Virtual manufacturing at the customers’ service

CO-ENGINEERING WITH CUSTOMERS

In 2020-2021, the OCAS team conducted co-engineering projects with customers in a variety of market segments, including transportation, heating ventilation and air conditioning, household appliances and agricultural machinery. The main drivers are most often cost and weight reduction, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions and improved performance.

Identify customers’ needs

In a first stage, the team works together with the customer to identify the needs. Technical specifications and the requirements of the application – as well as constraints and challenges – are discussed. Based on this input, a first analysis is made and suggestions for improvement are offered, which can include a switch to other steel grades, adaptation of the sheet thickness, or even design changes. At this stage, very often Finite Element Analysis is used to study the behaviour of the application under pre-defined loading conditions.

Experimental testing & redesign

The recommendations and cost impact are discussed with the customer. Then, the team supports the customer through experimental testing and processing guidelines, as required. In a final stage, OCAS can assist testing the final design. A recent project with an agricultural machinery manufacturer focused on weight reduction to achieve better machine performance. Therefore, a redesign was made combining different components and avoiding welds. A higher-strength steel was proposed to comply with the requirements set. This solution was successfully tested by the customer.

GENERIC STEEL SOLUTIONS SPARK AND IGNITE

A Generic Steel Solution is a project meant to demonstrate – making use of OCAS’s know-how – the added value of the latest steel grades for a specific market segment. Typically an internal project, it can be communicated widely to spark ideas within the minds of our customers and to ignite collaboration on specific projects. In the past, such generic steel solutions have been developed for trailers, tippers, agricultural machinery, railroad rolling stock, and more. In 2020-2021, a generic steel solution was developed for waste containers. This

involves applications for bulk transport, where lifetime and low production cost are important, and thus can be a stand-in for a range of applications. This project also demonstrates that modernity, low cost and a small carbon footprint are not mutually exclusive.

Reverse engineering

The project started with the reverse engineering of a standard container. The performance of this reference geometry was evaluated using finite element modelling for a range of load cases representing everyday use. With this performance as a touchstone, the design of the container was optimised, including the geometry and the steel grades that were used, and utilising the latest genetic optimisation algorithms. The results are illuminating. The CO2 footprint was reduced by over 35%, while the total cost was reduced by up to 25%. At the same time, the mass of the container was cut by more than 40%, while the lifetime of the container is projected to be increased.

Our co-engineering assistance starts during the design phase of the product’s life, as we support our customers in developing durable and affordable products.

Katia Linck

The container project is a good illustration of the generic steel solution philosophy. Projects such as this allow OCAS to anticipate market needs and to position ourselves as a useful industrial partner. Moreover, these projects will spark collaboration with customers in the future.

John Vande Voorde