Revolutionizing bionic design process for B-pillar

Using the connected engineering approach, Hyundai was able to digitize the development process in one workflow. This is the basis for an automated development process that takes into account the engineering experience of the involved stakeholders and departments and makes it available in real time during the engineering process. This approach itself leads to a significant reduction of the development time and effort.

The automated development process starts with the definition of input data like materials, load cases, performance criteria, manufacturing constraints and process costs. Then, the design space is defined, and all data is processed to perform a topology optimization connecting to Altair Optistruct. Based on the structural load paths, integrated bionic design algorithms create lightweight structures, specifically tailored and parametrically optimized to withstand the critical load cases. The fully parametric CAD design inside Synera and the data connection to the external software is completely automatic. So, the result is not one design but using the parameter study (Design of Experiments, DoE) at the end of the process, hundreds of different variants are created automatically by changing the input data set and design parameters.

So, the Hyundai engineers were able to use this as a head start and conduct complex crash simulations only with the two most promising design variants. After receiving the crash results, final decisions and modifications of the best design variant can then be made by the developer with only a few minor parameter tweaks. While engineers would previously have to start from scratch every time a change was made, this automated approach requires no manual intervention in the design and not only results in a higher-performing part. The workflow handles the complexity of multiple optimization objectives with ease, resulting in a higher performing part and significantly reducing development time. Ultimately, Hyundai's partnership with Synera has set the stage for streamlined automotive design, illustrating the transformative potential of visual programming in engineering.