Virtual product design

SOLIDWORKS^® with Intercad turns design
into a dream

Virtual product design is all about designing a product using virtual methods mainly digital without any need of building a physical prototype to validate the form, fit, function and manufacturability of a product.

Computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), reverse engineering (RE), design for X (DFx) and knowledge-based engineering (KBE) are some of the major technologies used to accomplish virtual product design.

These days, a large number of products are being developed with the use of virtual prototypes in which engineering simulation software is used to predict performance prior to constructing physical prototypes.
Engineers can quickly explore the performance of thousands of design alternatives without investing the time and money required to build physical prototypes.

The ability to explore a wide range of design alternatives leads to improvements in performance and design quality, yet the time required to bring the product to market is reduced substantially because virtual prototypes can be produced much faster than physical prototypes.

During the design process engineers are required to make many judgments and decisions on design. Peer review and good engineering judgment can help with the decisions, but you may never truly know if you have met the required criteria until you physically make some. Over engineering is often used to compensate for unknowns and can result in more expensive and complex products.

Therefore by creating virtual prototypes at an early stage it can help show how the product will behave in the real world, provide confidence to the engineer to move forward, enable early product improvements through optimisation and give tools to help review the model with other interested parties.

Early availability of such physically realistic virtual prototypes allows testing and performance confirmation to take place as design decisions are made; enabling the acceleration of the design.

The benefits include reduced costs in both design and manufacturing as physical prototyping and testing is dramatically reduced/eliminated and lean but robust manufacturing processes are selected.

The research firm Aberdeen Group has found that best-in-class manufacturers that make extensive use of simulation early in the design process hit revenue, cost, and launch date and quality targets for 86% or more of their products.

Best-in-class manufacturers of the most complex products get to market 158 days earlier with $USD1.9 million lower costs than all other manufacturers. Best-in-class manufacturers of the simplest products get to market 21 days earlier with $USD21000 fewer product development costs.

Extensive use of simulation early in the design process gives engineers better insight into design decisions, enabling them to confidently move forward with better designs. In turn shorter development times, lower costs, increased revenue and better quality products with known performance can be achieved.

The Intercad Process

SOLIDWORKS Simulation Ensure product quality and performance before manufacture
> Carry out a wide range of tests to determine your product performance during the design phase
> Evaluate design alternatives to obtain a robust design
> Minimise prototyping cost by ‘getting it right first time’
> Determine motor or actuator requirements and product stresses and deformations

SOLIDWORKS Motion Ensure product quality and performance before manufacture
> Carry out a wide range of tests to determine your product performance during the design phase
> Evaluate design alternatives to obtain a robust design
> Minimise prototyping cost by ‘getting it right first time’
> Determine motor or actuator requirements and product stresses and deformations

SOLIDWORKS Simulation Simulate fluid flow, heat transfer, and fluid forces
> Inspect and optimise complex flows
> Reduce the risk of overheating
> Optimise the thermal performance of your PCBs and electronic components
> Predict and optimise airflow and comfort parameters

SOLIDWORKS Sustainability Perform simple environmental assessments
> Capture design and production assumptions for push-button analysis within the familiar SolidWorks environment
> Automatically generate environmental reports
> Perform a screening-level Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) powered by the industry-leading GaBi environmental database

If you would like to know about how virtual product design and virtual prototyping can streamline your product lifecycle process, submit your enquiry today.

Download our brochure.