This post was taken from Altair Enlighten and contributed by my colleague, Giuseppe Resta, Manager, Global Automotive at Altair Engineering.

It doesn’t seem so long ago that passenger safety and vehicle crashworthiness were the battleground where automakers differentiated their products. Now, as many OEMs have created product development systems that rely on a CAE-driven strategy to deliver excellent passive safety performance, it appears to have taken a backseat to miles-per-gallon. Almost every car commercial touts greater fuel efficiency and seeks to validate the manufacturer’s environmental credentials.

Both safety and gas mileage advances have been pushed by regulation and pulled by consumer demand. Now that the United States has set the 54.5 mpg Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standard for 2025 and lower CO₂ emissions have been mandated in Europe, we are entering a new era of increased challenge that could lead to significant change in the way cars are designed and constructed. OEMs and suppliers are reviewing every component and considering the technologies available to meet these new demanding standards, including investment in engineered plastic and carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) that offer high stiffness-to-weight and strength-to-weight ratios.

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It gives me great pleasure to re-start up the Altair HPC blog.  Didn’t know we had a blog dedicated to the HPC space before?  I don’t blame you — we’ve mostly posted product announcements — not really very blog-y.  The PBS Works product management team hopes to change that, and provide a place where you can get a more personal view from us.  Hear our view of HPC in general, see our vision of HPC products and solutions, learn  our favorite tips and tricks for using our software, but most importantly, simply get to know us a little better.

Before getting started, let me give you a little insight into the PBS Works product management team:

Bill Nitzberg (me) — easily recognizable at conferences by his suspenders and aloha shirt…

Dan Stephenson — jumped out of airplanes in his previous line of work…

Sam Goosen — has been known to go skiing from time to time…

Dario Dorella — recently discovered that jetlag and marathons don’t mix…

Please let us know what you think of the new format… although you might wait for a few more posts .

Last month, Design News wrote an article, Next-Generation VLC Improves on XPRIZE-Winning Design, covering the momentum and development of the Edison2 Very Light Car.

Altair ProductDesign’s Chief Operating Officer, Mike Heskitt, is quoted stating, “Altair’s core belief is that design should be inspired by physics, using simulation to drive design, and CAD as the tools to document and capture the design.” Read More

My colleague, Mike Heskitt, Chief Operating Officer at Altair ProductDesign submitted the following blog post.

It’s good to see another example of the transportation industry adopting the RIGHT hybrid powertrain for a specific need and vehicle type. A recent article in Fleet Owner reports that UPS has purchased 40 hydraulic hybrid delivery vans partially funded through the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Clean Cities program.

For heavy vehicles with more stop-and-go driving than steady-state drive cycles, we’ve seen that hydraulic hybrids have a clear advantage over electric hybrids in relation to power recovery efficiency and lifecycle cost. Read More

I was chatting recently with fellow Altair blogger Bob Yancey about the use of the word composites. Yancey will often write about the application of high-end laminate constructions for aerospace applications. While this is a similar type of composite to those used by our racecar customers, such as Dallara, most automotive composites are perhaps better described as engineered plastics. The engineered part of that name is important, as not all plastics are composites; that soda bottle you drank from earlier was just plastic.

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