Parametric Design at Grundfos Holding A/S

Agenda

General Where? -
Why? How?
presentation samples
Presenter
Jakob Møller
Lead Mechanical CAD Specialist, Group Technology and Innovation,
Architecture & Modularisation
15 years at Grundfos
Heading Grundfos Advanced CAD group
CAE, connecting analysis and CAD, SPDM system etc.
Product Development
Presenter
Lars Rosenvinge
Systems Consultant, IS Development Tools & Integration
Grundfos employee for the last ~5 years
External CATIA consultant in periods at Grundfos for 15 years
Migration from V4 to V5 / ENOVIA
Education of the first + 180 Grundfos users in both CATIA V5
and ENOVIA
Support, Methodologies, etc.
Working with CATIA since 1999
“General” CAD user / admin in a various systems since 1995
3 years as internal SolidWorks support and SolidWorks PDM admin
 Purpose

“WE PIONEER SOLUTIONS TO THE WORLD’S WATER AND CLIMATE

CHALLENGES AND IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR PEOPLE“

63Sales
14
Production
56 +19k
Countries Employees
Companies Companies
7

10%
One flood control pump can
empty an Olympic swimming
pool in three minutes
We make sure life-saving liquids are
processed with the greatest care
We make fresh water available to
millions of people every day
Parametric design at Grundfos Holding A/S

Grundfos Holding A/S has approximately 500 CATIA V5 / ENOVIA users, 300 of these
users are using CATIA as their main CAD system and on a very high level, they are
located all over the world.
Parametric design methodologies

Why are we doing that? - It takes a bit more effort to ensure the part structure etc. is
usable for the next steps in the process, but we all benefit from this in the end and all
data becomes easily accessible for everyone.
Who is doing that? - All new development projects and all users at Grundfos can learn
to utilize use the Virtual Product and belonging part design methodologies going
forward.
How are we doing that? - Nudging vs rules in CATIA V5 usage and our 10 main
statements for CATIA V5 parametric usage. It’s all about keeping the right
methodologies and not removing the user’s creativity.
Parametrized parts – usage

• Parameterized parts used in 2 main development parallel tracks

• The Virtual Product
• What we at Grundfos call Co-Simulation
• Downstream usage
• Rendering of products
• Grundfos product center
Automatic rendering – a small sample
Virtual Product
A Virtual Product is a Digital Representation of a Product
Family, able to virtually represent the geometry for all
variants on demand.

Design Tool
The Virtual Product enables the engineer to design in context
of the product where the component is to be used.
The Virtual Product controls the interfaces between the
components in the product ensuring quality of the interfaces are
not violated.

Reference Model
The Virtual Product is the reference model to be maintained
throughout the products lifetime. This enables downstream
usage of the 3D content as well as improving engineering
decisions e.g., cost out activities, creation of new product
variants.

Digital Twin
The Virtual Product is the geometrical representation of a
product family. Enabling with the use of simulation models to
create scenarios and make decisions based on simulations.
Virtual Product
Simulation Driven Development

Faster experiments –
Faster product development

Less physical prototyping –

Less cost

Better solutions –
Improved quality and
technical innovation
Co-Simulation the main process

Mechanical Cost

Hydraulics
Co-Simulation | Goals & Vision

DEFINE METHOD OF HOW TO CONDUCT

MULTIDOMAIN EVALUATIONS INCL. ROM’s
Mechanical Cost

MULTIDOMAIN SENSITIVE COMPONENTS ARE

DEVELOPED AND OPTIMIZED THROUGH THE METHOD Hydraulics

COST SAVINGS OR IMPROVEMENTS IDENTIFIED ON

ELEMENTS BY APPLYING THE METHOD
Co-Simulation
 CO-Simulation a small sample
By the way ☺ please
notice this area – we will
comeback to that later
Starting point – 10 statements

1. Use reference geometry

2. Naming conventions
3. Keep it simple.
4. Structure your specification tree
5. Limit the number of features on each level
6. Keep features in the right order
7. Aim references at highest possible level
8. Use the smart functions in CATIA
9. Downstream optimized structure
10. Parameters Relations Hierarchy
Parameters Relations Hierarchy

• Parameters usage
• Input parameter
• Reference parameter
• Derived Parameter
• Calculated Parameter
Samples from our design guide
Quote from our detailed description
Structure your specification tree

•
• Location / function build up
• Divide the part into functional areas, in both parameters and geometry
• Break your design into simple elements
• Bodies
• Geometrical set
• Parameters
Q-Checker profile samples – nudging in small scale
Some samples of parametric template usage
Mechanical Cost

Hydraulics
Blade – curve optimizer PEO + KWA

Auto optimized curve

Original curve
Blade – curve optimizer PEO + KWA

• Principle in this part

• Curvature change in the automatically generated curve, based on hydraulic input
• The change triggers a Reaction
• Reaction is used to get the best performance here, no change = no recalculation
• The reaction triggers a VB script, only intention by this script is to ensure the
Product Engineering Optimizer (PEO) is started and are doing the optimization on
the curve
• Then we measure the curvature vs. the average curvature and adjust parameters
accordingly.
• The next slide will show a simplified video of the PEO part
Simplified automatic curve optimizer
Some samples of Parametric design usage
Co-Simulation the main process

Mechanical Cost

Hydraulics
 One part = several build-in purposes
• Assembled part
• Blades
• Manufacturing
• Midplane
• Weldments simulation
• Ansys Mechanical
• Cost analysis
• Manufacturing
• Spring back
• Cost analysis Mechanical Cost

Hydraulics
• Hydraulic area, Water volume
• Ansys CFX for hydraulic
calculation and optimization
• Manufacturing simulation
Ansys Optislang - testing the parameter ranges

Optislang CATIA V5
Volute template sample
 Volute template sample

Base curves for the hydraulic surfaces – These curves are the base for the
Iterative calculated when specific rest of the construction.
parameters are changed
Volute template sample
 Base plate sample

Initial properties After a methodology loop

Designtabel driven Yes Yes

90 % Surface based features 95% solid based features

Features / elements 846 188 features

Average update time 25 seconds 11 seconds

File size 25 MB 2MB

A small sample of a changed area
+60 features
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