HyperWorks Collaboration Tools: Organise CAE Data from Within the CAE Pre & Post Processor

7/29/2019 HyperWorks Collaboration Tools: Organise CAE Data from Within the CAE Pre & Post Processor

1/4

Altair Engineering 2013 1

HyperWorks Collaboration Tools: Organise CAE Data from

Within the CAE Pre & Post Processor

Ira GoldsteinDirector HyperWorks Collaboration Tools, Altair1820 E Big Beaver Rd, Troy, MI 48083, [email protected]

Venkat ParameshwaranDirector Enterprise Solutions, [email protected]

Abstract

Organising and managing simulation data is often a daunting task that companies dread totake up. Some companies let engineers manage data in an ad-hoc way. Others choose tolook at commercial product data management (PDM), simulation data management (SDM)systems or home grown systems as a top down approach to managing simulation data. Thecurrent paper proposes an alternate bottom-up approach within the pre/post-processingenvironment as a low entry barrier to organising simulation data. An optional migration pathto upgrade to an enterprise system is also discussed

Keywords: Collaboration Tools, Simulation Data Management, Simulation Life Cycle Management, PDM, SDM, SLM

1.0 Introduction

CAE is an increasingly utilised and accepted way to validate a products performance. As aresult, more and more simulations are being performed, and ever-increasing amounts ofsimulation data are being created. The organisation and management of all of this data iscritical to the datas usefulness for traceability, and providing access to the data is crucial toan organisations decision-making process. Implementing simulation data and life cyclemanagement is traditionally very expensive and time consuming. It is often a daunting taskthat organizations dread taking up. Typically, it requires a top down implementation project,and usually takes a very long time before users experience a direct benefit in their day to

day activity.

The current paper gives an overview of Altairs HyperWorks Collaboration Tools which is abottom up approach of allowing users to organise CAE data from within their HyperWorksdesktop pre & post-processors. Capability to connect to commercial PDM systems andmanage the CAE and CAD traceability is also explained. Lastly, the capability to upgrade toan optional enterprise/central database and use additional functionality available as partweb based applications is also discussed.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


2/4

Altair Engineering 2013 HyperWorks Collaboration Tools: Organize CAE data 2

2.0 HyperWorks Collaboration Tools

HyperWorks 11.0 introduced a novel and user-oriented approach set of collaboration toolstightly integrated in the HyperWorks desktop products for efficient simulation data andlifecycle management. HyperWorks 12.0 has since extended the capability with additionalfeatures. The Collaboration Tools can be used in Personal or in Team mode, which allowsusers to organise their simulation data and provides them with access to information sharedover the network. This enables active collaboration between teammates on CAE projects for

pre- and post-processing tasks.

2.1 Explore, Organize, Connect

Documentation, traceability and collaboration are very important in order to improve theefficiency and quality of the overall CAE process. With Altairs approach for the Personaland Team modes, all HyperWorks users can immediately start to organise and managetheir simulation data, including their metadata and documents required for the simulation.Meta data from CAD and simulation files is automatically extracted and indexed usingAltairs CAE readers making it easy for users to find geometry and simulation files withspecific component names or materials. Users can create different versions of files andtrack changes between versions. In addition, they can collaborate and access shared data

and information, all using the out-of-the-box HyperWorks installation with minimal impact totheir regular CAE workflow resulting in immediate benefits. Simulation data can beorganised into different libraries according to different domains, departments or disciplines.e.g. a material library, load case library, mesh and model library, durability library etc.

Figure1: Organize simu lat ion data using HyperWo rks Desktop

Starting from CAD/PDM, the overall CAE process typically needs CAD geometry andproduct structure with metadata information to manually mesh or batch-mesh, assemble themeshes, apply load cases, and create the simulation models. To assure the quality of theCAE process, the assessment and comparison of the results, it is very important to knowwhich product structure and geometries have been used to create the simulation models.

The interface to a CAD/PDM system is important in order to track traceability of simulationdata to CAD.


3/4


For this reason, the HyperWorks Collaboration Tools provide a connection to corporatePDM systems, like Teamcenter. Users can seamlessly retrieve information such as CADfiles into HyperWorks without launching an external PDM tool, thus eliminating the need toleave their CAE authoring environment.

Figure2: Pul l and push d ata from /to PDM from Hyp erWorks Desktop

2.2 Elevate CAE to the Enterprise

Lastly, the natural but not mandatory evolution path, after starting to use theCollaboration Tools in Personal or Team mode, is to upgrade to the Enterprise mode aspart of Altairs Enterprise mode closes the loop, bringing knowledge and contents to theSimulation Cloud Suite of application, which requires additional implementation. Theimplementation of the organisation where they can be easily and securely shared with alarger engineering community with appropriate access rights and privileges in a centraldatabase.

Upgrading to the Enterprise mode also allows access to additional web based applications

for various simulation life cycle use-cases as described below: Compute Manager

o A web based application for HPC job submission, monitoring and resultsvisualization

Display Managero A web based application for handling big data by remote visualizing

simulation data from the server where the large model/results are stored.

Simulation Managero A web based application for managing simulation projects, KPIs,

dashboards and simulation history


4/4


Figure3: Upgrade to com prehensive enterprise simulat ion l i fe cycle management

platform from HyperWor ks Col laborat ion Tools

3.0 References

[1] HyperWorks 11.0 and 12.0, Altair Engineering Inc., 2013.

[2] Altair Simulation Cloud Suite, Altair Engineering Inc., 2013.

Documents

HyperWorks Collaboration Tools: Organise CAE Data from Within the CAE Pre & Post Processor