People often want to know ‘what is Variational Technology?’ Is it a mathematician's hobby? Is it black magic? Is it a new optimization method? Is it Design Of Experiments renamed by some marketeer? Why do I need to know? Well... it is not a hobby, but for us at ANSYS, it is certainly a passion. It's not black magic. Let's answer the last three questions in more detail. Everybody knows about parametric CAD models. You create shapes, then add dimensions and constraints to them and build a full product based on these parametric descriptions. When you change one dimension, the CAD system hopefully updates the geometry and you have your new model. Just imagine you can do the same with your CAE tool: you build your model once, define the parameters, let the solver run a single solution and then, if you interactively change the value of your parameters, you immediately get new updated results. Variational Technology is actually the natural evolution of parametric CAD. Variational Technology is being used in the mainstream. Now to answer the other questions…..

Variational Technology is not a new optimization method.

Generally speaking, solving an optimization problem leads to solving a mathematical problem taking into account objective criteria (mass, stresses…). The result is often a single specific value. If the result does not meet all industrial requirements, the user has to repeat the whole process. Moreover, since one deals with mathematical criteria, it is difficult to take into account subjective criteria such as aesthetics or industrial constraints such as manufacturing. Finally, the obtained discrete value may not be manufacturable (thickness is 1.254 where suppliers can only provide 1.2 or 1.3…). The beauty and strength of Variational Technology is to consider optimization as a pure post-processing task. The single run gives the user a results database that can be interactively investigated. One can modify the optimization problem (modifying or adding constraints or even changing the target!) and interactively get the new "best" result. Moreover, the whole space is available. So the user has a full knowledge of the variations around this optimized result. Therefore, it is possible to look at specific discrete values taking into account subjective criteria.

Variational Technology is just the next evolutionary step after Design of Experiment.

Variational Technology is actually a great speed up of DOE with the guarantee of accurate results. More important, you get all the results for all possible parameter combinations on the full model, not only single values.

Why should I use Variational Technology?

We can hardly be neutral to this. Of course you need it. But see why our customers use it:

Through the use of DesignXplorer VT, VALEO can understand the parametric interactions on the results and the sensitivity of the results. This in depth understanding is particularly helpful in the preliminary design phase. "We need to consistently optimize our products to reduce our costs and to be dramatically innovative in our competitive market space" said Gilles BESOMBES, Manager of CAE Development at the Climate Control Branch of Valeo. "As technology becomes more and more sophisticated, we need to find the optimal products so that we can remain competitive even with increased pricing pressure. Moreover, to remain in a leadership position, we must find new innovative design alternatives for our customers. This is where DesignXplorer VT can help us in our process to propose to the market more efficient and innovative products".

TURBOMECA has chosen ANSYS DesignXplorer VT as a means to reduce time to market and improve quality. To earn new business in an increasingly competitive marketplace, Turbomeca needs to reduce the amount of time it requires to create a design. Here DesignXplorer VT can directly assist Turbomeca by providing more design insight, faster. Moreover, it is more and more necessary to perform Robust Design for both new products and existing products. Typically the variability of a material's Young's modulus leads to frequency variations. DesignXplorer VT is  adapted for this application, providing  directly frequency variations due to modulus variations in a minimal amount of time. Turbomeca's next step in becoming more competitive will be to test the possibility to couple ANSYS ParaMesh and ANSYS DesignXplorer VT to take into account shape variations due to manufacturing tool wear.

Benefits

Variational Technology helps you:

• Get all design alternatives in a single analysis which leads to Time and Cost Savings.

DELPHI Research Labs, FCI U.S.A. Inc., AUTOLIV Electronics America, Academy of Electronics of MII, BELL Helicopter Textron Inc., GUANGXI YUCHAI Machinery CO., COPELAND Corporation, TURBOMECA, VALEO, GENERAL ELECTRIC CR&D, SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD, XTRAC LTD, FAIRCHILD Semiconductor, CHICAGO BRIDGE & IRON COMPANY, OXFORD Instruments, WUHAN Marine Diesel Engine Research Institute, DUPONT, BELCAN Corporation, ...