Mechanical Technology

Mechanical Technology — April 2016

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Computer-aided engineering

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yperWorks is a compre-

hensive, open-architecture,

multi-physics CAE platform

that uses pre- and post-CAD

simulation to develop products with

enhanced performance – weight and

materials optimised components, for

example, that make use of advanced

technologies such as 3D printing for rapid

development and significantly reduced

times to market.

Founded by James R Scapa, George

Christ and Mark Kistner in 1985 as an

engineering design consultancy, Altair’s

early successes included contracts for

GM and Ford for the design of their

vehicle platforms and truck chassis

systems. The company created its first

design software product in 1990, the

flagship CAE modelling tool HyperMesh

a market-leading, multi-disciplinary finite

element pre-processor for large complex

models.

In 1993, Altair released the first

commercial version of OptiStruct

, a

structural analysis solver for linear and

nonlinear problems under static and dy-

namic loadings. This software tool is still

the market-leading solution for structural

design and optimisation.

The first version of the HyperWorks

CAE suite was released in 1999, with

its innovative pay-per-usage licensing

model. The suite concept brought togeth-

er multiple software tools with specific

functionality, with users being given the

opportunity to only pay for the tools they

use. Both the common platform idea and

the licensing model were novel at that

time and have enabled the company to

thrive in the 21

century.

Today, Altair specialises in the de-

velopment and broad application of

simulation technology to synthesise

and optimise designs, processes and

decisions. Privately held with more

than 2 000 employees, The company is

On March 8, 2016 in Troy, Michigan, Altair released HyperWorks

14.0, its

latest open architecture CAE simulation platform, which is to be showcased

at Hannover Messe 2016 on April 27.

MechTech

summarises some of the

new features.

Best-ever simulation-driven

design suite released

headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA

and operates from more than 45 offices

in 22 different countries. Customers cur-

rently include more than 5 000 corporate

clients across broad industry segments.

HyperWorks 14.0

The latest release of Altair’s HyperWorks

open architecture CAE simulation plat-

form includes several new products,

feature enhancements, updated func-

tionalities, and licensing methods to help

users towards better designs, including:

expanded optimisation and nonlinear

solver capabilities; accelerated meshing,

assembly, and graphics; and several new

software tools that have been added via

the Altair Partner Alliance.

Key highlights

OptiStruct’s

capabilities have been

elevated to include more nonlinear

analyses, new contact and optimisation

algorithms, and numerous improvements

in solution speed. Also, a breakthrough

solution for the design and optimisation

of lattice structures has been developed

to support additive manufacturing.

“With OptiStruct 14.0, it is now

possible to run larger, full vehicle NVH

(noise-vibration-hardness) models for

more accuracy without the errors gener-

ated by our existing NVH solver on the

same computer,” says Tae-Won Park of

SsangYong Motors.

HyperMesh

has a new part and as-

sembly workflow that promotes flow of

data directly from product data manage-

ment (PDM) data structures. Combined

with the new high-velocity graphics

engine tuned to handle even the largest

models, HyperMesh 14.0’s performance

is up to 15× faster for large FE models

with solid elements and up to 60× faster

for geometric models, while using less

hardware memory.

“The new HW 14.0 graphics engine

is nothing short of amazing. We can

achieve much better performance, even

with low-end graphics cards,” says

Patrick Bandeira of Prodrive, Aston

Martin Racing.

“With this release of HyperWorks,

we’ve introduced parts and assemblies

in HyperMesh that directly correspond

to those in the CAD and PDM world,”

adds James Dagg, chief technical officer

of User Experience at Altair. “The new

assemblies are extremely flexible, allow-

ing for modular modelling where entire

subsystems can be replaced or updated

automatically, keeping the CAE model

synchronised with the design.”

Multiscale Designer,

a practical tool

for the seamless integration of modelling,

simulation, testing and optimisation of

engineered products using complex mate-

rials is now part of the HyperWorks suite.

FEKO,

the best-in-class software

for electromagnetic simulation related

to antenna design and placement,

electromagnetic compatibility, radar

cross-section, and other applications is

now fully merged into HyperWorks with

added features to reduce modelling and

computation time. And integration with

HyperStudy has been added for advanced

optimisation.

MotionSolve

now provides improved

3D rigid-to-rigid contact and advanced

co-simulation capabilities, and the au-

tomotive multi-body simulation library

has been expanded for full vehicle

simulations.

An alternate solver-licensing scheme

HyperWorks Unlimited Solver Node