Simulation-Driven Design: Performance, Sustainability & Affordability

Simulation is no longer just a validation tool. Many organizations-from global entities to the smallest SMEs-are already benefiting greatly from adopting a simulation-driven design approach. Yet, some remain unconvinced due to embedded company culture, or a belief that it is too expensive, too complicated, inaccurate, or just not needed.

Let's take some examples of why a design engineer might not simulate a bracket and follow-up questions that should be asked.

And here's what they are missing:

Today's innovative products achieve rapid time to market when they are designed for:

• Performance: Ensuring optimal strength, weight, speed, and quality.
• Sustainability: Adopting new materials and processes, prioritizing material efficiency, emphasizing design for repairability, and encouraging reuse and recycling.
• Affordability: Managing product costs, ongoing maintenance, warranty coverage, and ease of repair.

By effectively balancing these often conflicting requirements from the earliest stages of the design process, Altair's simulation-driven design solution has product design engineers in mind. This ideal solution provides accessible simulation tools and workflows that enable users to explore the performance and manufacturability of designs without requiring specialized expertise, such as the knowledge of an FEA analyst. By identifying and resolving potential issues early, it reduces the time needed for testing and prototyping before moving onto the factory floor.

Going back to that bracket: Here's an example of what you can do with Altair's fully integrated simulation driven-design solution.

An example of a typical optimization workflow, involving the consideration of manufacturing methods to produce a final part.

Performance

• By connecting design, simulation, and manufacturing all in one tool, errors and oversights can be removed by "joined-up-thinking" from design concept to validated product. Engineers can exploit this design freedom to evaluate and optimize strength, stiffness, weight performance, manufacturability and quality, and cost simultaneously, making it faster to assess true feasibility.
• Combining common CAD design features, augmented by new-generation implicit design tools, brings speed, scalability, and robustness to implicit modelling, a technique commonly used for complex geometries but without meshing limitations.

Explore Altair® Inspire™ Mold, a modern integrated approach to streamlining design for manufacturing (DfM) of injection molded componenets, for designers and product engineers.

Sustainability

• High on every organization's wish list is finding ways to reduce their carbon footprint and comply with increasingly stringent climate-related regulations. As new, "greener" materials become available from suppliers, their characteristics may differ from those materials they are destined to replace that have been used for years and supported by a huge body of know-how. Here, a trusted source of data becomes crucial to a successful design.
• The Altair® Material Data Center™ (AMDC), conceived to be a comprehensive, single source of material data across the Altair® HyperWorks® platform, is ever expanding with the notable recent addition of SABIC's range of advanced polymer materials. Available directly within Inspire Mold for accurate injection molding simulations, SABIC enhances design-to-manufacturing workflows with trusted, industry-grade material data.
• More than just a data depository; AMDC proprietary material data, augmented by physical testing, material modelling, and AI predictions, not only expands material characterization to strengthen confidence in simulation results, but empowers engineers with accurate, validated data to optimize performance.

Affordability

• Simulation-driven design offers design optimization to meet performance requirements while reducing material usage, waste, and subsequent recycling. Integrated with manufacturing process simulation, design engineers can reduce prototyping, physical testing, and avoid expensive tooling rework changes later.
• Simulation of the working environment-thermal effects, vibrations, etc.-can assist in defining maintenance intervals and predicting premature failures to reduce recalls and warranty claims, whereas motion simulations can aid accessibility for maintenance. Who wants to disassemble the entire front end of their car to change the headlight bulb?

Can we talk about AI?

Seen as something between the ruination of the working human and the solver of all human problems, when it comes to AI within simulation-driven design for manufacturing, the claims are more substantiated.

• AI and machine learning (ML) are already active in new material development by predicting particular properties and uses to meet today's demands, e.g. battery materials, sustainable polymers. Likewise, AI/ML enables prediction of material properties to "fill the gaps" from conventional testing standards.
• Once the rules are set out, exploring design alternatives with AI can be faster and provide novel solutions. Likewise, manufacturing process parameters can be optimized and quality assured.
• Overall, AI is another tool in the product engineer's toolbox that can reduce engineering effort, speed up decision-making, and drive sustainable designs.

To know more about Altair's comprehensive simulation-driven design tools:

• Read Guide to Simulation-driven Design: From Geometry Modeling to Manufacturing Simulation
• Meet us at K 2025, the international trade fair for innovations in the plastics and rubber industry, taking place October 8-15, 2025 in Dusseldorf, Germany. SABIC will be at K 2025 in Hall 6 Booth D42, Siemens will be in Hall 3 Booth D16.