Vehicle design and analysis is managed between several members of a team. These team environments typically require individual engineers to be responsible for designing their own part – their own portion of the global loads FEM (GFEM).
This comes with several challenges, including:
-
Ensuring consistency in materials, analysis assumptions, etc. between engineers.
-
Keeping the global loads consistent with sizing results (FEA Iterations).
HyperX automates the deployment and management of this workflow with the Enterprise Database Manager, outlined in the diagram.
The Enterprise Workflow starts with a Company Database – with specifically defined Defaults, Materials, and Analysis Methods – and splits by aircraft section into individual Engineer Databases for sizing, that get rolled up back to the Group Database.
Starting with a HyperX Company Database Template a Project Database is made. The Project Database inherits the company Materials, Fasteners, Laminate Families, selected Analysis Methods, and company Analysis Plugins.
From the Project Database, the Project Group Lead imports the GFEM and specifies FEA Static and Fatigue Loads and Load Factors. Within this Database, the Enterprise tool is then used to separate it into individual Engineer Databases.
The HyperX Enterprise utility provides the Project Group Lead with options regarding how to split the GFEM into individual Databases, all of which inherit the Group Database settings and data. Moreover, the Enterprise utility allows the lead to specify data permissions: they can place certain locks on data or authorize engineers to edit with changed-data tracking so that the Sizing and Analysis results cannot be rolled back into the Group Database without the lead’s awareness and approval. Reports are made during the ‘roll back’ process for the Group Lead that identify data which has been potentially improperly modified.
Note
This workflow allows each engineer to independently Size their Structure within their own Database while still respecting program-level data and requirements.
Once all Structures have been Sized and the results from each Engineer’s Database are rolled back into the Group Database, an updated internal loads GFEM incorporating these results can be exported. At this time the GFEM can be rerun to generate loads paths consistent with the latest Sizing results. This process can be repeated until GFEM loads converge and all parts are sufficiently sized - in a significantly shortened schedule!
The "Company Database" is a Database Template that contains all of the company-or-program-specific Material systems, analysis assumptions, design criteria, etc. This is the type of data that needs to be standardized and passed to any engineer Analyzing or Sizing a part of the vehicle. The Enterprise Database Manager ensures these settings are "pushed" to the Group and Engineer Databased for consistency.
The "Group Database" - thought of as the 'parent' Database - is where the master GFEM is imported. This is also where the Enterprise Database Manager will be operated from.
Here, each individual part of the GFEM is separated into Structures. The Enterprise Manager will automatically create Engineer Databases for each of these Structures. When engineers have Sized the parts, the Enterprise Manager and automatically "roll" the results from Engineer Databases into the Group Database. GFEM FEA iterations happen from the Group Database to ensure loads correspond with the latest Sizings.
The "Engineer Databases" will be automatically generated and only contain the parts (Structures) that are assigned to them. All Sizing and Analysis for a part occurs in the Engineer Database. When Sizing is finished, the Enterprise Manager will automatically roll results into the Group Database.
To 'create' Engineer Databases, create a line item on the form for each Structure or combination of Structures that should be in an individual Database. Engineer Databases maintain their link to the GFEM. While FEA iterations on the GFEM can only happen in the Group Database, FEA iterations can be done on a part-level in Engineer Databases to capture local load distribution.
The Enterprise Manager can automatically set Materials and settings from the Company Database as "Read Only" in Engineer Databases. Additional parts (i.e. Structures) can be added to "Read Only" mode to provide context but not interfere with other Sizing efforts.