Streamlining the Development Process of Glass Fiber Composite Products with IoT

• Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
• Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet

• Automotive
• Glass

• Product Research & Development

• Manufacturing Process Simulation
• Virtual Reality

Valeo, a leading automotive supplier, was faced with the challenge of covering a broad range of simulation tasks for model preparation of glass fiber polymer composite parts. The company was focused on lightweight design with the primary aim of reducing CO2 emissions and achieving improved fuel consumption. The typical development process involved model generation and preparation, the actual solving, post-processing, and result interpretation. However, due to regulatory requirements for CO2 emissions and the overall need in the automotive industry for better fuel efficiency, it was becoming increasingly important to consider lightweight issues within the development of automotive parts. This drive for lightweight design required new and lighter materials in vehicles. The challenge was to make these processes as efficient as possible while keeping software investments low. For continuous improvement, Valeo validates its development processes each year, always on the lookout for additional efficient tools to handle the simulations involved in their development processes.

Valeo is an independent industrial group fully focused on the design, production, and sale of components, integrated systems, and modules for the automotive industry. It ranks among the world's top automotive suppliers. The group has 124 plants, 20 research centers, 35 development centers, 12 distribution platforms, and employs 73,300 people in 28 countries worldwide. One of its major focuses is on lightweight design, with the primary aim of reducing CO2 emissions and achieving improved fuel consumption. At Valeo Lighting Systems (VLS), one of the company’s Business Groups, engineers focus on the virtual development of head and rear lamps.

Valeo found a solution in Altair’s HyperWorks CAE Suite and CONVERSE by PART Engineering. The Altair Partner Alliance (APA) program allowed Valeo to access third-party partner products with the same license units the customers use for HyperWorks. This allowed Valeo engineers in China to use the APA product CONVERSE, by Part Engineering, to prepare their models of reinforced glass fiber parts for the FE simulation. When a new part was designed, CONVERSE helped them to consider anisotropic characteristics of the material, emerging during the manufacturing process. Bridging the gap between injection molding simulation and mechanical simulation was especially valuable for the Valeo development teams. By including it in their development process, the engineers received more reliable and accurate results with regard to stiffness and strength of shortfiber-reinforced molded parts. This was achieved by enabling the user to consider anisotropic material properties such as fiber orientations in a mechanical simulation of the molded part.

• The use of Altair’s HyperWorks CAE Suite and CONVERSE by PART Engineering has streamlined Valeo's development process of glass fiber composite products. The APA offering provided a perfect solution to handle this type of application without an additional investment in other software tools. The flexibility and the broad offering of the APA was a key to Valeo's success. The engineers were able to receive much more accurate results than with a former process without the mapping step. This has led to more reliable and accurate results with regard to stiffness and strength of shortfiber-reinforced molded parts. The use of CONVERSE was very important for the development process, but only necessary for a few hours each month, making it a cost-effective solution.

• Cost savings due to flexible access to a broad software offering
• Risk-free validation of additional software tools
• Improved fuel consumption due to lightweight design