Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - October 2021 - 22

DIGITALIZATION of
PRODUCT
ENGINEERING
Operating in a " virtual
proving ground "
helps manufacturers
gain insights on their
products not only as
designed but also as
used or misused.
ESI proposes " sustainable "
product development via virtual
prototyping to ensure operational
safety and comfort for offhighway
machines.
by Alex Magdanz and Eric Kam
T
oday's off-highway machines must be safe, clean and productive
- in a word: " sustainable, " an adjective that also
should apply to product development. How can engineers
know they are on the right track without producing a bunch
of physical prototypes? How can they avoid costly design changes
late in the process? And how can the useful life of machines be extended?
The digitalization of product engineering is here to answer
these challenges by enabling the evaluation of product performance
at every stage of product development, as well as during manufacturing
and operations.
The goal at ESI is to help customers move towards " zero tests, "
" zero prototypes " and " zero downtime " - referring to physical tests/
prototypes, of course. Traditional methods for testing and evaluating
products virtually using sporadic simulations, usually only of the
nominal machine, are useful but only reflect specific conditions. They
occasionally fall short of what can be learned when those products
are rolled out to actual construction sites, farms, forests or mines. To
avoid such shortcomings, leading enterprises in the heavy-machinery
sector, including Liebherr and Siemens Minerals, employ virtual prototyping
solutions to get a realistic account of how multiple subsystems
behave and interact in real life under varying conditions.
Virtually operating products from a " virtual proving ground " helps
manufacturers gain insights on their products not only as designed but
also as used. They connect the evaluation of operational safety and
comfort to how the machine behaves in planned use, misuse or abuse,
including how this affects the people operating/driving the machines.
Virtual prototyping lets OEMs evaluate machine dynamics and
stability in rough terrain, assess machine behavior in emergency situations,
ensure interior and exterior noise regulations are met, and
even verify operator visibility, reachability and accessibility at all
times. As a result, design engineers consider trade-offs and balance
22 October 2021
out competing requirements to reach an optimum.
For instance, they can create safe and stable designs
with low risk of tipping and increase comfort by minimizing
the noise and vibrations the operator is exposed
to during machine use.
Improving acoustic performance
Powertrain radiation, muffler noise, rattle and the acoustic
behavior of seals, grommets and instrumentation
panels can affect both the overall acoustic performance
of construction equipment and the end user's perception.
Virtual prototyping helps understand noise contributors
faster than physical tests, enabling engineers to
assess alternative designs, to reduce design iterations to
meet regulations or to propose efficient countermeasures
- even if the product is already in the field.
When looking at exterior noise for construction
equipment, virtual prototyping enables the prediction
of sound power levels according to regulations including
ISO 6395. Using different modeling techniques
such as boundary element method (BEM), ray tracing
or statistical energy analysis (SEA), different noise
control treatments can be virtually tested to reach the
desired acoustic performance, while saving time and
cutting additional costs.
In addition, interior noise is closely connected to
operator safety and comfort, and it's an important
brand differentiator for heavy machinery OEMs.
Interior noise can be addressed by statistical simulation
methods like SEA to efficiently achieve highTRUCK
& OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
ALL IMAGES: ESI GROUP
Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - October 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - October 2021
