Obviously, the importance of the various design parameters changes with each application. In marine applications, motors and alternators must be silent with very low vibrations to avoid ruining the experience of the ship’s passengers. Structural finite element analysis and harmonic response calculations using Ansys Mechanical must be performed on the frame and other components to reduce sound and vibrations. A genset is a combination of an internal combustion engine with an electric motor or alternator, used as a standby electric power supply. Vibrations from the diesel engine can excite natural frequencies and harmonic responses in the system. Marelli Motori engineers run modal analysis in Ansys Mechanical to find these frequencies and harmonic responses, which vary according to operating conditions, to analyze the dynamic behavior of the alternator. This is followed by a collaboration between the customer and the genset designer to avoid any possible resonances of the entire genset with the surrounding structure for each design project. If this upfront analysis was not done, and the completed genset generated vibrations and structural noise inside a vessel, correcting the problem would result in tremendous additional costs and project delays. In power generation applications, increasing efficiency is the most essential step. This mainly involves applying CFD simulations to improve the airflow to cool the machines and coupling the results with EM simulations that optimize the electrical parts by reducing losses. Marelli Motori engineers perform this multiphysics simulation daily. All modifications introduced after numerical simulations are evaluated in a test room to demonstrate benefits in terms of temperatures and efficiency according to international norms.
Example of a heat exchanger simulated using Ansys CFX. An expert user completed five simulations in eight hours. Using Ansys Discovery Live, a user completed many simulations in two hours to achieve an optimal design.