A perspective on simulation in the automotive industry
Face to face with Paul Stewart, design process leader and consultant
Futurities Year 20 n°2
By Kathleen Grant
Dr Paul Stewart qualified as a Systems Design Engineer in naval architecture and currently consults on design process both with CAE providers and with Design and Engineering companies. He has a solid foundation in CAD surface mathematics and fluid dynamics as they relate to the design process. He began his working career at the Ford Research Lab where he was the first to apply shape morphing to automotive CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and then continued on with EXA and eventually Altair, creating virtual design technologies involving advanced surface modelling, response analytics, and advanced visualization. During this time, he has worked on production design projects and processes with almost every automotive and heavy truck manufacturer worldwide.
Futurities interviewed him about his thoughts on the evolution of simulation’s role in the design process in the automotive industry, the evolving roles of CAD and CAE and the move to freeform deformation in automotive design, as well as the likely impact and role of artificial intelligence technologies in this space.
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CASE STUDY
This paper presents the RENAULT F1 Team’s AM process for an aerodynamic insert in titanium Ti6Al4V. Production was optimized by identifying the best orientation for the parts and the best positioning for the support structures in the melting chamber, in addition to using the ANSYS Additive Print module, a simulation software useful for predicting the distortion of a part and for developing a new, 3D, compensated model that guarantees the best “as-built” quality.
automotive additive-manufacturing optimization
