Adams ebook

Smart multibody
dynamics solutions
Reduce system development costs

Authors : Dr. Hemanth Kolera, Ian Hogg,

Dr. Keith Hanna, Dan Marinac
1
Table of contents
Foreword 03 Simulating the Flight of the 40
Hawkmoth Manduca Sexta
Reducing Physical Prototyping 04 - Korean Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology, Republic of Korea
Using Adams Real Time
- Ford Motor Company, USA
Sustainable Engineering makes 44
Good Business Sense
Adams Simulation Helps Gather 07
- MSC Software, USA
Design Insights
- Samsung, Republic of Korea
Enabling Accurate Design 53
Decisions while Compressing
Adams-EDEM Co-Simulation 12
Engineering Timelines
for Predicting Military Vehicle
- CADLM, France
Mobility on Soft Soil
- Pratt and Miller Engineering, USA
A New Approach to Durability 56
Road Load Simulations using
Simulating Vehicle Extreme Load 18 Adams
Cases with Adams-Marc
- Volvo, Sweden
Co-Simulation
- BMW, USA
Virtual Testing of High Lift 61
Systems
Multibody Simulations of a 22
- Airbus, Germany
Martian Rover
- T.E.A.M DIANA, Italy
Ford Develops a New Innovative 65
Suspension Design using Adams
Co- Simulation – Breaking 25 - Ford Motor Company, USA
the Back of Multi - Physics
Simulation
Utilizing CADLM and Adams 70
- MSC Software, USA
to get Greater Insight into
Suspension Design
Leveraging Adams and Luciad 32 - Pratt and Miller Engineering, USA
to Assess Mobility
Characteristics of a Ground
Vehicle Optimizing the Drum Design of a 73
Coal Shearer with Adams-EDEM
- NATO, USA
Integrated Simulation Approach
- Minghao Li Liaoning Technical University,
Drilling Simulations Enhance 36 China
Well Planning and Drilling
Decisions Author Profiles 76
- Pioneer Natural Resources, USA

2
 Forword

Foreword
From its humble beginning as an engineering analysis tool developed on top of an ice
cream shop to its current industry leadership in mechanism dynamics simulations,
Adams has grown and transformed over the years. It now offers a wide array of
domain-specific vertical offerings such as Adams Car for automotive vehicle dynamics
simulations and horizontal, solution-specific offerings for durability analysis, and more.
Adams is now an integral part of various engineering development processes and has
helped its users isolate system issues early in the development process and bring
products faster to market.

While modern engineering systems continue to increase in complexity and pose new
challenges, Adams is keeping pace. For example, Adams Real Time, brings the time-
tested benefits of Adams simulations to test and calibration engineers via hardware in
the loop solutions. Trends related to autonomy, electrification, and connectivity have
necessitated more electronics and software in traditionally mechanically systems.
Upcoming versions of Adams will include functionality to combat challenges imposed by these trends. Exciting new
developments are underway to give our customers a brand new user experience that is more fluid, more interactive and
more efficient.

This e-book celebrates our user’s success. From washing machines to automotive transmissions, from military vehicles to
Martian rovers, the articles will highlight the breadth of Adams applications and their industrial impact. You will read about
specific metrics like the eight-fold reduction in transmission calibration timelines at the Ford motor company using Adams.
The Airbus article highlights how Adams is used as part of an enterprise-level engineering process to reduce aircraft
development timelines. This e-book details application at the bleeding edge of CAE, such as multiphysics and Machine
learning. In the Samsung story, an Adams-Marc co-simulation that improved washing machine design is presented. The
Pratt and Miller story highlights our foray into Machine learning using our partner CADLM’s technology. Adams continues to
impact academic research and classroom instruction. You will read about a group of Korean researchers whosimulated a
moth’s flight to understand how organisms behaved in the natural world. MSC Software’s vision in multiphysics simulations
and sustainable engineering are detailed in forward-looking commentaries by Dr. Keith Hanna.

We hope that you will gather valuable insights on the analysis and development of dynamic systems from this e-book.

Hemanth Kolera-Gokula
Product Marketing Manager, Adams, Hexagon MSC Software

3
3
Reducing Physical
Prototyping using
Adams Real Time
By Tony Ge, Ford Motor Company Eric Pesheck, Paspuleti Rahul Naidu,
Michael Collingridge, Hemanth Kolera-Gokula, MSC Software
The Automotive industry is under
constant pressure to address market
demands in resource-constrained
engineering environments. Stiff
development timelines are compounded
by shrinking physical prototyping
budgets.
4
The Ford Motor Company is focused on providing its
customers with a vehicle that is world-class in both
drivability and comfort, which are critical attributes that
impact a customer’s perception of the vehicle. These
critical attributes are in turn impacted by the transmission
shift strategy.
The traditional approach to transmission calibration at
Ford involved physical testing of full vehicle prototypes
with extensive test schedules which was both time
consuming and expensive. In collaboration with MSC
software and its services group, Ford developed a
Hardware-in-the-loop testing process to reduce the need
for physical prototyping.
Hardware-in The Loop Testing (HiL)
Ford has been a longstanding user of Adams vehicle
dynamics models and with the release of Adams Real Time
(RT) in 2017, Ford identified an opportunity to leverage its
existing Adams knowledge base further downstream in the
development cycle for vehicle testing and calibration.
Together, MSC and Ford have implemented a combination
of physical components and Adams Real Time models
in a HIL test environment to evaluate the shift quality of
multiple vehicle platforms. For each test set-up, a physical
engine and transmission prototype was connected to a
virtual Adams model of the vehicle. The implementation
consisted of three phases:
Model conversion for real time analysis. Existing Adams
vehicle models were used to create corresponding
Adams Real Time models that met the real time
platform/hardware requirements platform/hardware
requirements
Model setup. The model was prepped for integration
into the test bed. This involved creation of I/O channels,
tuning of the RT solver settings and generation of the
FMU, the model representation that conforms to the
FMI cosimulation standard
Integration with HIL test bed. The FMU was then ported
onto the HIL platform and the model was calibrated to
test data prior to performing hardware tuning.
Speed
Torque
5
Since the real time Adams model was derived from an
existing vehicle model that was alreadyvv being
used within Ford for vehicle development, the model
development overhead was minimal. Generation of the
real time model from the existing full-fidelity Adams model
involved multiple model reduction strategies.
For this use-case, it was necessary to include leaf springs
in the real-time model. Since the pre-existing beam-based
leaf spring model was too complex for real-time analysis, it
was replaced with a 5-link model with equivalent behavior.
A suspension subsystem simulation was run on a beam
leaf spring model to obtain target values for the spring
characteristics. The model tuning was assisted by
executing a DOE that fine-tuned the hardpoints and
bushings to capture the right behavior in the 5-link model
such as primary frequencies, static preloads, vertical
rates and wind-up rates. The Adams Real Time model had
150 DOF and preserved the topology and parametrics of
the original model. Elements such as hardpoints, joints,
springs, dampers and bushings were maintained and could
be modified. The benefit of this is that the model could
capture higher frequency characteristics in the system
responses and different configurations could be quickly
explored.
The Adams-Real Time model was then exported as a
Functional Mock-up Unit (FMU) and ported onto a HIL
platform for execution. In future implementations,
modeling parameters such as hard points, bushing
characteristics etc. will be exposed in the FMU for run time
tuning. This will allow Ford engineers to make changes to
parameters and tune model response without having to
make changes to the original Adams model and export a
new FMU.

The physical torque at the output of the transmission was

instrumented and applied to the Adams model as an input.
Given this input torque, the Adams model reacted and
provided a driveshaft speed response to the dynamometer
which then enforced this speed on the engine and
transmission. The model also provided the longitudinal Figure 1. Simulation Correlation with Test data at 50 % pedal input (VSPD
Vehicle Speed, OSS-Output Shaft Speed)
vehicle acceleration as the vehicle changed gears, which
could then be related to a ride comfort index. The ability to
use a combination of vehicle dynamics models and hard-
ware to simulate vehicle behavior provided Ford an oppor-
tunity to create both more efficient and more comprehen-
sive testing programs while reducing vehicle prototypes.

The HIL realtime predictions were validated against vehicle

test data to confirm correct vehicle response to known
input torques. Figure 1 shows the velocities of the actual
vehicle speed versus the model. Figure 2 shows the output
shaft speed and the longitudinal acceleration response.
The vehicle response in between and during gear shifts Figure 2. Simulation Correlation with Test data at 75 % pedal input
(VSPD-Vehicle ACC Speed, OSS-Output Shaft Speed)
showed good agreement. The agreement was consistent
across all pedal positions pointing to the predictive nature
of the Adams model. Calibration engineers then used the
HIL setup to gauge and tune transmission parameters to The HIL dyno testing process has helped the Ford team
attain the desired behavior. meet its test objectives with fewer physical prototypes
and in a lab environment that facilitates the tuning pro-
cess. The same engine and transmission prototypes can
be tested with multiple vehicles under multiple loading
scenarios.

6
Adams Simulation Helps
Gather Design Insight
By Seung-Oh Kim, Samsung Electronics and Hemanth Kolera, MSC Software

7
Samsung Electronics is one of the world’s largest
electronics manufacturers and has a presence in over 80
countries and employs around 308,745 Adams simulation
helps gather design insight By Seung-Oh Kim, Samsung
Electronics and Hemanth Kolera, MSC Software people.
As of June 2018, Samsung Electronics’ market cap stood at
US$325.9 billion. The 2018 Which? Awards recently
announced Samsung Electronics as the leading Large
Appliance brand for its range of home appliances. For
Front-Load and Top-Load Washers, JD Power & Associates
ranked Samsung #1 in Customer Satisfaction in 2019.
A washing machine is an essential component of our day-
to-day activities. Advances in washing machine design
have included increases in capacity and spin speed. The
industry wide machine weight and cost reduction initia-
tives conflict with these design initiatives.
Reducing vibrations in washing machines is a challenge.
During spin cycles, significant imbalanced centrifugal
forces are generated, which then result in vibration and
shaking. Elimination of such vibrations is critical to the
design of silent washing machines and the best possible
user experience.
8
A modern washing machine is a complex multi-body
system comprising a drum, suspended to a tub with
bearings in one or both ends. Operation of the washing
machine is actively controlled based on sensors that
gauge operating parameters such as water levels,
temperatures, loads and tub motion. The rotary motion
of the drum creates a flow of detergent and water which
cleans the load and also extracts the water during the
drying phase of the cycle. The tub is suspended inside a
housing using a suspension system, designed to limit the
propagation of vibrations from the tub to the housing and
from the housing to the floor.
Modeling and analysis of the washing machine dynamics
is a considerable challenge as the washing machine
comprises of several highly nonlinear elements such as
friction dampers, rubber feet, rubber bushings etc.
Samsung has devoted resources to develop methods that
can model and predict washer dynamics. The model-
based insights are then used to develop technology that
can reduce vibrations in the washing machine. Samsung’s
roadmap for washing dynamics analysis starts with first
developing credible models that can accurately capture
the fundamental physics. This involves accurate modeling
of the spring, damper and diaphragm characteristics
and material properties of the elastomers. At the next
level, analysis is used to optimize the design for noise and
vibration. The ultimate goal is to mimic the actual laundry
exercise.
 shown. Section 1, provides the seal between the door and
the glass. There is no contact between section 3 of the
diaphragm and the rotating drum. The gasket design has
to ensure that there is no contact or wear in the middle
section 2 of the gasket. The washing loads are transmitted
from the gasket to the springs damper, suspension system
and then to the main frame.

Adams-Marc Co-Simulation

We used an Adams-Marc co-simulation capability to

Front loading washing machines have a large grey gasket
or diaphragm seal around the door. This gasket is what
keeps the water from flowing out of the washer when in
use. One side of the diaphragm is connected to the frame
and the other side to the tub. Besides leak proofing, the
gasket provides vibration insulation between the frame
and the tub and also prevents the washing machine from
jamming (See Fig.1). A crosssectional view of the washer is
Tube
2
include geometrically and materially nonlinear structural
behavior in multibody dynamics (MBD) simulation.
Any Adams model and any Marc model can be used in
co-simulation with this tool. Post-processing is done
separately, Adams results in Adams, and Marc results
in the Marc postprocessor. A cosimulation between an
MBD solution like Adams and a Nonlinear FEA model such
as Marc provides several benefits. The non-linear FEA
can accurately describe non-linear behavior of flexible
components, including plastic deformation, non-linear
material, large deformation of the components, buckling,
self-contact etc., while the MBD model can accurately
model the system, providing realistic boundary conditions
for the non-linear components. A cosimulated model
would simulate much faster than a complete model in
nonlinear FEA without compromising on the accuracy.
Current diaphragm simulation approaches at Samsung
that did not leverage co-simulation between Adams
and Marc did not capture the actual systems dynamics
and had limited value to the design process.
The Adams models of the washing machine dynamics
include models for the spring, the damper and the
diaphragm. The spring is modeled as a preloaded spring
element with tensile force, while the damper is modeled as
a two-stage nonlinear damper element. The diaphragm is
modeled as a bushing element, and the primary stiffness
is calculated based on the Marc analysis (Figure 2).

Front frame
The Marc model captures the nonlinear material
3 properties of the rubber diaphragm using empirical
models. Various constants in the empirical model are
calculated using material test results. The workflow for
1 capturing the nonlinear material properties is as shown
(Figure 3).

Figure 1

Spring

Damper

Assembly Frame Front Assembly Tub & Drum Assembly Main Frame

Figure 2

9
Figure 3
Material data is gathered using tests such a simple
tension, planar tension, Eg. Biaxial Tension and Shear.
The gathered data is processed to extract various model
coefficients required to characterize non-linear material
models such as Mooney, Ogden etc. The data fitting can
be prioritized to capture the dominant strain and strain
levels. The characterized material models are then used
to run various analysis types in Marc as shown in Figure 4.
Linear harmonic analysis can be executed in Marc to gauge
the natural frequencies and the diaphragm and estimate
Figure 4
Step 1: Step 2:
Rubber Material Test Data Reduction
(Simple Tension, Planar Tension, (Cycle Selection,
Eq. Biaxial Tension & Polynomial Fitting,
Simple Shear) shift)Simple Shear)
The coupling between Adams and Marc (v18.1) is
established using MSC CoSim v1.6. The MSC CoSim engine
has been developed in order to provide a cosimulation
interface for the direct coupling of different solvers/
disciplines within a Multiphysics framework. The .ADM
and .ACF files from Adams and the .DAT file from Marc are
imported into the CoSim interface.
The Adams analysis conditions included an unbalanced
laundry load of 500g which was used to trigger the
vibrations. Maximum motor RPM was set to 1300. Two
Marc cases were evaluated, on two different diaphragm
geometries, with and without side ribs.
10
the level of vibration. Non-linear static analysis can be
used to predict the equivalent stiffness and any contact.
The primary stiffness calculated from the Marc model
feeds into a rigid Adams Multibody dynamics model which
can predict the dynamic acceleration/ displacement
and the load transfer to the frame. Besides computing
the loads on the washer frame, an Adams-March co-
simulation can be executed to run transient dynamics
simulation to evaluate deformation, contact and buckling.
Step 3: Step 4:
Curv Fitting Check Dominant Strain
(Mooney, Ogden …) (Select Strain Level)
It can be seen from the co-simulated results (Figure 5) that
the tub acceleration/ displacement increases, while the
frame front force decreases compared with the bushing
model.
Design decisions can be made based on direct
comparisons of simulated metrics such as total strain
and contact normal forces for the two gasket designs.
Exploration of the washing machine dynamics via co-
simulation has helped Samsung gather design insight at
both the system and component level. The next steps in
Samsung’s co-simulation journey involves more in-depth
simulation-based exploration for vibration reduction and
robust design using the most optimized set of Co-sim
analysis conditions.
 Side Rib

Figure 5

Co-Simulation has helped Samsung

gather design insight at both the
system and component level.

11
Adams-EDEM Co-
Simulation for Predicting
Military Vehicle Mobility
on Soft Soil
By Brian Edwards, Vehicle Dynamics Group, Pratt and Miller
Engineering, USA
Multibody Dynamics (MBD) models of wheeled and
tracked vehicles can be validated and used to predict
behavior on hard surfaces for a wide variety of events.
However, when the vehicle is simulated over a deformable
terrain, no current methodology can fully represent the
dynamic interactions of the vehicle and the soft soil. When
designing a vehicle, engineers will often resort to using
their past experience with physical testing to predict
how the vehicle will behave once it leaves the hard road
surface. Only when the vehicle is built and tested, can they
obtain the actual data for how the vehicle performs over
soft soils. And for many low-rate or expensive vehicles,
the prototype may actually be the end product as well,
requiring major modifications to the physical vehicle once
12
offroad testing is performed. Accurately modeling the
terramechanics is key to understanding the mobility
characteristics of off-road vehicles, and understanding
how changes to the vehicle and terrain will impact the
dynamic behavior.
Discrete Element Models (DEM) represent the soil as
individual particles, with complete free body motion
between other particles as well as any physical objects
they encounter. DEM is a particle-scale numerical method
for modeling the bulk behavior of granular materials
and many geomaterials, including coal, ores, soil, rocks,
aggregates, pellets, tablets and powders. EDEM® from
DEM Solutions is one of the leading solutions in this space.
DEM allows for particles to break down or separate from
the material bed, and can easily represent particles of
varying size and shape. Different particle types may be
mixed together to obtain a nonhomogenous material,
or layered on top of each other as needed. Since the
particles dynamically act in 3-D, lateral bulldozing effects,
soil accumulation on wheels or tracks, as well as vertical
surface features like hills can be easily represented
by the soil model. Additionally, the particles may be
compacted once or multiple times to provide a variety of
soil conditions.
Integration of MBD and DEM Models
In order to simultaneously solve an existing MBD vehicle
model with a separate DEM soil model, cosimulation is
required to allow each solver to accurately calculate the
dynamic behavior of the vehicle-soil interactions (Figure 1).
The forces and displacements of the MBD/DEM objects
must be shared between each program, via a structured
interface that connects and manages the communication.
Figure 1. Adams-EDEM Co-simulation
When integrating an MBD model with a soft-soil EDEM
model, the traditional vehicle-road forces are replaced
with corresponding forces between the vehicle and the
soil particles. The MBD model supplies geometry locations
at each integration step, and the EDEM model then
calculates the particle forces acting on the equipment
parts based on the discrete particle model employed. The
resultant force on each geometry is then communicated
back to the MBD model, which uses the forces during the
subsequent dynamic time step.
Model Preparation for Co-Simulation
The first step towards integrating an MBD model with a
DEM soil model is to validate each model within its own
domain. By isolating this initial verification phase, each
model can be tested independently to ensure the behavior
meets the desired specifications.
13
After the MSC Adams MBD model is validated, the next
step is to determine which geometries will potentially
come into contact with the soft soil. For a wheeled
vehicle, this might be as simple as the four tires. In
contrast, a tracked vehicle will require many more contact
geometries, including the track segments, connectors,
wheels, and hull. For each of the Adams parts containing
the corresponding geometry, a GFORCE element is
created which will hold the force value calculated by the
EDEM soil model.
The EDEM soft-soil particles must be configured to
represent the desired MBD-EDEM testing scenario. For
instance, if a flat terrain is desired, then the appropriate
dimension of the particle bed needs to be determined.
The width should be enough to ensure that any lateral
particle displacement does not build up against the side
boundaries, and the length should be long enough to
perform the vehicle maneuver.
Once the EDEM particles are prepared, the vehicle
geometries exported from the Adams model are then
imported into EDEM. The geometries are imported
such that a single EDEM geometry is created for each
corresponding Adams part.
With the Adams and EDEM models ready for simulation,
the final step is to define a communication protocol for
the integration of the models. The Adams Co-Simulation
Interface (ACSI) is a framework that provides the
topological interface between Adams and other software
via a configuration script and corresponding glue
code. The ACSI controls the co-simulation, allowing for
asynchronous communication and various interpolation
and extrapolation algorithms.
When the ACSI interface is started, the configuration file
supplied will define how the Adams and EDEM models
share data at each communication step. The Adams model
will provide the location of each GFORCE, and the EDEM
model will then assign that location to the corresponding
EDEM geometry. Based on this geometry displacement,
the EDEM solver will calculate the bulk behavior of the soil
particles, and determine the composite particle force and
moment on each EDEM geometry object. This force is then
communicated back through the ACSI which assigns the
values to the corresponding GFORCE elements. These
forces are then included in the next dynamic time step the
Adams solver takes.

Figure 2. Adams - EDEM setup workflow
Model Definitions
Two separate Adams vehicle models were defined for the
original paper: a wheeled vehicle, and a tracked vehicle. In
this article we are going to talk about the wheeled vehicle
only. An EDEM ground material model was developed and
used for all the different co-simulations.
A. Adams Wheeled Vehicle Model
An Adams model of a HMMWV (Humvee, see Figure 3)
was used for development and validation. This HMMWV
Adams model had been previously used for hard surface
simulations, and the behavior verified using various test
maneuvers. The initial integration with the EDEM particle
model included only the four tires as contact objects with
the terrain; subsequently, the body and certain exposed
suspension elements were also exported for use during
co-simulation.
Figure 3. Adams model of HMMWV
B. EDEM Ground Material Model
Extensive testing and correlation has been performed by
EDEM users to define particles that match the behavior of
14
the desired physical soil. To aid users in obtaining particle
models that behave as desired, EDEM provides the GEMM
Material Database, where users can lookup pre-defined
materials based on three inputs: the scale of the
application; the angle of repose; and the bulk density of
the material. Finally, the EDEM Soil Starter Pack provides
eight sample out-of-the-box materials with different
ranges of compressibility and stickiness.
Figure 4 shows a double hill terrain configuration used
for both the HMMWV and Tank Adams models. To create
this test case, the Adams road surface was imported into
EDEM, and then a fixed quantity of particles was dropped
onto the road, with the particles forming a natural
rounded hill based on the material properties. The same
amount of particles was then dropped onto the road at a
fixed offset location, creating the second rounded hill in
the background, which has a slightly higher peak than the
first hill.
Figure 4. Double hill terrain in EDvEM
Simulation Results
The Adams HMMWV model was simulated over a variety of
soft-soil terrains, using the same EDEM particle model in
each case. The first maneuver is the HMMWV traversing a
flat particle bed as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. HMMWV on flat terrain at 20kph
The HMMWV was then run over a single hill at various
speeds to investigate the ability to traverse the obstacle,
as well as the power required during the event. Figure 6
shows the HMMWV at 20kph trying to climb the hill,
and getting the front wheels stuck in the soft soil.
Figure 6. HMMWV on single hill at 20kph
At a high speed, the HMMWV becomes airborne as it
crests the hill. Based off this behavior, the HMMWV was
run over the double hill at various speeds, with the vehicle
impacting the ground at different points based on the
velocity. When running at 60kph as shown in Figure 7, the
HMMWV lands just before the crest of the second hill, with
the impact “splashing” the soil particles.
Figure 7. HMMWV on double hill at 60kph
Co-Simulation Results
A. HMMWV Results
Two of the simulation results for the HMMWV model are
discussed below. First, for the vehicle traveling across the
flat terrain; second, when the HMMWV is traversing the
30% side slope.
One important validation step was to compare the tire
forces when the vehicle is on the hard surface, against
15
In order to run the HMMWV on a side-slope, the vehicle
starts out on a level hard road surface, which then
gradually rotates until it reaches the desired slope
gradient. At this point the hard surface ends and the soft
soil begins. The steering controller in the Adams
model is set to try and maintain a straight-line while on the
side-slope. Figure 8 demonstrates the vehicle behavior
as it leaves the hard surface and enters the material
bed. The vehicle initially slides down the slope as the
steering reacts to the lessened traction available, and
compensates until the vehicle begins to recover towards
the desired straight-line path.
Figure 8. HMMWV on 30 percent side slope at 25kph
the forces when it is crossing the soft soil. Figure 9 shows
the forces between the left rear tire and ground during
the entirety of the simulation. Up until around time=1sec,
the HMMWV is on the hard surface, and the tire forces
are calculated through the standard Adams Tire routines
(shown in red). As the vehicle transitions onto the soft soil,
the Adams Tire forces go to zero, and the EDEM particle
forces (shown in blue) begin to carry the load. After an
initial transient phase, the vehicle stabilizes and the
contact forces calculated by the EDEM particles are
equivalent to the tire forces on the hard surface.
Figure 9. HMMWV tire and particle forces
As the HMMWV exits the material bed, there is a spike in
the EDEM particle force, due to a localized particle effect
at the transition from soft soil to hard surface (a scaled
soil particle which was pushed onto the hard surface is
traversed). Once the vehicle returns to the hard surface,
the tire forces again are calculated by the Adams Tire
method.
The HMMWV side slope maneuver (slope downward from
right-to-left) provided an opportunity to investigate the
behavior of the vehicle as it transitioned onto the soft soil,
and the vehicle’s ability to maintain a straight-line course
once on the EDEM particles.
Figure 10. HMMWV on 30% side slope
16
The simulation begins with the HMMWV on a flat, hard
road surface, at a constant speed of 25kph. At time 3.75
seconds, the hard surface begins to gradually roll, until
at about a time of 5.5 seconds the 30% side slope is
achieved. The vehicle continues on the hard side slope
road until around time 7.6 seconds, at which point the hard
surface ends and the soft soil begins. The EDEM particle
bed was positioned to match the slope of the hard surface
to the soft soil; however, as seen in Figure 10 there is a
transient response as the vehicle enters the deformable
terrain.
As the front wheels of the HMMWV enter the particle bed,
the vehicle initially yaws to the left while the rear
 The process of co-simulating the
Adams MBD vehicle alongside the
EDEM DEM soil model introduces a
new dimension to the established
procedure.”
wheels are still on the hard surface. Once the entire
vehicle is on the soft soil, it begins to drift down the slope,
and the steering controller increases the angle to return
to a straight line course, causing the vehicle to yaw in the
opposite direction. At the end of the simulation, the yaw
has stabilized and the steering angle is maintained at
about 50 degrees to travel in a straight direction.
B. Correlation of Adams-EDEM Soil Properties
with Bekker-Wong Parameters
The process of co-simulating the Adams MBD vehicle
model alongside the EDEM DEM soil model, introduces a
new dimension to the established procedure for verifying
DEM soil properties. When the entire solution is performed
inside a DEM environment, the force/displacement
interactions are all internally computed. With the Adams-
EDEM co-simulation, each software solves its own
equations, communicating the displacements and forces
at the established communication intervals. Additionally,
the dynamics of the vehicle can generate rapidly changing
displacements and force values between the vehicle and
soil particles.

A testing procedure has been proposed (reference 1) for

validating the Adams-EDEM implementation. The test
rig will be created inside an Adams MBD model, with the
pressure/force also being defined in Adams. The test rig
geometry will be exported from Adams and imported into
EDEM, and then filled with the desired soil particles (see
Figure 11). The Adams- EDEM co-simulation will then run,
applying the specified force or pressure to the plate, with
the Adams simulation results post-processed to generate
the corresponding Bekker-Wong parameters.

Figure 11. Adams-EDEM test rig for soil parameter characterization

Reference

1. “Co-Simulation of MBD models with DEM code to

predict mobility on soft soil”, Brian Edwards, NDIA
Ground Vehicles Systems Engineering and
Technology Symposium, 2018, Michigan USA.

17
Simulating Vehicle Extreme
Load Cases with Adams-Marc
Co-Simulation
By Christian Kopp, Senior Technical Consultant Harald Krings, Senior Technical
Specialist Yijun Fan, Global Automotive Application Manager, MSC Software

18
Introduction

Efficiently designing and testing mechanical systems for

automobiles is a challenge for some engineers due to lack
of a smooth integration between, for Example system
dynamics and finite element analysis (FEA) software
domains. An MSC Adams-Marc co-simulation product
toolchain enables engineers to perform multiphysics
simulations between Marc nonlinear FE technology and
the Adams Multibody Dynamics (MBD) code. By so doing,
multibody dynamics engineers can increase model
accuracy by including non-linear structural behavior;
and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) engineers can study
components with realistic boundary conditions. Coupling
the technologies also produces time savings for nonlinear
FEA software users, since some of the rigid moving parts
can be solved in Adams, which dramatically decreases the
Figure 1. Extreme Load Case: Pole Run Over
total solution time.

The ‘Pole run over’ Engineering Challenge Coupled CAE Solution

A vehicle can be subject to high impact loads a few times
during its life cycle. These load cases are often referred
to as ‘peak loads’ or ‘strength events’ and play a major
role in the product development of a vehicle since they
potentially drive the design for several components. One
of the important load cases is the “Pole Run Over” (Figure
1), which means that the underbody of the vehicle is
scratched by an obstacle (e.g. a stone on the ground), and
suffers large deformation. The challenge with a traditional
MBD approach is that plastic deformation of the
underbody can’t be captured during a full vehicle analysis,
and if the engineers try to simulate the entire vehicle in an
FEA environment, it could take weeks to finish even one
simulation [1].
I. Adams-Marc Co-Simulation
To address the challenges above, MSC worked with the
end users together to implement a mixed MBD + non-
linear FEA model which brings the best from both worlds
(Figure 2). Non-linear FEA can’t be used to accurately
describe the non-linear behavior of flexible components,
including plastic deformation, non-linear materials,
large deformation of the components, buckling, self-
contact. MBD can be leveraged to accurately model the
system/moving mechanisms, providing realistic boundary
conditions for the non-linear components with high
efficiency. Hence, a mixed model will also simulate much
faster than a complete model in non-linear FEA, and it
will still provide the required level of accuracy.

The points at which a model interacts with another model

are called interactions. At each interaction point there
must be:

A MARKER and a GFORCE in the Adams model.

A NODE in the Marc model. The interface NODE in the

Marc model must have 6 degrees of freedom

In all Adams-Marc interactions, Adams passes

displacements to be imposed on a NODE in Marc. Marc
passes force/torque values to Adams to be used in a
GFORCE.

19
Figure 2. Typical Adams-Marc Co-Simulation Automotive Toolchain Workflow

II. Model Preparation

The full vehicle model used in this study came from a

correlated BMW Adams Car vehicle dynamics model
(Figure 3), and it contains about 250 DOFs (Degrees of
Freedom), with 13 subsystems. There are 14 interaction
points between the MBD and the FEA model, and 14
MARKERs and GFORCEs were defined in the Adams Car
templates to communicate with the Marc model.

Figure 4. Marc Model for the Chassis Underbody

III. Physical Testing

During physical testing, the same maneuver was applied

as the CAE simulation event: the full vehicle is driven over a
measurement bollard at 30 km/h, and the bollard height is
defined dependent on the height setup of the vehicle. The
bollard (Figure 5) worked as the obstacle that scratches
the chassis underbody (Figure 6), and at the same time, it
Figure 3. Adams Full Vehicle Model
measures the contact force between the obstacle and the
underbody. That force was later used to correlate with the
simulation results.
The BMW Chassis underbody was modeled in the Marc
environment (Figure 4), with 11 deformable contact bodies,
200,000 DOFs and 33,000 nodes. The pole was also
defined in the Marc model as a rigid body, and 14
interaction points were controlled by 14 nodes as the new
boundary condition for this Marc model.

Figure 5. The Measurement Bollard

20
Figure 6. Scratches of the Underbody after the Physical Testing

Figure 8. BMW Car Co-animation picture of Pole Run Over done by Adams &
Marc and visualized in CEI Ensight
Results and Correlation

Overall, the Adams-Marc co-simulation showed an

To sum up, with the Adams-Marc co-simulation
impressive result compared with the physical testing
methodology, auto OEM engineers and MSC were able
measurement. From the plot below (Figure 7), the red
to find a good correlation between the physical testing
curve represents the physical measurement of the contact
results and the simulation results within one day, which
force in the Z direction. The light blue curve came from
proved that this co-simulation technology can be used to
the first run with the co-simulation without any tuning of
accurately and efficiently predict the dynamic loads on the
the models, and the relatively large discrepancy between
vehicle even under extreme load cases.
the simulation and testing on the peak load is due to the
fact that the wrong Y coordinate was provided to the
simulation engineers. And because of that, the simulated
event missed the contact point between a screw on the
underbody and the obstacle which caused the peak load.
References

1. Special Interest Groups Adams

Marc Co-Simulation Kopplung der
Mehrkörpersimulation(MKS) mit der nichtlinearen
Finite-Elemente-Methode(FEM), C. Kopp, H.
Krings, R. Bosbach (MSC Software GmbH)
Berlin, Deutschland, November 2017

2. Co-Simulation of Multi-Body-Dynamics (MBD) with

Nonlinear Finite-Element-Analysis (FEA):

3. C. Kopp, H. Krings, T. El Dsoki (MSC Software

Figure 7. Contact Force Comparison: Physical Testing vs Co-Simulation
Results
After the engineers adjusted the Y coordinate in the
simulation model and conducted another co-simulation,
the black curve was generated which is much closer to the
physical testing result. In this attempt, the screw was only
added to the Marc model as an assumption, rather than a
detailed modeling of the screw itself, and that explains the
remaining difference between the co-simulation result
and the testing result.
Deutschsprachige NAFEMS Konferenz 2018
Berechnung und Simulation – Anwendungen,
Entwicklungen, Trends, Bamberg Germany, May
2018
4. “BMW Case Study: Adams Marc Co-Simulation”,
C.Kopp, H.Krings, Fan, Y., NAFEMS Engineering
Analysis & Simulation in the Automotive Industry:
Creating the Next Generation Vehicle Conference,
Troy, Michigan USA, November 2018

Further analysis has been conducted with even better

correlation between the co-simulation results and the
testing results, and due to confidentiality reasons, those
plots couldn’t be shown in this article. Co-animation
(Figure 8) was also produced by reading in Adams and
Marc results files to CEI Ensight.

21
Multibody Simulations of
a Martian Rover
By Team D.I.A.N.A, Politecnico di Torino

22
Team DIANA (Ducti Ingenio Accipimus Naturam Astrorum),
is a Students Team of Politecnico di Torino working in
the research and development of robotics for space
applications. The Team produces engineering models of
rovers using the latest technologies. Team DIANA wants
to bring space robotics to a new level, while providing a
platform for experiential learning.
Since its inception in 2008, Team DIANA has created the
Lunar Rover Amalia for the Google Lunar XPrize and the
Rover T0-R0 (Figure 1), the Martian rover prototype that
took part in the European Rover Challenge in Poland in
September 2018. In 2019 the team started working on a
new Martian rover which is currently being produced and
will be tested at the 2019 edition of the European Rover
Challenge.
Figure 1. The T0-R0 rover and its Adams model
Designing for space always means venturing into the
unknown. The primary challenge in the development of a
Martian rover is in the uncertainty of the environmental
conditions that it is going to operate in. The rover is
designed to be able to walk on Martian-like soil, to
perform tasks and tests, collect samples and navigate
autonomously while withstanding Martian-like geologic
23
conditions (Figure 2). European Rover Challenge
represents an unparalleled opportunity for the Team
to test the Rover’s mobility system in a Martian-like
environment. To test the capabilities of T0-R0 rover,
during the European Rover Challenge 2018, we simulated
the Martian soil in its harshest forms using multi-body
simulations in Adams. Since the characteristics of
the competition soil were unknown, a virtual study with the
worst case conditions were performed. This allowed us to
identify the specific motors needed to power up the rocker
boogie mobility system and to define the dimensions of
the transmission system and suspension springs.
Figure 2. Testing of the T0-R0 rover on soft soil
In the preliminary design stages of the T0-R0 Rover,
uncertainties concerning the mobility system were
resolved thanks to Multi-body simulations in Adams. T0-R0
Rover is based on a rocker boogie mobility system, with six
wheels and four independent electric motors. This system
allows stabilization of the rover’s payload (electronics,
computer and batteries) during navigation on rough soil,
with rocks and obstacles.
The first step in the simulation process was the
construction of the rover model in Adams/View with a
simplified geometry, with correct dimensions and inertial
proprieties of the involved parts. Then the entire model
was verified, and roads with soft soil and a model of a
pneumatic wheel (Figure 3) were added thanks to Adam/
Tire tool to evaluate the power required for the motors to
achieve a speed of 3 Km/Hr.
Figure 3. Virtual Testing of the Rover using Adams
The parametric nature of Adams allows an understanding
of the relationships between the design elements in the
model and the performance requirements. For example,
it was possible to change the position of the hinges that
connect the rocker to the chassis with ease, saving a
considerable amount of time. Furthermore, the use
of design variables allowed us to capture the effect of
variation of certain parameters on the dynamic behavior of
the vehicle.
Figure 4. Belt Transmission Systems Model Using Adams/Machinery
The simulations performed in the virtual Adams
environment allowed the team to explore limits of the
structure and to build a rover capable of walking on
Martian-like terrain and performing all the required
operations with the construction of a single prototype
and one short year of development. The rover, once built,
performed as expected in the tasks of the competition
and on Martian soil, confirming a good capability of
motion on the terrain thanks to the insight obtained from
simulations.
Figure 5. Testing of the new rover for the 2019 European Rover Challenge
24
Adams also allowed us to model the belt transmission
system (Figure 4) using the Adams/Machinery tool. The
study of the deformations and the stresses to which the
springs are subject to were carried out considering the
vehicle in different operative conditions, for example
in presence of an irregular path or when encountering
obstacles.
The Team is now designing a new rover (Figure 5) with
steering wheels to achieve better maneuverability while
performing tasks. Adams is being used to study the
geometries of the steering mechanism of the new mobility
system. The new Rover will be tested through the
participation at the 2019 edition of European Rover
Challenge.
Co-Simulation -
Breaking the Back of
Multiphysics CAE
Simulation
By Dr. Keith Hanna, Vice President Marketing, MSC Software

Adams-scFLOW prediction of dynamic vehicle suspension movement in a cross flow wind

25

Dr. Keith Hanna
Vice President, Marketing
Over the last 20 years or so, one of the ‘holy grails’ of Computer-Aided Engineering
(CAE) has been ‘multiphysics’ simulations, i.e. co-simulations between different physics
simulation types (Ref. 1). Multiphysics, even though an ill-defined term, kind of feels
intuitively right to us engineers from the perspective of real-world engineering simulation.
Fluids don’t usually exist in isolation from structural effects, or acoustics, or dynamics
in the real world we inhabit, yet for many years past, engineers have simulated these
subdomains of physics as isolated point simulation solutions in CAE. I have to add a rider
here that my Physics teacher at High School, Mr Copeland, would have taken me to task
for using the word ‘multiphysics’ at all because strictly it is wrong. There is actually only
one discipline of physics, as there is for chemistry and biology. Within physics, there are
subdisciplines like Newtownian Laws of Motion (and fluids),

Figure 1. MSC’s Unique Multiphysics Co-Simulation Capabilities

Maxwell’s Laws of Electromagnetics, Structural Stress-
Strain laws, etc. This ‘multiphysics’ word that was coined
in the 1990s is actually a consequence of a failure of
the CAE industry to solve the fundamental underlying
physics equations in a combined way, in my opinion. Partly,
this is due to practical problems that we find because
of different mathematical techniques. For instance,
Finite Volume Methods (best for fluids), Finite Element
Methods (best for structures and acoustics) mean
that for more efficient solver convergence in real world
engineering problems, one or the other is chosen as the
best methodology. And partly, software vendors have
struggled to grapple with the multiphysics challenge to
deliver usable engineering simulation tools because the
mathematical approaches don’t tend to gel well together
when combined.
What was very striking about MSC Software when I joined
earlier this year, apart from its 50+ year history stretching
back to the early NASA moon landing project, and the
desire for accuracy in software solutions, is a largely
understated history of endeavoring to provide world-class
CAE co-simulation solutions to its customers as well as
engineers everywhere. Everything from acoustics to Multi
Body Dynamics (MBD), to CFD, to structural analysis, and
explicit crash dynamics can be connected together in
MSC (see Fig 1). I have gathered together a multiplicity of
multiphysics co-simulation applications that can be done
with MSC software tools today, both in two-product
couplings, as well as in toolchains of product
simulations that were mere pipe dreams a few years ago
(see Table 1).
Multi-Body Dynamics Led Co-Simulation
When one digs down, one soon discovers that the market
leading Adams MBD product is being used extensively for
industrial grade co-simulations around the world today as
a matter of course, and is open to connections with all
sorts of commercial and open-source software (see
Figure 2). Some notable recent innovations are
connections to the market leading Discrete Element
Modeling software, EDEM, from DEM Solutions, as
illustrated by Figure 3, VIRES Virtual Test Drive (VTD) for
ADAS and autonomous vehicle drive simulation (VIRES
has been part of MSC/Hexagon since 2017), and of course

26
26
Table 1. A Cross Section of Co-Simulation CAE applications connected to the MSC Software Solution Suite

MATLAB & SIMULINK for 0D/1D systems and controls

modeling (from MathWorks). Adams coupled with Marc
can solve wiper blade movements, hydraulic actuators,
rubber door seals, and full vehicle bush modeling.

I will gointo more detail below about the exciting new co-
simulation multiphysics capabilities that the CFD software
acquisition of Software Cradle by MSC Software in 2016 is
now beginning to open up for CFD and CAE engineers alike.
A very complex and challenging dynamic co-simulation
is shown in Fig 4 where a non-linear bending and twisting
metallic flap in a cross flow was simulated in an scFLOW -
Marc - MSC Nastran toolchain.
Figure 3. Adams MBD Co-Simulation Capability with EDEM from DEM
Solutions

Acoustics Led Co-Simulation

Actran is recognized to be the market leader in acoustics
simulation with a twenty-year history behind it and a blue
chip user base worldwide. It has many multiphysics
acoustic applications like the classic one of coupling with
CFD for aeroacoustic analysis.
Actran provides today a complete endtoend solution from
mechanical load prediction to noise and mechanical load
prediction to noise and vibration assessment. in a recent
Webinar, (Ref. 2) my colleagues Romain Baudson and Yijun
Fan looked at acoustic predictions for electric vehicles
with Actran-led toolchains.

Actran
Marc

Adams

Cradle | scFLOW

Figure 2. MSC’s Adams MBD Co-Simulation Capability Ecosystem

27
Figure 4. MSC’s Nastran – scFLOW - Marc Co-Simulation of a flap bending and twisting in a crossflow

Figure 5. MSC’s Adams – Nastran and Actran Conventional Automotive Powertrain Co-Simulation Toolchain (left) and E-Mag – Nastran – Actran
e-Powertrain Toolchain for Acoustics (right)

toolchains. Fig 5 shows the two toolchains they employed
in their cosimulation analyses. Multibody simulation
with Adams provides the structural loads when the
conventional powertrain is operating, then MSC Nastran
was used for vibration analysis. Finally, noise radiation is
then computed with Actran with high accuracy in a fully
automated process. By comparison, for Electric Vehicles,
electromagnetic simulation results from various third
party software (for example, JMAG, MagNet, Maxwell…)
can be integrated with MSC’s FEA tools for electric motor
noise prediction. In doing so, Actran provides accurate
noise predictions for both the electric motor and the gear
reducer. Finally, a relatively recent acoustics and fluids
co-simulation is illustrated in Figure 6 between Actran
and scFLOW from Software Cradle where an automotive
exhaust and muffler system was modeled in CFD and
coupled with Actran for acoustic noise prediction.
CFD Led Co-Simulation
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has long been a
passion of mine and it is genuinely quite exciting to see
what is happening in Japan with Software Cradle’s co-
simulation CFD efforts. They have devised a remarkably
robust and open software platform for co-simulation (see
Fig 7). Software Cradle’s CFD products – scFLOW (that
employs polyhedral meshes), scSTREAM (with Cartesian
meshes) and SC/Tetra (with tetrahedral meshes) have a
long history of use by large OEMs and leading Japanese
companies and come with a strong technical pedigree.

Figure 6. MSC’s Cradle CFD and Actran Acoustics co-simulation for an Automotive Exhaust and Muffler Aeroacoustics Prediction

28
 Cradle | scFLOW

Cradle | scFLOW

Adams

Figure 7. Software Cradle’s Open Coupling CFD Platform (Left) and FMI Interfaces (Right)

They are technology leading in free surface and overset

meshing techniques with fast, accurate and robust
approaches. Physical quantities can be passed between
third party and MSC’s CAE software and Cradle’s CFD
tools using its FMI (Functional Mockup Interface). The FMI
supports general physical quantity settings, user-defined
functions, and script languages. With Adams in particular,
this co-simulation approach can do large particulate flows
on free surfaces (Figure 8), vane pumps, washing machine
drum vibration, and MBD fuel tank sloshing (Figure 9) for
instance. A really exciting MBD application is that of a
vehicle driving through a large puddle with suspension
effects taken into account by Adams or the same vehicle’s
dynamics in a cross wind (Figure 10). Co-simulation with
Marc means that Cradle CFD couplings can do aircraft fuel
tank baffles, liquid quenching, flexible plates / membranes
/ valve seals (Figure 11), and Sirocco fans. When coupled to
MSC Nastran, scFLOW can do FSI of ship’s propeller with
cavitation effects included for example (see Figure 12).

It’s the really cool co-simulation CFD applications that

catch your eye the most, however. Software Cradle have
coupled Adams with scFLOW to look at dynamic aircraft
wing and flap deployment aerodynamic predictions (see
Fig 13).

Figure 9. Adams - scFLOW prediction of dynamic sloshing of liquid in a tank

predictions (see Fig 13). Another exciting new aerodynamic

Figure 8. Adams – scSTREAM prediction of large logs in a channel
free surface flow
cosimulation application between scFLOW and MSC
Nastran / Marc is non-linear panel flutter of a supersonic
plate (Ref 3), involving a highly unusual coupled undulating
vibration of the flat plate’s surface at high speeds resulting
in moving shocks on the surface (see Figure 13). It was
accomplished by my colleague Fausto Gill di Vincenzo in
Italy who employed our seamless MSC Nastran - scFLOW

29
Figure 10. Adams – scSTREAM prediction of a dynamic vehicle
suspension movement through a puddle
Figure 11. FSI analysis using Marc and scFLOW of a Valve with an Elastic
Membrane deformed by flow
Figure 12. MSC Nastran - scFLOW prediction of propeller with free surface
and cavitation
CFD coupling technology for an efficient and fast solution.
The CFD domain deformation prediction was done with
sliding mesh capabilities and then the FEA was performed
by MSC Nastran and Marc. The CFD elements used could
be tets, hexas, or polyhedral elements.
Finally, another area of interest of mine is
thermomechanical stress predictions for electronic
components on chips and PCBs (Printed Circuit
Boards). This application too is quite difficult to do as a
cosimulation by most commercial vendors. In Figure 14, an
electronic chip resistor has been simulated that
30
Figure 13. Adams – scSTREAM prediction of a dynamic vehicle
suspension movement through a puddle
Figure 14. Adams - scFLOW dynamic prediction of wing flap deployment
aerodynamics (above top) and a vibrating supersonic plate shock structure
co-simulation in MSC Nastran – scFLOW CFD (above bottom)
undergoes repeated heat generation by its own on-off
actions (Ref. 4). This will eventually cause the breakage
of its solder joints over the lifetime of the component
and ultimately product failure. Being able to predict it in
advance and to locate high stress areas is very important.
Temperature distribution predictions from scSTREAM
were mapped onto the mesh of the structural analysis
solver (eg MSC Nastran or ANSYS Mechanical). The stress
on the solder connection was then predicted. This is a very
powerful way of predicting failure mechanisms and their
likely locations in the consumer electronics industry and is
relatively easy to do in scSTREAM as a co-simulation.
Summary
Classical ‘multiphysics’ challenges for CAE include fluids
and structures (FSI, VIV), structures and acoustics,
structures and dynamics, and fluids and dynamics.
Multiphysics simulation may sound easy in principle yet
many commercial CAE vendors have had point physics
solutions for decades now but have failed to implement
usable coupled solutions for industrial grade engineering
application (either loose- or closelycoupled CAE). So,
‘multiphysics’ is still one of the ‘Holy Grails’ of CAE solution
even after 40 to 50 years of point simulations in all the
physics sub-disciplines. MSC Software has grappled with
this co-simulation conundrum and come up with many
usable solutions and tool chains for real world engineering
applications. I would encourage you to explore what we
offer and use MSC One credits to try them out. Ask your
local MSC account manager or support engineer if you
want to know more. We offer both the technologies and the
professional services that can help you solve your industry
CAE co-simulation challenges.
Figure 15. scSTREAM thermo-mechanical stress prediction of electronic
component solder stresses
31
References
1. “Back to the Future; Trends in Commercial CFD” by J.
Parry & K. Hanna, NAFEMS World Congress, Boston, USA,
2011:http://s3.mentor.com/public_documents/
whitepaper/resources/mentorpaper_90428.pdf
2. “Noise Prediction for Electric Powertrain” Webinar, by
R. Baudson and Y. Fan, August 2018: http://www.
mscsoftware.com/events_assets/Webcasts/2018_
Webinars/noise-prediction-for-electricvehiclepowertrain.
html
3. “An Efficient Fluid Structural Workflow using the
SeamlessCoupling Technology” Webinar, August
2018:http://www.mscsoftware.com/events_
assets/Webcasts/2018_Webinars/an-efficient-
fluidstructuralworkflow-using-the-seamless
couplingtechnologywithin-msc-nastran-marc-and-sc-
tetra.html
4. “Predicting Durability of Junctions for Mounted Parts”
Cradle CFD Case Study: https://www.cradle-cfd.com/
images/applications/electronics/11ST_MountedParts
Durability_email
Leveraging Adams and
Luciad to Assess Mobility
Characteristics of a
Ground Vehicle
By Hemanth Kolera-Gokula, Product Marketing Manager,
MSC Software

32
The mobility of a ground vehicle can be the difference
between mission success and mission failure on the
battlefield. In today’s defense environment, there is a need
to create rapidly deployable, highly mobile vehicle platforms
that operate reliably across various terrain and road types.
Vehicle simulation capabilities for assessing performance
for different environmental conditions and operational
scenarios have increased significantly in recent years.
In support of the Next Generation NATO reference mobility
model (NG-NRMM) project for assessing existent CAE
mobility analysis capability different facets of the Hexagon
product portfolio were used to asses and visualize the
mobility of the FED-Alpha, a Fuel Efficient Demonstrator
vehicle (Figure 1). Adams models was created and validated
against real-world calibration data by a team comprising
of Eric Pesheck, Venkatesan Jeganathan, Tony Bromwell,
Aniruddh Matange and Paspuleti Rahul Naidu to support
this effort. These validated models were then used to
accurately predict vehicle performance under a variety of
on- and off-road operational scenarios. Select results from
these investigations were integrated into Luciad, part of the
Hexagon Geospatial portfolio, via a customized application
for visualization and mobility mapping. Additionally, realtime
compliance of the Adams model to support various
autonomous and “Hardwarein- the-Loop” scenarios was
demonstrated.

Validated Model
Adams/Car Complex Terramechanics • Drawbar
Parametric • Traverse
Vehicle Validation Simplified Terramechanics (with EDEM)
Model
Architecture
Rigid Road

• Drawbar
• Sand Climb
• Handling • Traverse
Real-Time Model • Lane-change
• Cornering
• Ride
• RMS roads
• Halfrounds
• Obstacles Uncertainty
Quatification
Virtual Test Drive

• Drawbar
• Traverse
(with EDEM)

Figure 1. Mobility modeling for the NG-NRMM program

Creating and Validating the Adams Model

Adams Car, a solution vertical in the Adams portfolio

focused on the modeling and simulation of vehicle
assemblies and subsystems was used to create a full-
vehicle model of the FED FEDAlpha. Adams Car uses a
template-based approach to model building; Reusable
parametric templates of sub-systems such as chassis,
tires, powertrain etc. can be populated with vehicle data
and integrated to create a full vehicle assembly as shown
in Figure 2. Typical model data includes design hard
points, part mass properties, and component compliance
characteristics. Adams Car allows detailed component Figure 2. FED-Alpha Vehicle Assemble in Adams
representations, such as flexibility, friction, or frequency-
dependent behavior where warranted. The level of fidelity
and detail employed in the model was based on the
simulation intent and available design data.

The accuracy of the model was validated by comparison

against data gathered from various vehicle test events.
Metrics related to vehicle behavior, dynamics and ride
quality were compared for model validation.

33
Predicting Vehicle Performance Using the analyses. In addition, these methods were applied to
scanned terrain geometry for more generalized off-road
Adams Model
performance analyses.
The validated Adams model was then used to simulate
In addition, the computational efficiency of this method
various vehicle events to evaluate vehicle performance
facilitated the support of stochastic analysis approaches,
and mobility. These events consisted of both on and off
where uncertainties due to variations in model and terrain
road usage to mimic real battlefield scenarios. Typical
inputs were also accounted for, statistically. These
military on-road evaluation events such as double lane
stochastic simulations represented hundreds of potential
change, indicating limit handling performance, half rounds,
soil characteristics, and allowed prediction of vehicle
indicating ride quality, and step climbs, indicating obstacle
performance over a statistical range of soil and terrain
navigation ability, were stimulated, with good agreement to
properties and resultant development of confidence
test.
intervals for vehicle performance.
Evaluation of off-road performance is critical since
Higher fidelity approaches, where the soil properties
achievement of certain mission objectives could require
emerged from simulated particle interactions were also
operation over unprepared terrain. Of crucial importance
employed. This was accomplished using a co-simulation
in off road modeling are the representation of the
between Adams and EDEM, a Discrete Element Method
terramechanics; the soil properties and the interaction
(DEM) based simulation offering from DEM solutions. In the
between the tire and the soil surface. Simple and detailed
DEM method, the material is represented by a collection
models for the description of the terramechanics were
of interacting particles with simple shapes (typically
utilized in this initiative. Simple terramechanics models
based on circles and spheres). The typical co-simulation
use empirical relationships, based on experimental
workflow between Adams and EDEM is as shown in Figure
measurements, to predict the response of deformable
3. Potential EDEM contact is defined for designated vehicle
terrain to vehicle operation. These methods are
parts. The displacement of these parts is determined by
computationally efficient, and were used to assess vehicle
Adams and provided to EDEM. EDEM then determines the
performance for well-defined draw-bar and hill-climb
resultant reaction forces, which are passed back to Adams.

Figure 3. Adams Model Validation against Test Data

Using these approaches, tests such as a drawbar pulls, and

sand-bed acceleration were simulated to gauge tractive
behavior of the FED under various off-road scenarios.
Though computationally intensive, these simulations
were proved to add significant fidelity and result in more
accurate correlation to test results.

Figure 4. Adams EDEM Co-Simulation workflow

34
Mobility Mapping
Leveraging the broader Hexagon portfolio (Figure 5),
the Luciad Lightspeed technology from the Geospatial
Business Unit was used to project the FED Alpha mobility
characteristics predicted by Adams onto the test terrain
at the Keewenaw Research Center (KRC). The integration
of Adams predictions with geospatial mapping technology
demonstrates the capability to visualize vehicle speed
throughout a mapped domain based upon a combination
Figure 5. Mapping workflow, showing speed made good and route prediction
Real-Time Virtual Model Performance
To demonstrate the applicability of the full fidelity Adams
models used for mobility assessment, to adjacent Hardware
in the loop (HIL) and ADAS applications, a reduced order,
real-time compliant variant of the full-fidelity model was
created. The ability to derive vehicle dynamics modeling
variants of varying fidelity, to support a specific simulation
intent allows users to deploy a single modeling solution
without costly, error-prone model translations between
various tools. Furthermore, with the Adams Real-Time
approach, the user has additional freedom to retain model
features of interest. Typically, real-time vehicle performance
may be achieved with a few simplifications of select
35
of soil, grade and predicted vehicle performance data.
Additionally, optimized routes can be computed based on
selected route endpoints.
Additional operational data such as side-slope predictions
and obstacle information can be incorporated into
the above framework, thus creating a platform for
comprehensive mobility assessment on an actual terrain
using simulated vehicle performance data.
component and connection representations, depending on
the analysis and integration requirements. In this case, only
the anti-roll bar model was simplified. The real-time model
was tested in the VTD (Virtual Test Drive) analysis
environment to demonstrate capability. In addition, the
numerical accuracy and efficiency of this model was
assessed relative to the baseline full-vehicle performance.
Adams has had a long standing presence in the area of
on-road analysis. This effort demonstrates how these
models can be extended using the broader Hexagon
portfolio and reused for off-road analysis in the context
of road terrain representation, real time analysis and
operational mapping.
Drilling Simulations
Enhance Well Planning
and Drilling Decisions
By Fred Harvey, MSC Software
Exploration for oil and gas involves drilling a well with
a length of drill pipe attached to a Bottom Hole Assembly
(BHA) that includes a variety of specialized drilling tools
for boring through rock, taking measurements, managing
vibrations, and steering control. The drill string follows a
trajectory intended to reach a particular oil rich target zone,
often exceeding 15,000 feet from the drill rig itself. Since
each well is unique, and the drilling process is incredibly
expensive, it is impractical to physically test the design as
with traditional prototype testing.
The drilling system is complex and includes fluid systems,
electrical systems, advanced control systems, mechanical
drives, rig structure, and drill string in addition to Mother
36
Nature, who contributes to the environment with high
temperatures and pressures and a wide range of geology
considerations. The drill string is immersed in drilling fluid
and remains in contact with the wellbore through many
layers of formations, each with different physical properties.
Rotation and axial motion is controlled at the surface by
electric top drive and cable systems; each with their own
mechanical, hydraulic, and control systems. Drilling fluid is
pumped through the drill pipe and up the wellbore
to provide lubrication, cooling, and evacuation of rock
cuttings from the bit. This fluid provides viscous damping
and buoyancy effects to the drill string, but also has a
tendency to cake when left static. Mud motors convert
hydraulic energy into mechanical energy that provides
torque and additional RPM to the drill bit. Other devices vertical application. “We’re very excited about the potential
with varying degrees of sophistication are used to take for Adams Drill,” said Chris Cheatwood, Chief Technology
measurements, manage vibrations, and stabilize and Officer at Pioneer. “This software allows us to simulate
maintain directional control of the BHA. All of these devices drilling an entire well from start to finish, monitoring a range
must be accounted for in the model in order to capture the of new parameters we’ve never had access to before.”
correct system behavior. As one can imagine, the drilling
system as a whole is very complex, comprised of numerous
nonlinear subsystems that interact with fluids, geology,
This software allows us to
control systems, and mechanical structure of the string
itself. With such a complicated system, it is no surprise simulate drilling an entire well
that damaging vibrations can occur downhole with little from start to finish, monitoring
or no indication at the surface. Physical testing is not only arange of new parameters we’ve
prohibitively expensive, but the test data are often not
never had access to before.”
available until after the drilling is completed and downhole
data is made available. Even with downhole test data, it is
Chris Cheatwood,
very difficult to comprehend what is actually happening
Chief Technology Officer, Pioneer
from the limited information available. Modeling provides an
opportunity to study the drilling system, make sense of
available physical data, and estimate behavior of future
designs. Pioneer is helping MSC validate the models by collecting
physical drilling data with special measurement subs that
Many approaches have been used to model drilling with are designed to withstand the extreme vibrations and
various degrees of success. Finite elements are most downhole operating environment during drilling. The team
common. On one end of the spectrum, very simple linear is using the measured data for comparison with simulation
structural dynamics models have proven to be a very useful data to verify accuracy of the models and improve them as
representation of the string for basic planning purposes. necessary. Figure 1 shows a high level of correlation
Advanced nonlinear FEA models used by the major service between the measured and simulated RPM recorded just
companies have been used to study the nonlinear drilling above the motor in the Bottom Hole Assembly.
dysfunctions. Although FEA is appropriate for capturing
nonlinear behaviors, such models tend to be cumbersome,
computationally expensive, and are not commercially
available. Systems of equations are on the other end of the
spectrum. Fast enough to be used in real time analytics, but
difficult to capture enough fidelity to account for individual
designs or the complex coupled physics.

A Multi Body Dynamics (MBD) approach with MSC Adams

strikes a nice balance between fidelity and computational
efficiency while capturing the coupled three dimensional
nonlinear behaviors of the drilling system and various
subsystems. MSC Software has partnered with Pioneer
Figure 1. Comparison of measured and simulated RPM at the Bottom Hole
Natural Resources to tailor fit Adams to this unique industry Assembly

37
37
 These recording subs are capable of measuring torque, rpm,
axial load, and bending moments at various locations in the
BHA at 50 Hz for long periods of time. Such downhole data
is critical to calibrate and gain trust in a comprehensive
drilling model such as this. Similarly, the model is critical to
rationalize the nonlinearities observed in the physical data
and understand how changes to the BHA design, wellbore
trajectory, lithology, operating parameters, and control
systems, will impact drilling system dynamics.

Figure 2 compares simulated and measured torque

fluctuation in the bottom hole assembly. The efficiency of
the Adams solver enables users to systematically exercise
the model over a wide range of environmental parameters in
order to refine estimates of the unknowns and learn why
the system behaves the way it does. Variables like friction,
damping, bit/rock interaction, and top drive control system
response are not often well understood or predicted before
drilling so the model is used to estimate the unknowns and
verify system response with test data.

38
These recording subs are capable of measuring torque, rpm,
axial load, and bending moments at various locations in the
BHA at 50 Hz for long periods of time. Such downhole data
is critical to calibrate and gain trust in a comprehensive
drilling model such as this. Similarly, the model is critical to
rationalize the nonlinearities observed in the physical data
and understand how changes to the BHA design, wellbore
trajectory, lithology, operating parameters, and control
systems, will impact drilling system dynamics.
Figure 2 compares simulated and measured torque
fluctuation in the bottom hole assembly. The efficiency of
the Adams solver enables users to systematically exercise
the model over a wide range of environmental parameters in
order to refine estimates of the unknowns and learn why
the system behaves the way it does. Variables like friction,
damping, bit/rock interaction, and top drive control system
response are not often well understood or predicted before
drilling so the model is used to estimate the unknowns and
verify system response with test data.
Figure 2. Comparison of measured and simulated torue at the Bottom Hole
Assembly
The tuned model now serves as a virtual drill rig that can be
used to test various opportunities for improvement. Virtual
sensors generate dynamic data along the entire drill string,
which provides much more valuable insights about system
behavior than is possible or practical through physical
data collection alone. A systematic redesign of the BHA
can be accomplished to reduce severity of vibration in
order to manage risk while maximizing drilling efficiency or
penetration rates. Validations of a model calibrated with
physical measurements in one well and verified against
measurements in the same formation in a different nearby
well are promising. Specialty downhole tools can be
evaluated for their potential to reduce dynamic
dysfunctions.
Drilling Engineers can optimize the placement of specialty
tools in the BHA and establish best practices and
choose optimum operating parameters to mitigate risk of
dysfunction. Specialty tool vendors can even explore how
the design parameters of their particular tool influence their
customers’ drill string behavior. Control systems can be
tested virtually for their ability to improve performance over
a wide range of operating conditions. And operators can
study the conditions leading to component failures in order
to learn from and avoid similar circumstances in the future.
39
All of this can be done virtually, enabling drilling engineers
to explore the system response and make educated
decisions throughout the design process. Risk can be
defined in a multitude of ways from exceeding
load limits to high stress concentrations, excessive
vibrations, known dangerous conditions, or well defined
dynamic dysfunctions like stick slip or whirl. Elevated
risks can be avoided or managed through thoughtful
consideration of alternatives or accepted under extreme
circumstances.
A three dimensional plot is generated by exercising the
simulation across a wide range of operating conditions and
at multiple depths in the wellbore. Risk severity is assessed
by compiling a number of factors related to loads, motions,
and dynamics known to cause damage or non-productive
time. Engineers can see how the level of risk is expected
to change under various conditions as drilling progresses.
Alternative designs can be compared to seek further
improvement on subsequent wells. And the risk associated
with any particular factor can be weighed more or less
heavily depending on the particular limiters that are most
costly or experienced most often. “This lets us test multiple
designs in parallel and compare the results side-by-side to
quickly hone in on the optimal configuration for each well,”
Says Cheatwood.
Adams Drill captures the real-world nonlinear system
behaviors and enables engineers to make sound design
and operational decisions that improve the drilling process,
reduce risk of failures, increase drilling efficiency, and
increase production opportunity.
About Pioneer Natural Resources
Pioneer is a large independent oil and gas exploration and
production company, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with
operations in the United States. For more information, visit
Pioneer’s website at www.pxd.com.
Figure 3. Risk assessment at various weight on bit, rotation speeds, and
measured depth.
Simulating the Flight
of the Hawkmoth
Manduca Sexta
By Mr. Jae-Hung Han, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology Mr. Joong-Kwan Kim, Hyundai Motor Company
For ages humans have used Nature as a source of learning
and inspiration. Engineering simulation can be used to
understand how organisms behave in the natural world.
Design principles gathered from these studies can be
translated into novel and efficient product designs.
Simulation of organism behavior e.g. insect flight is
fundamentally inter-disciplinary and requires the ability to
capture mechanics, aerodynamics and morphology.
40
In a recent study, researchers at the Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology [1] developed a Multi-
Body Dynamics model of the Manduca Sexta with Adams
and simulated its flight. Commonly known as the Carolina
Sphinx moth and the Tobacco Hawkmoth, the Manduca
Sexta [2] is a moth of the Sphingidae family. Present
through much of the American continent, the Manduca
Sexta is used in a variety of Biomedical and Biological
experiments.
Using a co-simulation framework (Figure 2), the flexible-
body and the aerodynamic simulation domains were
coupled together to describe the fluid-structure interaction.
A quasisteady model to simulate the aerodynamics around
the wings was implemented. This model computes the
instantaneous aerodynamics forces acting on the wing. The
forces computed by the aerodynamics model are passed on
to Adams which then returns the flight states and the wing
sectional kinematic variables at every time instant.

Figure 1. The Hawkmoth Manduca Sexta

Figure 2. Co-simulation framework

Body/Wing Morphology morphological data from Ellington [3] and O’Hara et al

Flying insects usually have six legs, two antennae, head,
thorax, abdomen, and two or four wings. Each body
component has specific effect to the overall flight dynamics
because these are connected to each other via compliant
structures such as muscle and exoskeleton, which allows all
the components translate/rotate relative to each other.
In this study, a multibody model of the Hawkmoth was
created, and each body component was modeled using
[4]. As the wing of the Hawkmoth is a complex structure
consisting of intricate patterns of venation and skin, the
actual measurement data of 30 Hawkmoth wings by O’Hara
et al [4] was used to model the vein’s outer/inner radius
distribution and also elastic modulus as shown in Figure
3, where mw is the wing mass, mtotal is the total mass of the
Manduca sexta, R is the span, c is the main chord; S is the
area, t is the thickness and r2, is the radius of gyration.

41
Figure 3 Morphological data used to model the Hawkmoth
Wing Structural Model
A critical element to accurately modeling dynamical
systems with multi-bodies is accounting for part flexibility.
The Manduca Sexta has wings with flexibility due to the
intricate patterns of venation and skin on the wing. This
flexibility makes the wing undergo deformation during the
flight. Also, the passive deformation of the wing impacts the
surrounding aerodynamics, which in turn directly affects
the overall flight dynamics and stability characteristics.
Therefore, for a sound understanding of the underlying
mechanics of the insect flight dynamics and stability, the
fluid-structure interaction (FSI) of the flexible wings, with
the surrounding air, must be taken into account when
developing a flight dynamics model of the insect. Typically,
the flight dynamics and stability analysis of the insect is
conducted based on a simple, linear rigid-body dynamics
model. With these simplified rigid body approaches, the
effect of the body component’s movement, the effect of the
wing inertia or the effect of flexibility to the flight stability
are not easily analyzed.
In the current implementation the two wings of the
Hawkmoth are modeled as flexible bodies with similar
properties to the real Hawkmoth, and the other body
components are also modeled independently. Based on
this flexible multibody model, a hovering flight is simulated
and its 6-DOF flight states are compared with the result
of rigid-winged model to see the effect of the flexibility. A
finite element analysis program (ANSYS) (Figure 4) is used
to model the flexible wing structure of the Hawkmoth. Mode
shapes and corresponding natural frequencies are depicted
Figure 4
42
in Figure 2. These mode shapes are used as input into the
Adams MBD model to incorporate flexibility to the wings.
Model Inputs and Results
Based on the abovementioned co-simulation environment,
6-DOF flight simulations were conducted. For a comparative
analysis, a rigid-winged Hawkmoth model was also established
using the same morphological data to the flexible-winged
model. The rigid- and flexible-winged Hawkmoth models are
identical except for the wing flexibility. The wing kinematic
inputs for the hovering condition of the insect are shown
in Figure 5. In the figure, the thick gray line indicates the
measured wing kinematics. The other two lines indicate wing
kinematics inputs for the two Hawkmoth models to maintain
hovering: rigid-winged model, and flexible-winged model.
The commanded inputs include φ(t), wing positional angle;
a(t),feathering angle; θ(t), deviation angle at the wing root joint.
These commanded inputs develop spatially varying
deformation distributions on the flexible wing due to the FSI
which is illustrated in Figure 6.
The comparative study between the models with the rigid and
the flexible wing representations also show some interesting
distinctions. The first difference between two Hawkmoth
models is the flapping frequency: 26.1Hz for the flexible-winged
model and 29.5Hz for the rigid-winged model are needed for
the Hawkmoth models to maintain the hovering flight. This
implies the flexible wings can produce more lift than the rigid
wing under a similar wing kinematics.
Figure 5. Flight kinematic inputs for the hovering condition
Figure 6. Fluid-structure interaction considered 6-DOF free flight simulation; flexible-winged Hawkmoth model is in its hovering condition; a down-stroke
wing motion is depicted (flapping frequency = 26.1Hz, time between each frame is 2ms)

Qualitatively, it seems to be the effect of wing flexibility

which alters the direction of the aerodynamic vectors to
the direction of the opposite to its weight vector. Therefore, References
it appears that a choice between a simplified rigid or a
detailed flexible representation of the wing can have a 1. Kim, Joong-Kwan & Han, Jae-Hung. (2013). An
substantial impact on the Hawkmoth’s flight dynamics. investigation of 6-DOF insect flight dynamics with
In essence, simulation tools like Adams can help us a flexible multibody dynamics approach.
understand and appreciate the world we live in. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for
Optical Engineering. 8686.
868611.10.1117/12.2009650.

2. https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/
Manduca-sexta

3. Ellington, C. P., “The aerodynamics of hovering

insect flight:II.Morphological parameters,” Philos.
Trans. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci.305(1122), 17-40 (1984).

4. O’Hara, R. P., and Palazotto, A. N., “The

morphological characterization of the forewing
of the Manduca sexta species for the application of
biomimetic flapping wing micro air
vehicles,”Bioinspir. Biomim. 7(4), 046011(13pp)
(2012).

43
Sustainable Engineering
Makes Good Business Sense
By Keith Hanna, VP Marketing, MSC Software
Environmental concerns over the sustainability of our
unique planet and its complex ecosystems are increasingly
dominating our mainstream news outlets having moved
from a fringe topic to be a political priority in the
developed world over the last ten years (1, 2). The advent
of environmental activism such as direct action from the
‘Extinction Rebellion’ movement over the last year, huge
44
concerns over climate change especially with respect to
rainforest fires in the Amazon, shrinking ice sheets at the
Poles and receding mountain glaciers, and the rise of Green
political parties in Europe and the ‘Green New Deal’ in
America has brought the issue very much to the fore. And
ever more stringent environmental legislation is coming
from our legislators and parliaments to help address the
issue. But what exactly is ‘Sustainability’?
The concept of sustainability is arguably as old as us
humans reusing our nearby resources to survive from year
to year, but it has emerged in our time to take its present
form because of the Environmental Movement in the 1970’s
with the best definition being that from a seminal United
Nations Report on ‘Our Common Future’ (3) in 1987 by the
Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brandtland who wrote
that:
“Sustainable Development is the development that meets
the need of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.”
The UN’s response to Brandtland’s work was the
subsequent Kyoto and Paris Environmental Agreements
in 1997 and 2015 respectively. These protocols made all
the world’s major nations agree to restrictions in harmful
co-called ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, along with timetables
for countries to move towards ‘sustainable’ energy sources
in the future. Sadly, the protocols have not been entirely
successful as several nations have flouted them, but they
have created impetus and a framework for change today.
The Earth and Sustainability – How Bad
Is It Really?
In a presentation at HxGN LIVE in June 2019, President &
CEO of Hexagon, Ola Rollén, delivered a sobering keynote
to the audience describing unprecedented sustainability
challenges facing humanity and our beautiful blue planet
(2)
. He presented some shocking statistics including the fact
that In a presentation at HxGN LIVE in June 2019, President
& CEO of Hexagon, Ola Rollén, delivered a sobering keynote
to the audience describing unprecedented sustainability
challenges facing humanity and our beautiful blue planet
(2). He presented some shocking statistics including the
fact that one million species on our planet are in survival
jeopardy today. Indeed, since the dawn of time we have
killed off over half of the species on our planet including
80% of all sea and land mammals. By 2050 we will have
trawled all fish from our oceans if we continue to fish at the
levels we do today. In the last 120 years alone, we have lost
10,000,000 hectares of forestry from the face of the earth;
that’s about 1/10th of the land mass of Canada.
A big factor in the current ecological crisis on planet
earth is the increasing world population of people and the
sustainability challenge that inevitably poses given finite
resources and a thrust towards Western living standards
across the world. In 1804 the world’s population passed
1,000,000,000 people for the first time. It took another 123
45
45
years to reach 2 billion, and then the planet’s population
rose to 3 billion people in 1960, 4 billion in 1975, and it has
now peaked at 7.7 billion today. By 2050 it is estimated that
the world will be inhabited by 10 billion people and we will
have an even bigger global middle-class market of
consumers. The world’s human population has risen
dramatically but we’ve not scaled sustainably, especially
when you consider that we are reaching co-called ‘Peak
Oil’ in our natural resource exploitation and onethird of all
agricultural produce each year goes to waste.
Across the world we emit approximately 2 million tonnes of
CO2 each day into the atmosphere and this is projected to
double by 2030 unless we reverse our behavior (2). We
are emitting so much CO2 that a ‘Doomsday Limit’ will be
reached by 2050 according to Rollén where it will be hard to
correct for the emissions we make. Of the 36 Billion tonnes
of CO2 related greenhouse gases we emit each year, nearly
35% comes from energy production (for electricity), 25%
from agriculture, 20% from industrial emissions, 14% from
transportation and 6% from buildings. In the USA alone,
goes up into the atmosphere and is not recovered or
recycled. Rollén states that 71 out of the 100 top polluters in
the world today are companies or corporations; only 29 are
countries.
Our consumption of difficulttobiodegrade products
increases year on year - we typically produce 1,000,000
plastic bottles a day in the world and less than half are
recycled. By 2029 more than 5 billion plastic bottles will
have been made and disposed of, and 8 million get into
our oceans every year. Rollén reported that we ingest
7,000,000 microplastic particles per year into our bodies.
Indeed, our western world addiction to single-use plastics is
contributing to a mountain of plastic waste that we recycle
in Europe and North America and then our governments
ship the waste that cannot be disposed of half way round
the world for either landfill or, increasingly, it ends up in
illegal burning of plastics in developing countries with lax
environmental regulations.
Whatever one’s political viewpoint, it is self-evident that we
need to reach sustainable usage of the world’s natural
and recycled resources especially with a rising population.
Consumerism in the developed and developing world alone,
urbanization, and an addiction to single use fossil fuels, is
creating a huge problem that humanity needs to address
in the 21st Century if we and our planet are going to survive
in a form we are comfortable with. Indeed, it is stating the
obvious to say that a large number of Asian, North American
and European cities are at risk from sea levels rising if
temperatures rise significantly because they are located
on low lying coastal plains.
Sustainability in Manufacturing; A Road
Less Travelled, A Journey Worth Taking

At the end of the Second World War Japan’s industrial

base was crushed; manufacturing machines were
broken, and engineers had to work with few materials
on production lines that were prone to shortages in the
post-war depression. American academics like Professor
Edwards Deming came to Japan and encouraged Japanese
manufacturing industry to adopt a wholesale embracing
of ‘Total Quality’ methods in factories. Slowly, over two
decades Japan pulled its manufacturing base up to be
one of the best in the world. Japanese industry invented
the term ‘Just in Time Manufacturing’ that caused their
industries to become world class. The Japanese word
kaizen that represents total quality manufacturing means
incremental performance improvement within existing
manufacturing processes, and it soon led to better
products in their Factories such that by the 1960s their
productivity was twice that of equivalent Western
European and North American factories, with minimal
waste and high quality. ‘Just in Time Manufacturing’ was
rechristened as ‘Lean Manufacturing’ in the 1980s by
western academics as it came back into the Western World
and was widely adopted. Factories then moved towards
automation in the late 20th Century and we are now seeing
a shift towards autonomy in the 21st Century.

Like all global manufacturing industries, equipment

manufacturers will be increasingly forced to embrace
sustainability criteria in their product development whether
they want to or not, because of the quadruple pressure
points of declining natural resources, governmental
legislation, societal pressures and consumer choice.
According to Rollén (2) most companies today want business
growth and many talk of sustainability however it is defined.
But all definitions are grounded in the same notion, that
we’re overwhelming the earth’s resources and creating
more waste than we can handle. So, is there any good
news? Well, continued economic growth according to
Rollén doesn’t have to be at the expense of the planet.
Every company today wants to boost its efficiency, its
productivity, and quality outcomes in Smart Factories
and Smart Manufacturing processes as they embrace the
looming autonomy challenge.
And if they can achieve those outcomes at scale, not only
can they sustain growth for their businesses, but also
for the planet that we all share. In effect, sustainable
manufacturing will lead to fewer natural resources being
used, less waste through perfect quality, and less pollution
through zero or no emissions. To achieve sustainability in
all industries, engineers will need to increasingly design
sustainable processes, products and value chains.
Sustainable development in engineering design means
President & CEO of Hexagon, Ola Rollén, at HXGN LIVE
embracing four context levels: Planet, Society, Business,
and Technology (1). It needs to address problem definition,
synthesis of potential solutions, analysis of possible
solutions, and then improvements to the final solution, all
in the context of a solution that meets both the needs of
people and all specific context constraints with regard to
the planet and prosperity. Sustainable design engineers will
need to consider and meet constraints on energy, water,
food, health, and other basic human needs as part of their
sustainable manufactured product design process. Once
achieved we will see for instance rapid startup of industrial
facilities at lower cost with safe, efficient operations and
longer lifespans. It will also mean that buildings and the
built environment will have optimized resources by design,
less rework and projects delivered on plan, on time, and
on budget. In the Mining Industry, sustainable engineering
will mean minimal environmental impact, safety is
prioritized, and operations are run at maximum efficiency. In
agriculture and farming, sustainability will mean that inputs
are optimized and farmers will produce higher crop and
livestock yields with less waste, at lower costs.

46
Design & Engineering Simulation (CAE) for Sustainable Development is
Sustainability the development that meets
the need of the present
Since its nascent use over 50 years ago, Computer-Aided
without compromising the
Engineering (CAE) has by its very predictive nature been at
the forefront of more efficient and highquality product ability of future generations
development. It has also been leading the way in developing to meet their own needs.”
new environmental technologies, and MSC Software has
been a pioneer. We see this repeatedly because CAE Gro Harlem Brandtland
engages with research & development design processes so
that better and more efficient products can be designed
with fewer (and sometimes no) prototypes being built
during the manufacturing process. This means less material
waste, low scrappage rates and lower energy usage. In
short, CAE helps to design products right-first-time and fit-
for-purpose in each and every industry it is applied to.

Adams Wind turbine model during a gust event

47
CAE is also ‘upfront’ in every product design and
manufacturing process (and concurrent throughout the
process) in the world. This means it can be used to design
out undesirable performance features and to avoid negative
environmental impacts at the early conceptual design stage
when Return on Investment (ROI) is highest. And CAE can
conceptualize as yet untested manufacturing processes
and new products, and therefore is a very cost effective
and safe way to test ‘what if..’ scenarios without hazardous
consequences to both people or the environment.
In real terms this can be seen most by the work done in
the Power Generation and Renewables Energy sector
over the last two decades where CAE has been at the
vanguard of new technologies with predictive simulations.
MSC Software products such as MSC Nastran, Adams,
Cradle CFD, Digimat, Simufact, MaterialCenter, Actran
and Marc have all been helping to design radically new
and innovative energy generation processes, nuclear
reactors, next generation ships, planes, trains, spacecraft
and automobiles. CAE has been used extensively over the
years to simulate renewable technologies such as wind
and wave/water turbines, and zero emission solar panels
for optimal structural, acoustic, fluidic, manufacturing and
mechanism design. In short, CAE simulation has resulted
in leaner power generation operations and reduced carbon
footprint by design. As the cost of scalable sustainability
keeps decreasing in real terms, improving industrial and
manufacturing processes will therefore have an impact on
sustainability big time.
In terms of sustainability and acoustic simulation, our
Actran product has been used to simulate exotic materials
and their acoustic impacts, eg composites and other
new materials. We see it used to assess drive-by noise
for trucks, trains and cars, and in Green Building Codes
for noise sustainability in simulations. MSC Nastran
48
and MSC Apex have addressed sustainability issues in
analysis of mechanical structures with the use of FEA
simulation to provide generative design for eco-friendly
lightweight structures. They have also been used to
optimize manufacturing processes for reduced waste
and environmental impact and to extend product life via
durability and total cost of ownership (TCO) simulation in
order to support development of smart connected
autonomous ecosystems. In summary, I believe that the
need for environmental sustainability will significantly alter
the nature of the mechanical design process by embedding
sustainability related concepts of design exploration into
the early design phase for manufacturing. I also think that
this century there will be opportunities for new socially
conscious, environmentally friendly, sustainable, high-tech
engineering products and companies all producing outputs
conceptualized and designed in PLM (Product Lifecycle
Management) software driven by CAE simulations.
Towards Next Generation Sustainability in
Aircraft Design with CAE
Present aerospace forecast trends indicate that there will
be 34,000 civil aircraft in the world by 2036, a 60% growth
on today with 40% being replacement aircraft. This demand
in air travel is going to happen because of more affluence in
Asia. It is also worth pointing out that electric battery
powered (and hybrid) aircraft engines, plus aircraft with
solar panels on their wings that result in low emissions
are being designed by CAE tools today before they are
flight tested. Additive manufacturing of specialist parts,
particularly in defense applications, is becoming more
common. Internal parts of aircraft can be 3d printed but
increasingly we will see more critical as well as non-critical
parts being additively manufactured especially with more
sustainable materials.
The new Airbus A350-1000 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner
are coming to an airport near you. They are the most
technologically advanced passenger aircraft in the world
and these next generation aircraft have been extensively
designed by CAE. They are eco-friendlier than their
predecessors. The A350’s wings actually structurally
deform during flight especially at altitude where the aircraft
slightly transforms its flaps to fine-tune its center of gravity
depending on its weight at that point in time as fuel is
consumed. Doing this optimizes its flight lift-to-drag ratio
and decreases fuel consumption over conventional planes
significantly. The Airbus’ engines will be the most powerful
ever, generating a maximum thrust of 97,000 lbs (over a
quarter of the thrust of the NASA Space Shuttle)! The net
effect is its range of 8,000 miles means it will travel from
London to Perth Australia in one flight. In addition, optimal
fan performance in the design of the aircraft’s engines,
coupled with other efficiency improvements designed by
CAE simulations mean that the A350-1000 will use 25% less
fuel than any other commercial aircraft. This will reduce
carbon dioxide emissions and overall traveler carbon
footprints.
Moreover, the engine’s acoustics are 40% lower than
other aircraft engines in its class thus minimizing acoustic
pollution – all thanks to CAE. Boeing and Airbus aircraft
airframes won’t be made of aluminum. Instead, exotic new
titanium composite materials are being employed that are
stronger and lighter. These interestingly have an added
benefit that the atmosphere inside the cabin can be more
humid than ever before such that passengers will breathe
air with a density and humidity typical of that at 6,000 feet
rather than 40,000 feet thus leading to less hair static and
itchy, skin rash than ever before!
Sustainable Automobiles Hit The Road
thanks To CAE
The automotive industry is going through unprecedented
changes due to tighter emission regulations and
autonomous mobility disruptions. In the European Union
alone, we will see new CO2 regulations in 2020 where an
emissions target of 95g of C02 / km will be in place for all
new passenger car fleets, a 27% reduction compared to
today. This target will be coupled to an excess emission
premium for manufacturers failing to meet the emissions
standard of 95€ for every g/km of excess emissions per
vehicle. In Denmark, the government is banning internal
combustion engine cars totally by 2030. Major cities like
London are banning all diesel engine cars from the city
center today to minimize dangerous particulate emissions.
Norway will phase out conventional cars by 2025, followed
by France and the United Kingdom in 2040 and 2050,
respectively. India has said that no new gasoline or diesel
vehicles will be allowed by 2030 (if economical).
In order to achieve emission reduction targets in Europe,
the electrification of powertrains for all OEM vehicles will be
required. Indeed, the advent of electric powertrains inside
cars will remove a lot of complexity in manufacturing with
ensuing sustainability benefits. Typically, a conventional
49
internal combustion engine has 1,400 parts yet an electric
vehicle powertrain will only have 200, so in principle
manufacturing will be easier. Electric vehicles are projected
to be 54% of all new car sales in 2040 (5).
All sorts of lightweighting technologies are also being
employed as standard in the manufacture of our road cars
today. Composites were once the preserve of Formula 1 cars
but are becoming more common in saloons. And, of course,
the major disruption that autonomous vehicles will bring to
the ground transportation industry in the next 5 to 10 years
will also lead to sustainability benefits such as near zero
emissions, better acoustics and longer vehicle lifetimes and
more usage because most will be electric vehicles.
In terms of MSC Software solutions for automotive
sustainability, we are seeing extensive exhaust and driveby
environmental noise predictions and coupled fluid-
acoustic simulations of exhaust silencers as well as
particulate emissions modeling. Our Digimat, Simufact
and MaterialCenter lightweighting solutions involving
composites and additive manufacturing are best in class
and NVH from MSC Nastran and Actran are well respected.
Increased use of VTD for environmental virtual testing of
ADAS systems and autonomous vehicles will ensure the
safety of today’s and tomorrow’s vehicles and right-first-time
deployments.
of the world’s cobalt is used to help make electric batteries
non-inflammable but it is sourced from the Democratic
Republic of Congo in Africa, one of the world’s most
unstable countries, and there is no alternative today with
only 25 years of known reserves left in the world. When
we consider Smartphones, there are 2.7 billion units in the
world today, a tenfold increase over 10 years ago.
All smart mobile phones use rare earth metals for their
screens and 90% of all rare earth production is controlled
by China. And many nations see this as a national security
concern. The market leader, Apple, has created a generous
buy-back smart phone program to aid in recyclability of
its phones but also to ensure that it has access to enough
rare earth metals so it doesn’t become a business risk.
Sustainability is therefore becoming an economic driver in
some industries and application areas.
Every single CAE simulation in the world today requires
good material properties to produce accurate results.
Sustainability in engineering simulation predictions
therefore requires proper material utilization and
optimization throughout a manufacturing process. And
every CAE simulation should require a fully traceable
simulation supply chain with trackable components
throughout the product’s lifecycle and its circular economy
from conceptual idea to recycling.
We are living in a Material World and There
is a Sustainability Issue
It is safe to say that materials are everywhere in the world
that we inhabit; and we see a wide variety in every product
we touch and use, both natural and manmade. Material
resources on our planet are under immense pressure
because they are finite and under intense pressure from
overmining and under-recycling according to Victoire de
Integration with iPoint in MaterialCenter for Compliance Check
90% of all rare earth production is controlled by China. And
many nations see this as a national security concern. The
market leader, Apple, has created a generous buy-back
smart phone program to aid in recyclability of its phones
but also to ensure that it has access to enough rare earth
metals so it doesn’t become a business risk. Sustainability
is therefore becoming an economic driver in some
industries and application areas.
50
Margerie from the World Materials Forum (5). She has
identified several bottlenecks citing the concern that 60%
of the world’s cobalt is used to help make electric batteries
non-inflammable but it is sourced from the Democratic
Republic of Congo in Africa, one of the world’s most
unstable countries, and there is no alternative today with
only 25 years of known reserves left in the world. When
we consider Smartphones, there are 2.7 billion units in the
world today, a tenfold increase over 10 years ago. All smart
mobile phones use rare earth metals for their screens and
Every single CAE simulation in the world today requires
good material properties to produce accurate results.
Sustainability in engineering simulation predictions
therefore requires proper material utilization and
optimization throughout a manufacturing process. And
every CAE simulation should require a fully traceable
simulation supply chain with trackable components
throughout the product’s lifecycle and its circular economy
from conceptual idea to recycling.
To address materials sustainability, MSC Software’s
MaterialCenter and Digimat productlines are part of a
unique strategy for a comprehensive 10x materials solution
that covers virtual material development, virtual materials
testing, advanced (multi-scale) and standard material
modeling serving all major FEA codes, inclusion of the
effects of additive manufacturing, addressing automatic
fiber placement and the effect of defects, ensuring
digital continuity and a material-centric digitaltwin,
embracing artificial intelligence, and finally ensuring
materials compliance and sustainability. As an example,
MaterialCenter provides a complete solution for the current
and future needs of aerospace materials data & process
management. Designed to manage the complete materials
workflow as a single point of entry for all materials related
activities, it guarantees that engineers use a consistent
source of approved materials derived from traceable
integrated processes thus resulting in improved simulation
fidelity, reduced data loss and the elimination of tedious
manual data management activities. This produces the 10x
productivity gains our customers see.

In terms of sustainability and compliance of materials,

Hexagon/MSC’s e-Xstream Engineering team is working with
iPoint GmbH in Germany, a pioneer in the digital circular
economy, to offer sustainable materials management and
simulation solutions as part of our highly productive and
unique Integrated Computational Materials Engineering
(ICME) solution. Our partnership with iPoint Systems also
permits a direct integration of environmental compliance
check, and comparison of the properties of both physical
and simulation data sets in MaterialCenter 2020. Material
environmental and social compliance is a complex
landscape and a critical aspect for many organizations.
Direct integration of iPoint’s Compliance Application (iPCA)
with MSC Software’s MaterialCenter 2020 ensures robust
and immediate environmental compliance checks providing
the unique capability of combining in-house corporate
materials. This software partnership allows us to offer
robust and accelerated environmental compliance checks
and is a unique capability combining corporate materials
management and compliance with the latest information on
legislation like REACH and RoHS which permits comparison
of properties from both physical and simulation data. The
combined integrated offering provides material engineers,
design engineers, CAE analysts, and compliance specialists
the full capabilities needed in their respective domain
of expertise with access to information needed from the
other disciplines. This frontloading approach allows users
to make decisions for a more responsible material design
at a very early stage in the product creation process – the
precondition for a truly circular economy and sustainable
supply chains.
Summary and Conclusions
In the 21st Century sustainability is becoming an overriding
priority in the globalized economy across all industry
sectors and manufacturing operations. Social,
environmental, and economic trends are driving the
sustainability agenda. And this convergence of existential
need and technological opportunity will require sustainable
engineering design solutions to improve product
performance, product quality, product manufacturability
and ultimately product and material recyclability.
Computer-aided engineering simulation when done well will
result in minimal waste in manufacturing production which
means no recalls, no scrappage and no rework. Sustainable
design, thanks to CAE simulation, will therefore help to drive
economic benefits for all our customers, as well as address
52
mankind’s ever-growing environmental concerns for our
planet and its finite resources. At both Hexagon and MSC
Software, we have a simple mantra that embodies our
sustainability vision … Do Well to Do Good. We believe that
it’s good economic sense to do sustainable engineering and
we believe that our children and grandchildren will thank us
for it… and this will happen without humanity being driven
back to the Stone Age.
References
1. “Engineering for Sustainability - A Practical Guide
for Sustainable Design” by G. Jonker, Elsevier Press,
2012, ISBN 044453846
2. “Your Data can Save the World”, Ola Rollén Keynote
Speech, HxGN LIVE 2019, Las Vegas, USA https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYWuwVJylVQ
3. “World Commission on Environment and
Development, Our Common Future”, Brundtland,
G.H. United Nations Report A/42/427, 1987
4. “Towards Sustainable Design in the Sports &
Leisure Industry”, Hanna, R.K & Subic, A,
International Journal of Sustainable Design 1(1),
January 2008
5. “Sustainable Growth Thanks to Using Materials
Smarter, Less & Longer”, Victoire de Margerie, ICME
Conference, Bordeaux, France, October 1st 2019
Enabling Accurate Design
Decisions while
Compressing
Engineering Timelines
By Kambiz Kayvantash, CEO, CADLM Hemanth Kolera-Gokula ,Fabio
Scannavino, Manuel Chene, Raoul Spote, MSC Software

Dynamic processes can be described using differential
equations, and the solution to these equations can provide
insight into the nature of these processes. However, the
simulation of such equations utilizing computational
techniques, such as finite element or finite volume
methods can become computationally very expensive or
for some industrial problems unfeasible. The modeling of
optimization problems and Multiphysics phenomena in
practical engineering applications is often very challenging
as repeated numerical simulations are required. A remedy is
a simplification of the physics-based model but that
relies on the experience and intuition of the engineers.
Another avenue is reduced-order modeling, a mathematical
approach serving to overcome high computational costs
of the simulations. The primary goal is to approximate the
large-scale problem by a much smaller one, which yields
somewhat less accurate results but can be solved with
considerably less computational overhead. Reduced Order
Models (ROMs) provides an opportunity to create a virtuous
Real-Time loop between Design and Operations with real

53
time information sharing. It also provides an opportunity for
simulation software providers like MSC to truly democratize
engineering simulation across the product life cycle in a
scalable manner without compromising on model fidelity.
In the past decade, much effort has been made to develop
various methods of model reduction. MSC and CADLM have
partnered to develop model reduction approaches for a
variety of engineering problems while remaining agnostic to
the underlying physics type. Using this approach, the
Real-Time Reduced Order Models
Learning solution from CADLM, were used to create
Reduced Order Models (ROMs) of vehicle behavior. The
simple scenario involved a vehicle accelerating on a straight
road encountering an obstacle in its path. The goal was to
predict any interference with the obstacle using real-time
reducedorder models. The process occurred in two distinct
Validation between ROM and Adams results
Training the ROM Lunar Model to create a ROM
Figure 1. ROM Lunar analysis of an Adams Car Model
54
engineering simulation community can tailor the level
of model fidelity to the underlying simulation intent. For
example, reduced-order surrogates of high-fidelity models
can be used to explore the design space and execute
computationally intensive, vehicle reliability, and
optimization tasks.
In a recent proof-of-concept, Adams, the Multi-Body
Dynamics (MBD), and Lunar, the supervised Machine
phases. A design space for exploration that spanned two
dimensions, vehicle velocity, and mass was defined in
Adams. The process then involves creating a dataset in
Adams that spans the design space. Lunar then consumed
this dataset and created a purely data-based model that
emulated the highfidelity representation in Adams.
Prediction based on validated ROM
The transient predictions from the ROM are in line with the
Adams results both in terms of the trend and magnitude
with the added advantage of real-time predictions. The
caveat being that the ROM is valid only within the bounds
of the design space and any explorations beyond these
bounds would require additional ROM training.

CADLM capabilities can be leveraged across the MSC

portfolio and are agnostic to the physics type. Reduced
order representations of both systems and component can
be created. MSC is also looking to leverage ROMs to extend
its industry leading capabilities in the area of multi-physics.
As an example, ROMs simulating highly non-linear
Fluid-Structure interactions have been created from time
intensive Marc-Cradle simulations. The application goal
was to optimize the displacement sensitivity of a flexible
membrane with respect to various inflow velocities and
membrane mechanical properties. This involved the costly
computations and co-simulation between Marc and scFlow.
A Reduced Order Model was constructed based on only
eight completed runs and employed within an optimization
loop. The solution was found by LUNAR within seconds and
a final co-simulation was conducted in order to validate the
optimized solution.

CADLM technology allows simulation users to make

effective and precise engineering decisions while
compressing design timelines. The ability to create
traditional high-fidelity models and extract reduced
order surrogates from them provides a simulation user the
opportunity to tailor the model fidelity to the simulation
intent and conduct real time optimization or reliability
studies.
Figure 2. Marc-Cradle analysis of an Diaphragm Valve Model

55
A New Approach to
Durability Road Load
Simulations using Adams
By Joakim Zakrisson (Volvo Cars) Thomas Nygårds (Hexagon |
MSC Software Sweden) Hemanth Kolera (Hexagon | MSC Software
Durability testing is a critical aspect of automotive product
development. The ability to answer the question “Will it
last”? can not only affect the design of a component but the
entire system. Durability issues discovered late in the
design cycle cost time and money to fix. If they are not
addressed before product launch, they lead to warranty
costs and lower customer satisfaction. Excellent durability
characteristics often conflict with other attributes, such
as ride and handling or NVH, and finding a way to balance
competing requirements is necessary and difficult.
56
Since 1927, Volvo Cars is focused on providing its customers
with a vehicle that is worldclass in driveability, comfort, and
durability. Vehicle endurance and strength are critical
aspects of durability. Strength is the ability to remain
functional when subjected to high loads, while endurance
is the ability to remain useful over a prolonged period
of usage. The durability department at Volvo Cars is
responsible for ensuring vehicle strength and endurance.
Volvo is invested in using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE)
for product development and in using simulation methods
to verify the vehicle performance instead of physical
testing. Adams is the Multi-Body Dynamics simulation
software of choice at the durability department at Volvo,
with a group of seven simulation engineers using the
software.

Simulating vehicle endurance involves calculating

the fatigue loads on the vehicle. Like strength events,
endurance events can be categorized in the vertical,
longitudinal, and lateral directions. Some events may
combine two directions. For SUV and ross-Country
cars, an off-road track is also simulated. Some of the
60 simulated endurance events include Cobblestone,
Washboard, Potholes, Stop and Go, Off-road Track and
Slalom.

Accurately simulating the road loads imposed during

vehicle operation is critical to capturing the durability
characteristics of the vehicle. Road loads are gathered
from Adams simulations by using channels within Adams.
Channels are like simulated instrumentation ports where
you can measure system response and report the results
directly in the frequency domain. To evaluate strength,
the peak loads are extracted while for endurance
evaluations damage and equivalent force are key factors.
The gathered simulation data is then compared against
a reference value, which can be another vehicle or the
same vehicle with another chassis design.

Different groups use computed road loads within the

organization. The output files are sent along with
extensive documentation to teams working on
component level Finite Element analysis within Volvo
and shared with suppliers outside the organization. The
road loads serve as input to Finite Element models for
analyses of various vehicle components. Additionally, the
simulated loads are used early in the design phases in
the absence of test data to operate test rigs for both full
system and component analysis.

In order to achieve a vehicle design that meets

performance specifications, with respect to vehicle
dynamics, across various road conditions, modern chassis
systems have more and more elements of active/ semi-
active control. In active chassis systems, the suspension
controls the vertical movement of the wheels relative to
the vehicle body, using an onboard control system, unlike
a passive suspension where the movement is dictated
entirely by the road surface and constant suspension
parameters. A semi-active suspension system is the
middle case where the amount of energy that can be
removed from the system is controllable in real-time. CAE
methods for (semi-) actively controlled vehicle systems
have to involve co-simulation of both the controller and
the physical system. Since the computed road loads are
influenced by the control system, co-simulation is key to
capturing these loads accurately.

57
57
 Adams multibody dynamics model of the Volvo car

Figure 1. Semi-active damper controls system architecture

58
The vehicle systems simulated in this study contain
semiactive dampers. The associated controls scheme is as
shown in Figure 2. In the simulated control system inputs
are vehicle parameters such as acceleration, suspension
height, velocities etc. and the output response is a current
level. This current level is then fed to a damper UDE in
Adams which then uses the value along with the damper
velocity to compute the damping force.
Figure 2. The improved Adams-Simulink co-simulation process
Volvo utilizes a highly automated process for execution
of the simulation jobs. The Excel based set up is used to
prepare the simulation job, execute it on a remote cluster
and then post process the results. Process involves an
Excel based interface for batch processing of Adams. This
scripted batch process is used to run suites of Adams
jobs with several different events and co-simulation
runs. In Adams there exists several ways of connecting
software together. Adams supports the FMI standard and
enable FMU import and export as well as co-simulation.
Additionally, Adams supports co-simulation outside
of the FMI framework using a plant file. The process
of cosimulation of Adams as plant model with Matlab
involves the Adams Controls module. An m-file with plant
settings and an Adams Controls acf file are generated. A
solver routine receives and executes solver commands
over the memory pipe or TCP/IP to run the simulation and
communicate vehicle states.
There are several limitations of this workflow that even open start the actual co-simulation.
standards such as FMI do not solve. The target machine for
the exported model cannot be specified, as the computing
node is not known at the time of file generation. Also,
the aspect of intellectual property comes in to play as
the control system are developed and not available in its
entirety to Volvo, hence it cannot be compiled
into FMUs. The software being developed for a 32-bit vehicle on road loads, by using passive dampers representing each
operating system and then being simulated on 64-bit
systems creates platform compatibility issues. Even though hardest setting (lowest to highest current). For each of the
all of these can be worked around with the co-simulation,
the process is manual with regards to file transfer and
settings. Parallel Execution of Simulink runs and keeping
track of ports is hard. Also each analysis must be started
manually from within Simulink, running Adams as the co-
simulation slave. To address these issues a new seamless
approach (Figure 3) which, was developed by MSC Software
Figure 3. Current levels for the passive
Services, and installed at Volvo Cars which was in line with
the current execution framework previously described. User
generates Adams Car model files and customization
outputs automatically. A scripted workflow sets up a TCP/IP
connection to the Simulink server and initiates the
Adams Car controls solver. Via this TCP/IP connection the
cosimulation workflow is executed where the Adams/Car
solver communicates with the Machine running the Simulink
model. The process is initiated with the start of the Simulink
server. The Adams solver files are generated as usual and
then a run command submits the cosimulation jobs locally
or on the cluster.
This command starts the Adams daemon and
communicates with the simulink server to exchange
information and files, which in its turn starts the simulation
during which Adams Controls will contact the daemon to
The co-simulation approach was compared and contrasted
against a simplistic approach that did not involve any
controls integration. Passive simulations were run at three
different damping/current levels (Figure 4). This is an
attempt to study the influence of a semi-active damper
of these current levels. Damper curves represent softest to
59
 Figure 7. Pothole simulation, topmount force. Passive equivalents with low,
Figure 4. Pothole simulation. Front topmount force for each drivemode. mid and high current representation.

drive modes (comfort, dynamic, off-road) a 60 event set was

executed at each current level. This leads to additional post
processing and added complexity while interpreting the
processed results. Channels and their quotas are evaluated
for peak, damage or equivalent force. Different damper
settings are ”worst case” for different channels. Based on
the results, an engineering judgement has to be made to
determine which damper setting to use as official data.
Figure 8. Drop off rebound simulation. Front damper current signal for each
There is the risk of over-dimensioning the components if the drivemode.
wrong level is chosen.

Results with a comparison between the co-simulated active

simulation results and the passive simulations with the
static current/damping levels are shown.

For the drop off and rebound simulations, notice the max
level current for the three modes (Figure 10). Compare
topmount force from the semi-active simulations to its
passive equivalent. With the controller feeding the maximum
current independent of drive mode, running the passive low Figure 9. Drop off rebound simulation. Front topmount force for each
drivemode.
and mid alternative is unrealistic for some drive cases.

In conclusion Volvo Cars has opted to use the developed

process which to the Adams user is barely noticeable and
reduces the amount of manual interpretation, comparison
and engineering judgement. Together with the service
organization of MSC Software the process is being
developed to support even more complex co-simulation
scenarios involving additional tools in the simulation chain.

Figure 10. Drop off rebound simulation, topmount force. Passive equivalents
with low, mid and high current representation.

Figure 5. Pothole simulation, damper velocity. Passive equivalents with low,

mid and high current representation.

Figure 6. Pothole simulation, topmount force. Passive equivalents with low,

mid and high current representation.

60
Virtual Testing of High
Lift Systems
By Tobias Ulmer, Airbus Operations GmbH, Germany and
Hemanth Kolera-Gokula (MSC Software)

For aircraft system certification, intensive testing is required
to guarantee as-designed behavior under all operating and
environmental conditions. Traditionally these tests have
been performed on physical test benches. Rising system
complexity and shortening development cycles have
necessitated innovative testing methods. Virtual testing
via physics-based simulations is an avenue to improve the
verification and certification process of an aircraft’s high lift
system (Figure 1).
The Airbus High Lift Test Department has invested in
developing virtual testing methods besides established
physical means of compliance, such as Test Rigs (TR). Virtual
testing provides an ideal compromise between product
and operational condition representation when compared
to other approaches (Figure 2).

61

Figure 1. High lift test system rig
Figure 2. Various classes of testing methods
Multibody simulations using MSC Adams is the preferred
approach for virtual testing in the case of the high lift
devices t Airbus. Besides the need for highly representative,
reliable, and efficient computer models, there is a
requirement for corresponding Simulation Data and
Process-Management (SPDM), establishing traceable
simulation lifecycle management along with the aircraft
development.
The High Lift Test Department at Airbus developed the High
Lift System Test Portal (HLSVT Portal) based on MSC’s
SPDM solution, SimManager. This portal enables
connectivity between the simulation data generated and
the models used to create them, traces the creation of the
simulation models, and in general, orchestrates the entire
simulation workflow.
Via an integration between SimManager and the Test
Management System, complete traceability is established
between a system requirement, the data used for its
evaluation, and the models/processes used to produce this
data.
62
62
Virtual testing at Airbus
Since 2002 the high lift test department at Airbus has
invested in the area of virtual testing through collaborative
research projects. Virtual testing has continuously expanded
since then and has become more and more established for
activities such as risk mitigation and system certification.
These activities are based on strong coupling between
physical tests and virtual tests/ simulations. Physical testing
combined with simulations leads to a deeper understanding
of the system under test and its behavior, which reduces the
likelihood of expensive design changes later on in the design
cycle.
Test bench models that include all the details of the actual
physical test set up are initially validated (Figure 3) and
then extended to a very aircraft like variant.
Benefits from using the integrated approach are shown in
Figure 4, and include both time and cost reduction, together
with better results quality.
Figure 3. High lift system multi-body simulation moel (testrig-like
implementation)
Figure 4. Physical and virtual test leading to a consolidated test result
Simulation data and process management
Regulations from airworthiness authorities also require
a well defined and robust process to trace the complete
data chain involved in the certification process. Currently
aircraft systems development is guided by the process of
Requirements Based Engineering (RBE). This process, in
turn, has led to the development of a Requirements Based
Testing (RBT) process within the test departments. All
required system functions and properties of the system,
such as performance and safety, are specified verbally and
managed by a database based on Doors (Telelogic).
A Test Management System (TMS) assigns the formal
verification of each of the requirements to one or more of
the existing test tools. Each test tool has a local process
and data management environment. After test execution,
the TMS aggregates all the test data from the local
platforms and automatically generates the test reports
and the final certification documentation (coverage report).
Figure 5 shows a schematic of the global testing process.
For the successful implementation of virtual testing in
The simulation process is managed by execution of scripts
(e.g., FEA templates) and interactive pre-processor sessions
triggered by the virtual portal. Besides configuration control,
which ties in the simulation results to a particular version of
the model, the portal also captures the input data and
processes that were used to generate the version of the
model.

Figure 5. Global test process for system certification

the existing test process, a solution was developed based
on SimManager (Figure 6 ). The SimManager environment
is connected to the test management system to enable
data flow between the physical and virtual test. Simulation
pre-processing, execution, and post-processing are
orchestrated by the SPDM system. The SimManager
environment is also linked to a HPC Linux environment for
batch execution and solving. A variant of the same process
flow for connection with Windows systems is also available.
Efficient post-processing including test-
variations and model validation
The execution of a multibody simulation model generally
leads to a considerable amount of data. Although for the
evaluation of a system requirement, i.e., to draw a pass/fail
conclusion, usually, only a few key-values are required.
Therefore it is mandatory to have an efficient post-
processing process in place, enabling robust and convenient
key-value extraction out of the simulation raw-results. The
method also covers the global virtual test requirement
for traceability and reproducibility of data. Figure 7 shows an
overview of the process.

Figure 6. A schematic of the HLVST virtual test portal Figure 7. Data post-processing overview

63
63
A post-processing definition table is used to define how
the raw simulation result has to be treated. This comprises
a block-wise definition of the relevant parameters, their
conditioning such as application of offsets or scaling
factors, and the definition of the key-value extraction.
The definition table is implemented in MS Excel and also
contains a template of the key-value output table and a
formatting macro to optimize its appearance. Starting
at a given simulation result, the High Lift System Virtual
Test Portal provides the simulation result and the post-
processing definition table to a Matlab function, which
reads the data as well as the definition and performs the
requested operations.
Figure 8. Virtual test portal results post processing
64
This process involves the extraction of simulation results
as well as corresponding plots creation. Besides the
fundamental values, the output table also contains
hyperlinks to the created plots. After execution of the
postprocessing, the generated outputs (Figure 8) are
collected by the HLSVT portal and prepared for upload
to the Test Management System, where the system
requirements evaluation is performed.
This combination of physical and virtual tests has helped
Airbus to overcome conflicting challenges of increased
systems complexity and significantly reduced development
times. MSC’s software tools are critical to the virtual
verification and certification process of the high lift system.
The SimManager based workflow ensures complete
traceability of the simulation lifecycle along the aircraft
development cycle in an automated and scalable manner.
Ford Develops a New
Innovative Suspension
Design using Adams
By Andreas Carlitz, Sebastien Allibert, Thomas Schmitz, and
Axel Engels (Ford Motor Company), Hemanth Kolera (MSC Software)
The design of a vehicle suspension system influences the
customer’s perception of vehicle handling and ride comfort.
The art of suspension design deals with making the right
tradeoffs and compromises between handling and comfort.
As an example, lowering the center of gravity helps handling
but also reduces the ground clearance. This in turn limits
suspension travel, requiring stiffer springs and hurting ride
comfort. The Ford motor company is focused on providing
its customers with a vehicle that is world-class in both
drivability and comfort.
65
These critical vehicle attributes are in turn impacted by the
suspension design. Ford recently invented and patented
a new twist-beam rear suspension system which received
widespread media acclaim. In its review of the Fiesta ST in
July 2018, AutoCar UK said, “Perhaps it’s to do with the bent
‘force vectoring’ springs, but during the compression stroke
the rear seems to help the car pivot through the bend. It’s a
sudden but subtle effect and gives the car stunning agility”.
In September 2018, in its review of the Ford Focus Top
Gear called it the best drive in class and said, “Focus feels
agile, pointy, dexterous and actually quite playful”. Adams
vehicle dynamics simulation played an integral role in the
development of the novel suspension design.
A twist-beam suspension is a semi-independent suspension
system that is most often used on the rear wheels. It
combines the effects of a dependent and an independent
suspension. It allows individual wheels to twist similar to an
independent suspension but also permits a wheel to have
some effect on another like a dependent suspension.
The twist-beam suspension consists of two trailing arms
attached to the chassis and the wheels. Connecting
the arms is a torsion beam, forming a typical H-shaped
suspension architecture, Figure 1. The front of the H
connects to the car body via the rubber bushings, Figure 2.
When a wheel undergoes an impact, the beam will twist and
some of the shock is absorbed, reducing its transmission
to the opposite wheel. The twistbeam suspension provides
several advantages as compared to a multi-link suspension
such as efficient packaging, lower weight and cost
effectiveness. However, it comes with a few disadvantages
that can affect customer ride and comfort.
Figure 1. A Twist-beam Suspension Top View
As seen in Figure 2, the wheel center in a twistbeam
suspension resides below the bushing. This results in the
wheel moving forward with a bounce as the vehicle travels.
Vehicles with twist-beam suspension also exhibit an
oversteer effect where the rear of the car drifts outwards
while cornering (Figure 3). The oversteer effect during
cornering is caused by the lateral forces on the tyre creating
a toe-out effect where the front of the wheels are farther
apart from the rear. (Figure 4)
Figure 2. A twist-beam suspension side view
66
agile, pointy, dexterous and actually quite playful”. Adams
vehicle dynamics simulation played an integral role in the
development of the novel suspension design.
A twist-beam suspension is a semi-independent suspension
system that is most often used on the rear wheels. It
combines the effects of a dependent and an independent
suspension. It allows individual wheels to twist similar to an
independent suspension but also permits a wheel to have
some effect on another like a dependent suspension.
The twist-beam suspension consists of two trailing arms
attached to the chassis and the wheels. Connecting
the arms is a torsion beam, forming a typical H-shaped
suspension architecture, Figure 1. The front of the H
connects to the car body via the rubber bushings, Figure 2.
When a wheel undergoes an impact, the beam will twist and
some of the shock is absorbed, reducing its transmission
to the opposite wheel. The twistbeam suspension provides
several advantages as compared to a multi-link suspension
such as efficient packaging, lower weight and cost
effectiveness. However, it comes with a few disadvantages
that can affect customer ride and comfort.
Figure 3. Disadvantages of a twist-beam suspension: oversteer effect
Figure 4. Disadvantages of a twist-beam suspension: toe-out
Past solutions to correct these issues have involved
complex reinforcements or an additional Watt’s linkage. This
drives up costs, increases weight and results in NVH issues.
Modifications such as inclining the bushing attachment to
the vehicle body to reduce the toe-out angle result in
increased lateral compliances and less agility.

Figure 6. Standard twist-beam in Adams

Figure 5. Modeling the flexible bodies in Adams

Exploring new suspension designs

Ford’s twist-beam suspension design overcame these

challenges with two innovations. To develop the innovative
suspension system, the Ford vehicle dynamics team
created an Adams Car model with a flexible twist-beam.
Adams Car is a template-based vehicle modeling approach
built on the Adams framework. Using Adams Car engineers
can build virtual prototypes of their vehicle systems or sub-
systems and test their performance via a library of vehicle
events. In the twist-beam suspension model the hub,
the front frame and the front lower control arm were all
modeled as flexible bodies. The team used Adams
simulations extensively to review design concepts, and
again to validate the force vectoring springs.

Vehicle models with a standard spring and a force vectoring

spring (Figure 6 and Figure 7) was tested across a set of
virtual events to compare the performance. Inclination of Figure 7. Force vectoring twist-beam in Adams

the spring was achieved by shifting the hardpoint.

Hardpoints are the basic constructive geometry used to
parameterize the model elements. Adams simulations
showed a 10 % reduction in toe-out at the turn outer side.

The first innovation inclines the force vectors on the rear

spring. During cornering the outboard spring is compressed,
and the inboard spring is decompressed (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Force vectoring twist-beam in Adams during cornering

67
Simulations showed that increased lateral support The step steer vehicle test (Figure 11) involves imparting
is available on the turn outer side and decreased a rapid steering input while the vehicle is traveling in a
lateral support is available on the turn inner side, thus straight line. The goal of this test is to gauge the vehicle
counteracting the side forces that lead to the oversteering response time and any overshoots.
effect. Besides optimizing the inclination in the springs,
Ford also rethought the spring design itself. A comparison
between the standard cylindrical springs and the force
vectoring springs is as shown in Figure 9. When the force
vectoring spring is compressed it creates a load in the
desired direction and this provides lateral support to the
twist-beam. The end coil inclination determined by the
piercing location generates the force vector inclination
Figure 11. The step steer test
(Figure 10).

The benefits from the force vectoring spring are evident

Getting ready for the road
To test the performance of the twistbeam suspension
the team built full vehicle models in Adams Car with the
standard spring and force vectoring spring variants. The
vehicle models were tested on two key vehicle events; the
step steer and double lane change (Moose Test).
when the two vehicle variants are compared. For the
variant with force vectoring springs, the phase lag of the
lateral acceleration after the transient steering input is
reduced (Figure 12). Additionally, due to the reduced lateral
compliance, the side slip angle is smaller as well (Figure 13).

Figure 12. Lateral acceleration

The first innovation inclines the force vectors on the rear

spring. During cornering the outboard spring is compressed,
and the inboard spring is decompressed (Figure 8).

Figure 13. Side slip angle

Figure 9 & 10

68
The double lane change test is used, which is used to
evaluate the stability of the vehicle and the agility of its
dynamic response. In this case, the simulation is based on a
Double Lane Change variant called the Moose test which is
shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14. Moose test variant
Figure 15. Yaw rate- moose test
69
Comparing the standard and the force vectoring springs,
the Moose test variant shows a reduction of the side slip
angle step like the step steer maneuver (Figure 16) and
also the yaw rate (Figure 15). These findings signify that a
vehicle variant with the force vectoring springs would be
more stable as compared to the variant with the standard
cylindrical springs. These simulation results confirmed
similar conclusions from vehicle testing.
Force vectoring provides the opportunity to improve the
performance of the twist-beam suspension without
resorting to measures that affect vehicle weight
or complicate packaging and part installation. The
performance is like that of a multilink rear suspension at a
reduced cost.
Figure 16. Side slip single- moose test
Utilizing CADLM and Adams
to get Greater Insight into
Suspension Design
By Jesper Slattengren, Pratt & Miller, Kambiz Kayvantash, CADLM,
Hemanth Kolera, Hexagon | MSC Software

Present-day engineering processes deploy engineering
simulation at scale. The goal is to test a virtual prototype
instead of a physical equivalent and accelerate product
development. A critical part of this virtual design process is
to try out many parametric variations in a “what if” scenario.
This is especially true for parametric modeling frameworks
such as Adams where a wide variety of system effects are
evaluated. Parametric variations can have multiple goals,
one of which is product optimization. The optimization
process typically involves the execution of large-scale
Design of Experiment studies, where design variables are
varied to identify a combination that provides the desired
response in a certain design criteria. Large system-level
optimizations with numerous input variables and non-linear
responses can be very computationally intensive.

70
In a recent proof-of-concept, Adams, the gold standard in
multibody dynamics simulations, and Lunar, the
revolutionary supervised Machine Learning solution from
CADLM, were used to create Reduced Order Models (ROMs)
(Figure 1) of vehicle behavior and redefine the product
optimization process at Pratt & Miller. The surrogate ROMs
replicate time-series information from the parent Adams
model using Machine Learning. ROM generation in Lunar is
based on an Adams training dataset. The generated ROM is
then validated against a set of new responses, not part of
the initial training set. This validated ROM can then be used
to explore the design space and find an optimal solution.

Figure 1. Reduced order modeling

ROM based optimization is not the same as response The absorbed power increases with increasing vertical
surface-based (RSM) optimization which is the standard acceleration and transient vibrations. Minimizing the power
technique for parametric optimization in Adams. ROM absorbed by the vehicle during its operation leads to a
replicates the entire time series unlike the scalar better ride comfort experience for the occupants. The
predictions using RSM. Additionally, while RSM methods model parameters that were part of the optimization set
are based on external or imposed “fitting” strategy where are shown below.
few selected points are exploited to identify an equation
(e.g. polynomial) approaching as good as possible the real
response (the output of DOE), a ROM method exploits
decomposition techniques in order to evaluate physical
“modal” participations of the response and exploit them
to reconstruct new responses via non-linear superposition
techniques.

The vehicle system under investigation is a military vehicle,

and the particular response of interest is the total absorbed
power with the design goal to minimize it as shown in
Figure 2.

Figure 3. Parameter space under investigation

Figure 2. System and responses of interest

Figure 4. Validation runs

71
A DOE using the Latin HyperCube distribution was ODYSSEE Lunar can study the parameters influence on
generated in Adams Insight. This DOE served as the training absorbed power peaks. The bar graph in Figure 7 shows the
set for the LUNAR ROM. The DOE used to create the LUNAR influence of each parameter at the peak at t=7 s.
ROM employed 60 runs. This is 10 times less expensive than
an RSM based approach and is more robust as it captures
the most dominant effects.

The generated ROM was validated using the three cases

shown above. Users can use a variety of solver options
to obtain a predictive ROM. Using the available set of
solver options a highly predictive ROM was obtained. The
comparison between ROM and the ADAMS predictions for
the validated cases are shown (Figure 5) and show good
agreement.

Figure 7. Parameters sensitivity using Lunar

Since the overhead with executing a LUNAR run is minimal,

optimization tasks can be performed very quickly. A set of
parameters that minimized absorbed power was isolated
in 53 seconds after 159 LUNAR evaluations of the ROM. The
predicted optimal solution was then executed in Adams
(Figure 8) with a step steer event. Lower lateral acceleration
for the same steer input and higher roll velocity was
Figure 5. Comparisons between ROM (solid) and Adams (dotted) predictions
observed using the optimized set as compared to the
baseline.

The validated ROM can now be used in multiple ways. As

an example, users can run sensitivity analysis at various
temporal instances to gauge the effect of various design
parameters on the absorbed power. As shown in Figure 6
there is a direct relationship between observed power and
vertical acceleration. When vertical acceleration stays high
for a longer time there is a jump in absorbed power. A single
peak of the vertical acceleration does not impact absorbed
power very much.
Figure 8. Optimized vehicle responses using Lunar

This pilot study provides evidence that the CADLM

approach reduces the number of runs as compared to a
traditional RSM based DOE. The ROM can aid in an efficient
understanding of parameter sensitivity and the rapid
identification of optimal solutions.

Figure 6. Transient response of vertical acceleration and absorbed power

72
Optimizing the Drum Design
of a Coal Shearer with
Adams-EDEM Integrated
Simulation Approach
By Lijuan Zhao, Jiayi Fan, Minghao Li Liaoning Technical University, China

73
Introduction

A the main working mechanism for coal cutting and

coal loading, the spiral drum directly affects the
working performance of the shearer. In recent years,
Introduction a number of research projects have been
conducted on the design and working performance of the
shearer spiral drum. These results provided a reference for
the high operational efficiency of the coal shearers.

When the spiral drum is operated under the condition of

complicated coal seam, the impact load with nonlinearity
and strong coupling will have a great influence on the
reliability of the spiral drum itself and the key parts of the
shearer. Therefore, based on the rigid-flexible coupling of
the CAE model and EDEM discrete element simulation
analysis software, our researchers leveraged the improved
particle swarm optimization algorithm to enhance the
overall performance of the spiral drum.
Figure 2. Virtual Prototype of the Coal Shearer in MSC Adams
As the next step, the initial loads from actual physical
testing were properly imported into the Adams mode to
make sure the boundary conditions for the simulation are
realistic. Some of the simulation results can be found from
Figure 4 to Figure 6, to capture the stress distribution on
the front drum, the maximum stress curves and the stress
diagram of the drum tooth. The stress diagram and the
stress curves of the planet carrier are shown in Fig. 7 and 8.

It can be seen from Fig. 4-6 that the maximum stress value
of the spiral drum is 779.946 MPa, and the calculated safety
factor is 1.635. The maximum stress value node is located
on the No. 24 tooth of the 12th section line. As illustrated in
Figures 7 and 8, the maximum stress value of the carrier is
347.17 MPa, so the safety factor is 1.872, the maximum stress
point appears at the hole of the planet shaft.

Figure 1. Coal Shearer in Operation

Modeling and Simulation for the Coal

Shearer with Rigidflexible Integration

When the shearer is working, the loads on the front drum

are larger than the rear drum, so the front cross section
is the main target of interest for this project. According to Figure 3. Stress Distribution on the Front Drum
the coal-breaking theory from the former Soviet Union, and
based on the “load simulation program” developed by the
project team, the cut-off depth of the machine is 800 mm,
the drum rotation speed is 58 r/min, and the traction speed
is 10 m/min.

The research team used Pro/Engineer to establish a coal

mining machine model and imported it into MSC Adams,
the world’s most trusted multibody dynamics software.
The finite element software was then used to generate the
flexible bodies for the spiral drum and the planet carrier,
replacing the corresponding rigid parts in the Adams model.
Figure 4. Maximum Stress Curve of the Spiral Drum
After adding the constraints, contacts and the driving
forces of the virtual prototype, the Adams model of the
shearer that contains both rigid parts and flexible parts is
shown in Figure 3.

74
Figure 5. Stress Distribution on the Drum Tooth Figure 6. Stress Distribution on the
Planet Carrier
Predicting Coal-Carrying Performance of
the Shearer with EDEM Software
According to the coal mining theory, the Hertz-M contact
model is selected for the simulation. The material
parameters of the drum are set up in the EDEM software, as
well as the contact parameters between the drum and the
coal wall. According to the mining conditions of the drum
prototype and the drum model, the coal particle plant is
shown in Figure 9.
After importing the CAD model of the coal shearer in IGES
format into EDEM, the simulation model is shown in Figure
10. As illustrated in Figure 11, under normal operational
condition, the number of coal particles that were
successfully loaded was 9,476, and the number of unfilled
coal particles was 5,964. The success rate for loading was
61.37%. From the physical testing results of the actual
MG400/951-WD shearer, the coal loading rate is over 60%.
Based on the discrete element method, the coal mining
performance simulation results provide clear data support
for the reliability design of shearer spiral drum.
Figure 8. Coal Particle Plant Model Figure 9. EDEM Model Which
in EDEM Includes Both the Mining Machine
and the Coal Bulk Material
Summary
The results of this simulation-based design show that the
negative impact of the structural parameters on
the reliability of the spiral drum is reduced, and the
comprehensive performance of the spiral drum is improved.
The optimized spiral drum meets the design requirements.
Since June 2015, this type of improved coal shearer has
been manufactured and officially put into operation at the
Ordos Coal Mine of YanZhou Coal Mine. The annual output
of the single machine has reached 1.2 million tons. The
shearer is stable and reliable.
75
Figure 7. Stress History Curve of the Planet Carrier
Improving the Robust Design for the Spiral
Drum
The structural parameters of the spiral drum have an
impact on its working performance. Therefore, in order to
improve the performance of the drum, it is necessary to
optimize the robust design of the spiral drum.
After the optimized design, the updated modal neutral file
for the spiral drum was generated and imported into MSC
Adams, in order to perform the FEA-MBD coupled
simulation analysis. It can be seen from Figure 12 that the
maximum stress of the optimized spiral drum is 735.841
MPa, which is 5.65% lower than that of the previous design.
The maximum stress value of the carrier is 332.117 MPa,
4.34% lower than before. The change in the spiral drum
design variables reduced the cutting resistance, and thus
reducing the loads on the key components.
Figure 10. Loading Effect Simulation Figure 11. The Stress Distribution of
in EDEM the Spiral Drum after Optimization
Reference
1. ZHAO Lijuan, FAN Jiayi, LI Minghao. Gradient
reliability design of shearer’s drum in complicated
seam [J]. Journal of China Coal Society.
Author profiles
Dr. Hemanth Kolera-Gokula
Product Marketing Manager, Adams, MSC Software

Dr. Hemanth Kolera is the Product Marketing Manager for Systems Dynamics
at MSC Software. He is responsible for driving adoption of the MSC software
systems portfolio. For the past 15 years, Hemanth has been focused on
implementing CAE based solutions in the areas of CFD and Systems modeling. His
career has spanned Product Development, Applications Engineering and Product
Management roles at Cummins, Convergent Science Inc., AVL and Ansys.

Ian Hogg
Product Manager, Adams, MSC Software

For the past 25 years, Ian has worked in the CAE industry assisting companies in
simulating and validating their designs. This has covered a applications ranging
from Aircraft landing gear doors to automotive brakes, Olympic stadium seating,
theme park rides, tissue packaging, and even a mars rover. The bulk of his career
has been centered in multi body dynamics, and he now manages the System
Dynamics product line at MSC Software.

Dr. Keith Hanna

VP Marketing, MSC Software

Dr. Keith Hanna is the Vice President, Marketing of MSC Software. Dr. Hanna
brings over 25 years of experience in the CFD, CAE, EDA and PLM industries,
spanning a wide range of global technical and marketing roles inside Siemens PLM,
Mentor Graphics Corp., ANSYS Inc. and Fluent Inc. His career prior to engineering
simulation included practical experience of the metallurgical and mining industry
at Br. Steel and De Beers. He has both BSc and PhD engineering degrees from the
University of Birmingham in England and is a respected commentator on the CFD/
CAE industry, a pioneer of CFD in sport, and a former member of the Executive
Committee of the International Sports Engineering Association.

Dan Marinac
Director, Global Product Marketing, MSC Software

Responsible for developing and executing the MSC Software Global Product
Marketing strategy for Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence’s Design & Engineering
Simulation business’ entire portfolio of MSC Software products. Primary
responsibility to lead the core MSC products and dotted-line responsibility to
the Business Unit team of Product Marketing Managers (engineers) to ensure the
development of an appropriate go-to-market strategy and launch of each new
product; ensuring that product messaging and positioning is clear and consistent
for all products; conducting competitor analysis to inform product positioning;
and influencing product and solution definitions to meet industry segment
requirements, ensuring quality lead generation marketing activities, and visibility

76
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