Dispersed Team Nabs $1 Million Prize in DARPA FANG Challenge
It’s no surprise that the winner of the $1 million prize in DARPA’s Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG) mobility/drivetrain challenge was a three-person team with members dispersed in Ohio, Texas, and California.
The challenge, the first of which kicked off in January, aims to spark innovation around the design of the vehicle, not only from inside traditional defense industry circles, but also from the outside world. Equally important to the competition, however, was putting a new genre of development tools to the test in the hopes of significantly compressing the design-to-production cycle of complex defense systems, according to Army Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Continue reading
Leave a comment
Dassault Systemes Snatches Up FE-Design, Gets into the Optimization Craze
FE-DESIGN GmbH, a German company with a product line named after a famous Italian opera, is going to become part of Dassault Systemes (DS), a French 3D software giant.
Today, in a transaction of undisclosed amount, DS acquired the Germany software maker known for its optimization packages: TOSCA Fluid and TOSCA Structure. DS already has a robust collection of simulation products, marketed under the SIMULIA brand. By acquiring FE-DESIGN, DS is boosting its current simulation offerings with the optimization technology in FE-DESIGN’s TOSCA products. Continue reading
SmartGeometry 2013: Uncertainty Brings Out the Best in Generative Design
SmartGeometry Conference (SG), the annual gathering organized by SmartGeometry Group, is now in its 12th year, with a solid history to prove its international appeal. But even long-time SG alumni are often at a loss for words when pressed to describe the event.
“What is SmartGeometry? I don’t actually have a straight answer to that. It’s a question that we ask ourselves many times,” said Xavier de Kestelier, one of the SG directors, during his opening speech this year (SG2013, The Bartlett: UCL, London, April 15-20). It’s not a scholarly event where professors get up and read papers, hiding behind tall lecterns and impenetrable academic terms. It’s not an industry event where people trade war stories and network over free-flowing wine and beer. “SG is one of the events where we get practice and academia to come to the same event and interact,” said Kestelier. “I never talk about SG conference; I always talk about SG workshop/conference, because that workshop is very important, probably the most important thing.” Continue reading
An Astronaut to Drop in on MSC Software User Conference
As part of Expedition 17, NASA astronaut Gregory Chamitoff once spent 198 days in space. That was in 2008. Next week, Chamitoff is scheduled to land in Irvine, California, as one of the keynote speakers at MSC Software‘s annual user conference. Shamitoff’s keynote will be followed by Dominic Gallello, MSC Software’s president and CEO, who plans to outline simulation trends past and present. Continue reading
CFD for Design Engineers: Dissecting the Results
Setting up simulation jobs that accurately reproduce real-world phenomenons — how an engine heats up during operation or how fluid flows inside a catheter — takes skill and experience. So is interpreting the FEA (finite element analysis) results. The second phase is crucial in making intelligent deductions about how to improve the design.
About a month ago, with ANSYS‘ help, I put together a video covering the basic setup of a CFD job. For simplicity, ANSYS’ senior product manager Gilles Eggenspieler and I decided to focus on a very straightforward scenario: the water pressure inside a valve during close and open operations. The valve is installed at an angle, making it difficult to foresee the water’s behavior or pressure. Continue reading
