Saving time on scooter design

OverviewOverview

TestimonialTestimonial

ChallengeChallenge

To quickly analyze very complex geometry under test conditions, without having any information about the critical areas. Thus the model required a good level of detail everywhere, and the detailed features, such as rounds, could not be neglected.

SolutionSolution

Geometry was imported from Pro/E into the ANSYS Workbench, which detected a few geometric singularities due to CAD modeling errors. Only a couple of geometry updates allowed provided the fix. The powerful Workbench tet mesher quickly filled the geometry with about a million nodes and 600K elements. The iterative solver quickly found the solution in about 2 hours on a standard Intel workstation. The most stressed region, was extremely localized, so it was sub modeled and nonlinearly analyzed inside ANSYS, inserting plastic behavior to evaluate the maximum level of plastic deformation.

BenefitsBenefitsEngineering time saving and enhanced productivity:

• Only few days are now needed to perform a complete test-bench simulation of very complex assemblies

• Quickly identify the most stressed region and assess if the test will be passed

PIAGGIOPIAGGIO

ItalyItalyScooters and Motorcycles ManufacturerScooters and Motorcycles Manufacturer

Founded in 1884, PIAGGIO is now one of the world's leading manufacturers of motorized two-wheeled vehicles and the consolidated leader in this sector of the European market. The Group currently operates with the following brands, meeting the demand for mobility from every user profile: PIAGGIO (mopeds, scooters, light commercial vehicles and vehicles for individual mobility), GILERA (scooters and motorcycles); VESPA (scooters), DERBI (scooters and motorcycles), PUCH (scooters). Innovation, creativity and design are still the values that guide and identify PIAGGIO, as it faces the challenge of the global market and of meeting customer expectations.

ANSYS Workbench™

“I intensively use the Workbench environment and my overall opinion about it is definitively positive! ANSYS Workbench changed my every day way of working:

The mesher. It allows me to mesh an engine crankcase in a couple of hours, while it would have taken me about three weeks to do the same with a classic mesher. So now I let Workbench do its job, analyze the model and refine the mesh. I believe this is a much quicker procedure than ruining my days fixing a few thousand of surfaces coming from CAD.

The contact builder. You select the contact areas and the Workbench does all the remaining job. But the best feature is the graphical checking, so you'll be sure not to have missed any.

The CAD associativity. The geometry treatment is entirely done inside the CAD package (unless you have DesignModeler). Once you've modified the geometry, you update your Workbench model without losing all your previous work.

ANSYS still lies behind. You can insert sets of generic or APDL commands inside your Workbench model, to specify advanced features you want your model to have.”

Riccardo TestiCAE Senior Analyst

PIAGGIO, Italy

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