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Summary

FVA GmbH develops analysis and simulation software for drive technology. They realized that to truly succeed in the marketplace, they needed to add more functionality to their solution, and this additional functionality depended on having accurate 3D modeling.

Spatial’s high quality 3D solutions allow FVA to model solid bodies with just a few lines of code, provide access to powerful Boolean operations, power fast meshing needed for FEA, and enable best-in-class CAD interoperability. By centering their solution around the ACIS 3D modeling kernel, FVA’s software solution gained access to a rich API to enable interaction with precise 3D models.

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The Company

Founded in 2010, FVA GmbH is a joint venture between FVA e.V. (Forschungsvereinigung Antriebstechnik, the Research Association for Drive Technology) and GzF (Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Maschinenbaues mbH, the Association for the Promotion of Mechanical Engineering) created to develop analysis and simulation software for drive technology, along with associated professional services and support.

FVA’s solutions serve the entire driveline industry (automotive, industrial, aviation, marine, rail, and wind) with software capable of highly sophisticated and detailed simulation of the system behavior of virtual gearboxes and detailed analysis of

individual driveline/gearbox components. Whether used in the early stages of design or to verify existing gearboxes, FVA’s software package enables customers to visualize complex gearboxes in 3D while modeling system behavior, such as deformations and kinematics.

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The Challenge

Adding More 3D Modeling Functionality for Analysis

An accurate representation of driveline system behavior is essential for detailed analysis of its performance, and the behavior of the system depends on accurate physical modeling of the components. 

Initially, FVA chose the route of an in-house solution to generate a surface model of the individual components as opposed to modeling the solids geometrically. While this approach gave FVA total control over the modeling solution and proved initially successful, limitations to this approach soon became apparent:

  • Inability to perform Boolean operations on driveline components — an essential function when modeling planetary gear systems and as a preparatory step prior to Meshing.
  • Finite element analysis (FEA) was not possible as it requires generating a detailed mesh from a solid 3D model.
  • Calculating mass or volume (for example, the volume of lubricant) of a driveline was difficult.
  • Anytime a new routine was needed for working with the model, FVA needed to spend precious engineering time to create the new routine needed downstream for their analysis software.
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The Solution

Moving to Proven 3D Modeler Solutions

As the limitations with the FVA’s in-house physical modeling solution became apparent, the company was faced with the classic make-versus-buy decision — should the company invest more time and resources into improving their own modeling solution, or look to an outside solution that would allow the company to focus on its core competencies.

FVA realized that to truly succeed in the marketplace, they needed to add more functionality to their solution, and this additional functionality depended on having accurate 3D modeling. With time to market also being a key concern, FVA decided to partner with Spatial and gain access to proven 3D modeling solutions with a 30 plus year track record.

By centering their solution around the ACIS 3D modeling kernel, FVA’s software solution gained access to a rich API to enable interaction with precise 3D models. Now FVA’s solution could easily perform complex Boolean operations needed for

analyzing planetary gearing systems or to determine the volume of oil in a transmission.

For over 30 years, 3D ACIS Modeler has led the 3D modeling kernel market, delivering flexible solutions that enable manufacturing, engineering, and design application providers to meet the demand for high-quality 3D applications in less time and with lower development costs.

FVA’s partnership with Spatial gave the company access to 3D InterOp — the gold standard for 3D CAD data translation. By integrating 3D InterOp into FVA-Workbench, users could now perform imports and exports to/from various native CAD formats with a single click.

Rather than spend time developing 3D visualization routines, FVA turned to HOOPS Visualize to create interactive 3D renderings to be used within the FVA-Workbench GUI and animations for reporting.

The decision to employ 3D Precise Mesh came only after an extensive analysis of available meshing solution, where the Spatial mesher came out on top regarding the quality of the results.

The Results

Feature-Rich Modeling and Analysis Package

The result of this collaboration between the FVA and Spatial development teams has resulted in a feature-rich and robust driveline modeling and analysis package. With the move to Spatial SDKs, FVA has developed a user-friendly GUI for modeling even the most complex gearbox designs, supported by powerful 3D visualization capabilities:

  • The ACIS API allows FVA to model solid bodies with just a few lines of code, plus provide access to powerful Boolean operations.

  • 3D Precise Mesh powers the fast meshing needed for FEA.

  • 3D InterOp enables best-in-class CAD interoperability.

The result of this integration is that FVA’s customers can focus on gear analysis while the FVA-Workbench, enhanced with Spatial SDKs, takes care of the cumbersome and time-consuming geometry details. Analysis is now extended by the ability to generate FEM bodies, with all the necessary steps needed for detailed driveline analysis being performed from within the FVA-Workbench:

  • Import of CAD geometries in various native formats
  • Assembling of CAD bodies relative to the gearbox
  • Modifications to CAD bodies
  • Automatic geometry simplification and meshing of CAD bodies
  • Semi-automatic setting of boundary conditions
  • Enabling of fast and reliable combinations of analytical models with FEM

Key Insights

Spatial’s SDKs are industry-leading for a reason.
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Solutions

In working with Spatial, FVA can now deliver high-performance software with powerful 3D visualization ahead of its competition. In turn, FVA’s customers are able to develop prototypes faster and more efficiently, while easily integrating FVA-Workbench into their workflow.