Simulation lifecycle and data management (case studies)

The activities in task 4.3 are the continuation of SIMPRO VTT subproject tasks 4.1 and 4.2. In task 4.1, the challenges regarding the use of simulation during product development were identified. The task 4.2 was dedicated to identify the potential solutions for the problems faced by the design engineers during the modelling and simulation phase of the product development and design process. The objectives of task 4.3 were to implement and test the identified Simulation Lifecycle Management (SLM) solutions for data exchange between simulation tools. This report describes the research work carried out in task 4.3. During this task the accessibility and exchange of data among teams and between tools were studied by using the selected case studies. The case studies were defined together with the industrial partners of the SIMPRO project to ensure the industrial relevance of the results. The implementation of the case studies was done in ANSYS EKM (from ANSYS) and Simulia (from Dassault Systémes) which are commercially available SLM solutions. The research work shows that modern SLM tools can be used by industry to implement an improved product development and lifecycle data management process. However, such implementation is yet far from seamless. Integration of proprietary design and simulation tools remains a major challenge and implementation of processes requires significant expertise. Additionally, the high price of the tools and continuous dependence on the SLM tool vendors for the integration of new tools remains a bottleneck. These can be considered significant barriers for SMEs to employ SLM tools for improving their product development processes.