System Models Simulation Process Management and Collaborative Multidisciplinary Optimization.
Matteo Nicolich, Giulio Cassio · 2014
Design optimization is a key activity to improve product performance in the design of modern manufacturing products, in order to reduce costs and time to market. Design optimization makes extensive use of virtual prototype simulations in the automatic search of the design space. Nowadays, engineering products draw together many components assembled in subsystems and systems. Each component is described by different physics, and the performance assessment covers the whole range of engineering analysis - e.g. mechanical, structural, thermal, electromagnetic, etc.-, requiring multiple simulation processes. Many groups are involved in providing these different components and the simulation of physics dimensions are carried out by each single player counting on disparate levels of expertise and computing resources. This paper shows how SOMO collaborative and distributed execution framework is used to compose multiple simulation processes at component level to generate system models managing the complexity of running multidisciplinary design projects. Driving process, component and subsystem knowledge with system models, SOMO allows a larger inference space for design, the ability to continually connect at the system level, and a basis for knowledge capture. In this paper a real test case performed on the design and optimization of wind turbine is presented. The design workflow is managed by different engineering experts through a collaborative framework.