Altair Communication
- 1. HyperWorks is a division of Case Study U-Shin Improves Product Design of Automotive Parts with Altair CAE Solutions Overview U-Shin is a global automotive part supplier, specializing in the development and production of automotive system appliances and mechatronics products as well as on the research of element technologies. Safety, reliability, adaptability, quality, eco-friendliness, are among the major concerns of the company. Offering broad expertise in the areas of mechanical, electrical and electronic appliances, U-Shin¡¯s engineers are also highly experienced in linear and nonlinear mechanical simulation (FEA). Since 2001, the company uses Altair solutions for daily development work in their French-based Research & Development division. In the development projects of this division, the engineers rely on tools such as HyperMesh for 3D meshing, RADIOSS for crash simulation, OptiStruct for optimization and FEA analysis and HyperStudy for design of experiments (DOE) studies. Additionally, U-Shin employs solutions offered via the Altair Partner Alliance. Ahmed EL ABIDI, the company¡¯s CAE Manager & Senior Expert at U-Shin¡¯s Europe Division, heads up a team of five engineers and several trainees working on different development projects. At present, four engineers are working with HyperWorks on a daily base. The strategic decision to choose HyperWorks for all R&D development projects pays off because the software suite enables innovation, and offers reliable results at reasonable costs. Customer Profile U-Shin, global Japanese company founded in 1926 as a trading company, is specialized in access mechanisms systems for vehicle and control panels. The company is an automotive part supplier providing robust, reliable, competitive, and innovative solutions to meet the expectations of most demanding custo?mers all around the world. Their client list includes all major players in the automotive industry. Present today in 15 countries on all continents ¨C thanks to the acquisition of a Valeo Business Group ¨C U-Shin is a global company that realizes 40% of its turnover in Asia, 40% in Europe/Russia, and 20% in North and South America. With a strong portfolio of over 2,500 patents, including such popular brand as Neiman, U-Shin has a unique expertise in electrical, mechanical, electronic technologies, implemented in a wide range of products such as outer handles, inner handles, locks, latches, electrical steering column locks, switches, control panels, opening hand free systems, and motorized opening systems. In all 12 of U-Shin development centers around the world, the company¡¯s specialists always develop and handle each of their projects near the individual customer. U-Shin has the ability to deploy worldwide global projects, offering reduced development costs and proven solutions by applying best practices and standardization in all of its five competence centers worldwide. As a world leader in access mechanisms, the company creates intuitive, innovative and differentiating products establishing U-Shin as the leading multi-specialist in its category. www.U-Shin-ltd.com ¡°Altair ¨C with the HyperWorks platform and other solutions from the Partner Alliance ¨C provides strategic technologies for the development at U-Shin. With these tools in place we are able to improve our products towards better performance and lighter designs to an extent that would not have been possible without. We are very satisfied with the flexibility, open architecture, and functionalities of Altair¡¯s offering, we are now able to solve close to all technical issues in our projects.¡± Ahmed EL ABIDI, CAE Manager & Senior Expert at U-Shin Easy opening of car doors Gesture control systems
- 2. Altair Engineering, Inc., World Headquarters: 1820 E. Big Beaver Rd., Troy, MI 48083-2031 USA Phone: +1.248.614.2400 ? Fax: +1.248.614.2411 ? www.altair.com ? info@altair.com Challenge Today, the automotive industry faces major challenges in terms of fuel efficiency, lightweighting, and competitive pricing. To meet the customer¡¯s expectations and individual development goals, every OEM has its own requirements and specifications, which are given to the suppliers that contribute to the overall vehicle development goals. To handle the individual needs of each automotive manufacturer, global suppliers such as U-Shin have to cover a broad application bandwidth within their development processes. And, for higher efficiency, they have to use a large variety of simulation, design and development tools such as general FEA analysis, optimization, crash & safety simulations. U-Shin has to deploy a simulation environment that enables their engineers to conduct all these simulations, while at the same time leave room for innovation and cost control. The ability to develop automotive parts in a short time, at reasonable costs, and with a reliable outcome is only possible if the design is done right on the first time and physical testing and iterations, i.e. between design and development teams, are reduced to a minimum. Solution To cover all needed simulation disciplines, U-Shin decided to employ Altair¡¯s HyperWorks suite, a software solution for computer aided engineering (CAE) applications. HyperWorks and the other Altair solutions address those needs by offering tools for most of the required development tasks. Thanks to its open architecture, the suite also enables the use of solvers from other providers, as sometimes required by some of the OEMs. Today U-Shin handles tasks such as 3D meshing with HyperMesh, one of Altair¡¯s pre-processing tools, crash simulations with RADIOSS, a FEA solver for highly nonlinear events, optimization and linear FEA tasks with OptiStruct, and DOE studies with HyperStudy. The company has licensed all Altair solutions via so called HyperWorks units. This unique token-based licensing model gives engineers the flexibility to easily access all available tools on request while controlling software costs. Moreover, the HyperWorks licensing system enables them to access third party solutions included in the HyperWorks platform via the Altair Partner Alliance. Within this program, the HyperWorks Platform can be extended from more than 20 internally developed solutions to over 60 applications. Customers can invoke these third-party applications at no incremental cost using their existing HyperWorks units. U-Shin is making use of this major advantage to cover additional disciplines such as durability (HBM nCode DesignLife) and material information management (Total Materia by KeytoMetals). Benefits HyperWorks and the access to the tools included in the Altair Partner Alliance enable U-Shin to address and solve all upcoming issues in their development projects. The use of HyperWorks units provides the needed flexibility at reasonable costs. The open architecture of HyperWorks gives U-Shin the freedom to use other solvers in combination with the Altair tools, a widespread request of automotive suppliers working for different OEMs. Overall the use of HyperWorks enables U-Shin to: ? access all needed simulation tools at reasonable cost ? leverage freedom in simulation by enabling the combined use of other solvers and tools with HyperWorks ? shorten development time due to less iterations within the development process ? improve product quality in terms of better performance and less weight U-Shin engineers profit from Altair¡¯s HyperWorks computer aided engineering (CAE) applications