SIMULIA Resource Center

The DWH oil spill was the largest offshore oil spill in United States history. A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of the Departments of the Interior (DOI) and Homeland Security (DHS) was charged with investigating the explosion, loss of life, and blowout associated with the DWH drilling rig. Det Norske Veritas (U.S.A.), Inc. (DNV GL) was retained to perform a forensic investigation into the technical root causes of the inability of the blowout preventer to kill the well. This paper describes the overall investigative process and the specific role that finite element analysis and simulation played in the forensic investigation.

Customer Papers

The objective of this study was to develop a test method, using typical mechanical testing equipment, which would match the musculoskeletal loads on the calcaneus bone during gait. This study used the AnyBody Modeling System Foot Model to determine muscle, ligament, and joint contact forces during gait. Abaqus input files were created which contained all loads in the model as a function of gait. ScanIP was used to process the tessellated calcaneus, model a Sanders IIb fracture pattern, and generate an Abaqus mesh. The DePuy Synthes 3.5mm Locking Calcaneal Plate and corresponding screws were assembled to the calcaneus in Abaqus/CAE. The model was run using the Abaqus/Standard implicit solver.

Customer Papers

Nitinol medical device implants made from laser cut tubing (i.e. stents, valve structures, etc...) often require a fatigue assessment, which makes determining the material fatigue properties necessary. Towards the goal of determining the strain based endurance limit of medical grade super-elastic Nitinol tubing, a coupon was designed and evaluated via FEA using Abaqus software, produced via laser cutting, shape setting, and electro-polishing processes, and then fatigue tested to 10 million cycles. Extensive use of FEA was made to both design the coupon, but also to determine the strain versus alternating displacement amplitude for the coupon. Error due to dimensional tolerances was also quantified with FEA.

Customer Papers

CAE has been an important tool in the process of construction and off-highway vehicles product development. Testing is performed on the cab structure to achieve the static loading criteria under ROPS and dynamic loading criteria under FOPS based on standards like ISO 3471. Finite element modeling, without taking into account the lost stiffness due to developed crack, over predicts the load carrying capability of the structure. Abaqus offers a general framework for material failure modeling to account for the degradation of stiffness under developed crack. The present work uses the Abaqus progressive damage and failure modeling technique to validate the test with FEA. The results of these simulations show good correlation at the failure location as observed during the Testing.

Customer Papers

This paper summarizes how Baker Hughes uses FEA based virtual simulations using Abaqus to drive the product designs for wellbore constructions tools used in oil and gas industry in the early design phase. Next generation wellbore constructions tools such as expandable liner hangers, packers, solid expandables and setting tools designs in multiple sizes are driven using virtual simulations to meet the desired performance requirements. Virtual simulation is tightly integrated in all the PDM phases of design and development from feasibility study to product launch. Using virtual simulations in the front end of the design cycle during feasibility studies or concept development helped to capture most of the design failure modes and design limitations with improved product performance before building costly prototypes.

Customer Papers

This paper explores the problem of a multi-body articulating mannequin carried on a flexible linear motion base stage with sliding contact to examine the benefits of a single all-FEM approach. The sliding contact in the linear stage cannot be well represented by a modal body but has been modeled in Abaqus to simulate the response of this complex dynamic system. A detailed description of the model is included, along with specific design recommendations to enable this modeling approach to work in a highly dynamic design environment.

Customer Papers

Fluid Machinery & Systems Company, Ebara Corporation, is a turbomachinery manufacturing business group dealing with various types of pumps, compressors and turbines. The mission of our division is the development of fundamental technologies and the engineering support works for planning/developing/designing our products by using a wide variety of simulation applications such as computational fluid dynamics, structural analysis, vibration analysis, numerical optimization, etc... The engineering staffs had been performing their simulation works with their own way and the simulation & engineering know-how had not been fully shared.

Customer Papers

Numerical prediction of wind turbine pose number of challenges such as the flow is fully turbulent, presence of fluid boundary layer and long and slender blade with complex distribution of composite material properties. Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) simulations are essential for accurate prediction of structural forces. 3 dimensional single blade composite models is designed using CATIA Composite Design workbench. Simulation is carried out using fully coupled FSI procedure from SIMULIA Fluid Scenario Creation workbench to predict safety of composite blade for two load cases. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of 3DEXPERIENCE platform to carry out integrated flow and composite structural simulations for wind turbine blade application.

Customer Papers

In the oilfield, market segments are driven by the next profound “unreachable” payzone. In the last few decades, we have gone through various design levels attempting to reach the operators latest requests. The common term to designate these extreme conditions is High Pressure/High Temperature (HP/HT). Under the HP moniker, there are multiple Tiers: Tier 1 up to 15,000 psi, Tier 2 up to 20,000 psi, Tier 3 up to 30,000 psi, and Tier 4 beyond 35,000 psi. BHI currently has a Liner Top Packer that covers Tier 1 rated for 15,000 psi. This paper will show the path we took with Isight and Abaqus to conceptually achieve higher Tiers for a Liner Top Packer, and will show how we “jumped the iteration train” with surprising results.

Customer Papers

Freudenberg Oil & Gas Technologies (FO>) in Port Talbot, UK, provides complex metal to metal sealing solutions for the oil & gas and energy industries. FO> is supplying two of its largest Optima subsea connectors for use just inside the Arctic Circle. These will be the deepest of their kind anywhere in the world. The FEA simulation results of the Optima will be used to support experimental test data obtained during factory trials, prequalifying these components to the most extreme subsea loading conditions.

Customer Papers

A detailed Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was carried out to evaluate the seal and the initial conclusion was that it required complete re-design. In this work, analysis and interpretation was used to establish the modelling method for the seal. The FEA model that was developed for seal optimisation contained elasto-plastic material response, frictional contact modelling, advanced pressure field application and thermal modelling. To maintain sealing contact pressure, the seal has to overcome differential radial movement between the vessel and the end cap during pressure loading. The optimisation process developed a novel profiled seal contact that reduced contact stresses by 48%, eliminating seat damage occurring during pressure loadings.

Customer Papers

The importance of the rule of simulation at a conceptual design stage is pointed out recently. The methodology using multi-objective design optimization and data mining, which is called MODE (Multi-Objective Design Exploration), is helpful to find out design knowledge. In this study, we show that the design knowledge found by MODE is fruitful for decision making at a conceptual design stage of real world example i.e. contour design of a fuel efficient tire. Our procedure of MODE consists of nonlinear FEA to predict tire performance, evolutional computation to get desirable solutions including Pareto solution, and data mining to find out design knowledge. SOM (Self-Organizing Map) and decision tree are used to obtain appropriate design variables and their threshold.

Customer Papers