Toyota significantly reduces simulation time with automated CFD pre-processing

Creating detailed, simulation-friendly CFD models for automotive applications is not an easy task and requires a lot of manual work. This is a challenge faced by every OEM, and Toyota Motor Europe wanted to find a solution to this problem and significantly shorten the overall design cycle. In the end, they completely eliminated the previous manual process through an innovative CFD pre-processing workflow.

Toyota's watertight geometric surface can automatically create sealing patches

Accurately predicting the vehicle's exterior aerodynamics, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning effects requires setting up a simulation domain that includes a large number of components in CAD format. The main difficulty in dealing with so many components is creating the "watertight surfaces" that are required for proper CFD analysis with a finite volume solver. To do this, gaps need to be filled, surfaces that are not in contact with the fluid need to be eliminated, and interference issues need to be resolved before generating the surface and volume meshes. These tasks are usually done manually before using pre-processing software with CAD processing and meshing capabilities, which is labor-intensive and extremely time-consuming.

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Automated CFD pre-processing workflow reduces our total lead time by 91% and man-hours by 97%

At Toyota Motor Europe, we have chosen Cadence Omnis Autoseal and Omnis Hexpress as our standard workflow for CFD pre-processing. This has reduced our total lead time and man-hours by 91% and 97% respectively, while providing high-quality meshes and excellent layer coverage. Thanks to the high degree of automation and standardization, we can easily generate meshes from CAD models without long learning curves.

——Antoine Delacroix

Vehicle Performance Engineering R&D Manager, Toyota Motor Europe NV/SA

In a webinar hosted by Cadence, Antoine Delacroix, R&D manager of Toyota Vehicle Performance Engineering, explained in detail how they established an automated pre-processing workflow that combines the powerful gap-filling capabilities of Cadence Omnis AutoSeal with the Omnis Hexpress “body-to-mesh” approach to completely eliminate manual work in the process. This process enables them to generate runnable models in a split second with little to no manual intervention, greatly reducing simulation cycle times.

It is recommended to watch in a WIFI environment and pay attention to adjusting the volume

Omnis software technology and workflow are now integrated into the Cadence Fidelity CFD software platform, a comprehensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solution for a variety of industries, including automotive, turbomachinery, marine, aerospace, etc.

Fidelity CFD introduces a new generation of fluid solvers that provide high-order numerical formats, scale-resolved simulations, and massive hardware acceleration capabilities to help improve simulation performance and reduce development cycles while ensuring accuracy.