FVA GmbH

FVA GmbH is a joint venture between VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau e.V., the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association) and FVA (Forschungsvereinigung Antriebstechnik e.V., the Research Association for Drive Technology). Founded in 2010, FVA GmbH works hand-in-hand with top-level German research institutions and leading companies from the drive technology industry toward the active application of knowledge gained from FVA research projects in industrial practice. The company's core competencies are the development of calculation and simulation software for drive technology, preparation and transformation of established legacy code structures into modern software architectures, professional service and support, and technical seminars and conferences.

The FVA-Workbench is a manufacturer-neutral tool for the simulation and calculation of transmission systems. As product development cycles become shorter, powerful modeling approaches and calculation algorithms become increasingly important. The predominantly analytical approaches in the FVA-Workbench deliver fast and reliable solutions to all important issues related to drive technology. For bodies that cannot be accurately described analytically, the results are supplemented by suitable numerical methods. Abaqus FEA solver is integrated such that the user is also able to run a high-fidelity model including geometrical and material nonlinearities. The input data for Abaqus FEA solver is created automatically for the transmission model under investigation. It includes initial/boundary conditions and an optimized set of contact parameters for an efficient and robust solution of the gear rolling contact problem. Then, Abaqus FEA solver is run automatically from inside FVA-Workbench. Finally, an automatic post-processing procedure extracts gear relevant data from the Abaqus solution file which is then included in the reporting mechanism of the FVA-Workbench. The continuous process together with the intuitive modeling techniques in the FVA-Workbench guarantee simulation of consistent, valid, and manufacturable gears every time.