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Altair > Case Studies > Dana's Adoption of Altair’s SimLab for Automated Meshing of Powertrain Models

Dana's Adoption of Altair’s SimLab for Automated Meshing of Powertrain Models

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Facility Management
Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Manufacturing Process Simulation
Virtual Prototyping & Product Testing

Services

Testing & Certification
Training

The Challenge

Dana Holding Corporation, a global leader in driveline, sealing, and thermal management technologies, faced a significant challenge in their product development process. The traditional method of transforming CAD designs into prototypes, analyzing the prototype for failure points, redesigning the prototype, and retesting until the product met specifications was proving to be time-consuming and costly. Particularly, the pre-processing for models of cylinder heads and engine blocks required the geometry to be imported from CAD and then cleaned up by engineers, a task that could take anywhere from one to four days. To speed up the design cycle, Dana decided to implement a 'first-time-right' design methodology, where analysis would be conducted before building a prototype. This new process demanded a faster way to pre-process simulation models.

About The Customer

Dana Holding Corporation is a world leader in driveline, sealing, and thermal management technologies that enhance fuel efficiency, reduce emissions, and lower the cost of ownership in passenger, commercial, and off-highway vehicles. With a workforce of 25,000 employees, Dana operates in 27 countries within a network of approximately 90 engineering, manufacturing, and distribution facilities. Computer simulation of powertrain components, involving the creation of very large models with 25,000 surfaces or more, has been a crucial aspect of Dana’s product development process.

The Solution

Dana adopted Altair’s SimLab, a tool that automates many of the pre-processing steps, to address their challenge. SimLab imports the native geometry from the CAD systems, carries out meshing, creates surface and node sets, and creates contact pairs, all with minimal user intervention. Altair worked closely with Dana to integrate SimLab into its processes, demonstrating how SimLab could reduce Dana’s modeling time and providing training for Dana to try out SimLab’s features. Altair also helped Dana create templates, a defined group of settings that Dana engineers could use for all the engine models and other components. This ensured that every engineer who did the meshing with these templates would obtain a similar mesh with the same attributes. Dana found SimLab to be user-friendly, highly flexible, and offering valuable post-processing capabilities.

Operational Impact

The adoption of SimLab has brought about significant operational improvements for Dana. The automation of the pre-processing steps has not only reduced the time taken but also improved the quality of the meshes, leading to better convergence for large models. The use of templates has enabled Dana to share its time-saving simulation steps with its other facilities across the globe, promoting consistency and efficiency in their processes. Furthermore, the user-friendly and flexible nature of SimLab has made it easier for Dana's engineers to carry out their tasks. The tool's post-processing capabilities, such as bore distortion plotting and temperature interpolation, have also added value to Dana's product development process.

Quantitative Benefit

Pre-processing time was dramatically reduced from days to just hours
SimLab enabled Dana to implement and make continuous improvements in their first-time-right process
Many Dana product lines now use the CAD-to-analysis-to-prototype method on 100% of their products, and others employ it on 85 to 90%