Open Competition 2 - Information Technology

Simulation Environment for Engineering Design

Sponsor: Simmetrix, Inc.

• Project Performance Period: 1/1/2002 - 12/31/2004
• Total project (est.): $2,329,903.00
• Requested ATP funds: $1,884,203.00

Automakers and other manufacturers use simulations to validate product designs. If simulation could serve as the primary means of evaluating designs, thereby reducing the need for prototype construction and testing, then it could reduce product costs and cycle times substantially and enhance quality. Simmetrix Inc. plans to develop and demonstrate the technologies needed for simulation to be readily applied in design processes. The overall challenge is to build tools that can be used by designers rather than experts in computer-aided engineering, who are rare and expensive to train. The envisioned system will evaluate and automatically control the simulation process to ensure that the designer obtains results at the requested level of accuracy, interacting seamlessly with existing product data management and computer-aided design and engineering (CAD/CAE) technologies to explicitly control approximations. The company will construct five major components, including a model manager and a data manager, tools for generating and improving the models, and an engine to execute the simulations. The components will be used to build a prototype system, the Simulation Environment for Engineering Design (SEED), which will be demonstrated for four applications: automotive systems, gas turbine engines, automotive fluid-flow systems, and composite material design. ATP funding is needed because industry is heavily invested in existing CAD/CAE environments and focuses on incremental changes. The Scientific Computation Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.) will assist in the development of adaptive techniques, including new error-estimation methods. If successfully developed and commercialized, the new technology will reduce the billions of dollars now spent on engineering analysis and testing and give designers access to powerful automated tools. Virtually every manufacturing industry -- from heavy equipment to bath supplies -- could use simulation to improve its products by enhancing functionality and reliability and reducing costs, thereby benefiting consumers, the national economy, and the military.

For project information:

Michelle M. Beall, (518) 348-1639
mmb@simmetrix.com

ATP Project Manager

Christopher Currens, (301) 975-8503
christopher.currens@nist.gov