive stress could cause early CVM chip failure, and identify a potting material that would not exert thermal expansion stress on the CVM components.

India's growing population has led to an increased demand for power. To meet this demand, the country is looking towards renewable energy sources. CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-CMERI) has developed aesthetically pleasing solar cells, known as 'solar artifacts', in the form of umbrellas or trees. These solar artifacts can be placed in commercial or public spaces, providing power while maintaining the space underneath for productive or recreational uses. However, these solar artifacts needed to be designed to fit into the available space and withstand a range of wind speeds depending on their location. The challenge was to ensure that these artifacts would be strong enough to resist damage over a range of wind speeds without sacrificing their aesthetic design.

Archus Orthopedics, a biomedical company, was faced with the challenge of predicting the nonlinear motion of the spine when fitted with an implant. This is a crucial aspect in the development of their Total Facet Arthroplasty System™ (TFAS®), a patented spinal implant designed to treat spinal stenosis. The traditional method of determining this motion was through cadaveric testing, a process that was not only time-consuming but also ineffective for performing design iterations on new motion-restoring spinal implant designs. The company needed a more efficient and accurate method to simulate the quality of motion of the natural spine and predict the nonlinear motion of the spine with an implant.

Cities in the northeastern U.S. were exploring the installation of new combined sewer overflow (CSO) treatment units using an advanced hydrodynamic vortex separator (HDVS) with a self-cleansing screen, such as that produced by Hydro International. Traditionally, HDVSs have been used as high-rate solid–liquid separators; only recently has their potential use as contact chambers for high-rate disinfection of CSOs been realized. Conventional disinfection of CSOs, using mixed basins, requires contact times of around 15 minutes. However, a report demonstrated that these systems provide effective high-rate disinfection at contact times of only three minutes. While the shorter contact times could save up to 50 percent of overall project costs for municipalities, regulators still expected to see longer contact times based on performance requirements of older systems. The challenge for Hydro International was to understand the basis for the shorter contact times and validate that high-rate disinfection is an acceptable alternative to longer conventional disinfection methods.

Cranfield University at the Defence College of Management and Technology (DCMT) within the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, formerly known as the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS), is tasked with educating the armed forces in defence related technology. A significant part of this education involves the study and understanding of weapons effects. This is a complex field that involves highly dynamic phenomena, requiring both theoretical and practical understanding. Numerical simulations are used to provide insight into these phenomena, complementing experimental studies and demonstrations. However, the challenge lies in enhancing student understanding of numerical analysis techniques and applying these techniques to a range of applications.

Culligan Matrix Solutions, a leader in water treatment, faced a significant challenge in developing a new water softener. The company aimed to create a device that used less salt than any other product on the market, minimized water pressure losses, and utilized the least amount of material possible. This ambitious project required a delicate balance between hydrodynamic performance and structural integrity. The R&D team needed to employ both fluid dynamics and structural mechanics simulations to achieve these goals. The challenge was not only to meet these stringent requirements but also to do so in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner.

Swisscom, a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland, had been providing free internet access to 7000 Swiss schools, 100,000 teachers, and 1 million students for over a decade. However, they faced the challenge of managing a large volume of data while ensuring the highest security standards. They needed a centrally managed solution for the educational network that could handle the large data volume and reduce administrative and cost efforts. The solution also needed to be able to filter web content to ensure that students were only accessing age-appropriate content, and protect the educational network from malware and advanced threats.

Lawter, a global supplier of resins and additives, operates in over 20 countries with a highly distributed IT infrastructure. The company faced a challenge in improving its internet security with a highly integrated solution that could cover mobile and remote workers. The company also sought to improve the performance of its internet traffic and facilitate a planned Office 365 implementation. The existing network setup required all remote access to be tunneled to headquarters and scanned by a firewall, which increased network latency. To improve the performance of internet traffic, local breakouts were required on three different continents. However, Lawter did not want to implement and manage additional network hardware, making security appliances an unsuitable solution. The company also needed to consider staff mobility, remote access to the corporate network, improved web security, data loss prevention, and productivity in the social media age.

SANTALUCÍA, a leading insurance company, was facing a significant challenge in enhancing employee productivity through mobile support while maintaining robust security. The company was struggling with two main issues: the inability to secure user browsing from mobile phones and the inability to control data usage over cellular networks. The company had implemented a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, but it did not provide control over traffic or data consumption. To promote secure mobility, the company tried implementing VPN connections from all mobile devices to the corporate network. However, this approach increased latency for users, required significant administration and end-user support, and generated an overwhelming increase in traffic that the existing infrastructure could not handle. Furthermore, it did not provide the granular control over user profiles, application types, and content categories that the company desired.

AkzoNobel, a Dutch multinational and global market leader in decorative paints, performance coatings, and specialty chemicals, was facing a significant challenge with its IT infrastructure. The company operates with a highly centralized IT infrastructure used by hundreds of locations in 80 countries worldwide. The growing adoption of cloud-based solutions was contributing to increased Internet traffic and consequent congestion of its WAN infrastructure. A hub-and-spoke architecture forced all traffic to be backhauled to a single regional Internet gateway each for EMEA, the Americas, and APAC. This setup faced serious capacity constraints and could not rationally support the expanding need for Internet bandwidth for cloud-based applications, as well as a pending Office 365 implementation. AkzoNobel’s IT organization began to study a new hybrid network model that would increase the number of Internet “breakouts” and improve performance in accessing the web, while guaranteeing a safe internet experience. Since AkzoNobel did not want to implement and manage additional network hardware, adding security appliances was not a solution.

MedAmerica Billing Services, Inc. (MBSI), a long-standing physician practice management organization, was facing significant challenges with its existing LAN proxy appliance. The appliance required substantial in-house maintenance, consuming valuable IT resources. Furthermore, the appliance was a single point of failure, causing outages across the entire organization whenever it went down. The existing security vendor suggested installing a proxy at each of the three office locations, a solution that MBSI found financially unacceptable. The vendor's hybrid solution failed to meet MBSI's policy requirements and the quality of support deteriorated after the company was acquired. Additionally, the existing system did not provide security coverage for mobile users.

The company, a leading provider of industrial equipment, technologies, and services, was facing a significant challenge in standardizing web security across its global branches. The existing solution, McAfee SmartFilter, had been deployed in some locations but not in others due to performance issues. When McAfee announced the discontinuation of SmartFilter, the company saw an opportunity to implement a single global web security solution to protect its workforce and improve its overall security posture. The company needed a solution that could be quickly and easily deployed across multiple global locations to meet the end-of-life (EOL) deadline for the prior solution. The challenge was to find a solution that would ensure minimal latency for an optimal user experience.

The case study revolves around a Fortune 500, technology-driven, multi-specialty healthcare company with over 10,000 employees in more than 50 countries. The company was facing a series of challenges. Firstly, it needed to protect its intellectual property and adhere to government regulations, a basic requirement for any healthcare company. Secondly, the company was experiencing rapid growth through acquisitions and expansion into emerging markets, and it needed to ensure that its IT infrastructure could support this growth. Lastly, the company was transitioning from an OPEX to a CAPEX model, which prompted the IT department to move all applications to the cloud.

The global automotive supplier, headquartered in Michigan, USA, faced a significant challenge in establishing and enforcing a global policy for internet access. With a workforce spread across 70 locations in 18 countries, the company needed to provide secure internet access to all employees, including a growing number of remote users and mobile devices. The company was using two on-premise solutions, Websense and a Squid Linux service, both of which were nearing the end of their contract periods. The company wanted to consolidate these two solutions and define a consistent global security standard that could be applied across all employees, irrespective of their locations.

The company, a global leader in media and entertainment, was facing a significant challenge in migrating from traditional broadcast technologies to IP-based services. The shift was necessary to keep up with the evolving industry trends and to ensure efficient data movement within the company. However, their existing solution, a multi-vendor proxy access, was not meeting their needs. It was causing frequent outages and operational issues, and the IT department had no visibility into threats or performance issues. The company was also exposed to upper-level application threats due to the lack of deep inspection. The challenge was to find a secure, high-performance solution that could effectively move content without negatively impacting performance.