GRANTA MI 10 – enabling workflows, ensuring control of materials information

Out this month, GRANTA MI Version 10 offers engineering enterprises complete control over how they collect and apply materials knowledge—and it removes major barriers to digitalization of materials processes.

This new version rolls up the upgrades and updates from the past 12 months, adds further enhancements, and delivers these capabilities to all GRANTA MI customers. Highlights include:

• New MI:Workflow empowers systematic collection and control of materials information and supports implementation of effective processes (see next item)
• Enhanced and expanded support for CAE model generation and deployment
• Apps to enable exploration and analysis of data relationships
• Reporting information to better understand your system users and their needs.

In our webinar on Dec 15, ‘Removing barriers to the digitalization of materials knowledge’, you will be able to see some of the new features in Version 10 in a live demonstration.

If you are a current GRANTA MI user, join us on Dec 13 and Jan 10 for our regular GRANTA MI training webinars, held on the second Tuesday of each month. These sessions will look in more detail at what’s new in GRANTA MI Version 10.

2. New workflow tools improve processes for materials information

MI: Workflow is an integral part of GRANTA MI Version 10 that enables engineering enterprises to manage not only materials information, but also the processes required to ensure that information is requested, collected, approved, and released in a controlled, secure, traceable manner. It has been developed using feedback from the many engineering organizations worldwide that use GRANTA MI.

MI:Workflow’s simple user interface of forms and task-based activities enables the implementation of to-do lists, email notifications, approval sequences, and moderation queues. Users see the workflows they are allowed to initiate, review, and approve, depending on their role. They only perform the tasks relevant to them, and they receive email notifications to take action or to confirm success. A key feature of the system is the audit trail of who performed which step of the process, and when.

A typical application is processing material test requests, creating a series of clear, easy-to-complete steps that allow engineers to request test programs, lab managers to schedule and prioritize tasks, and a management chain to sign-off and release the resulting design data to a wider community.

3. Simulation best practice: webinars and agreement on JAHM data

Simulation is vital to product development but its accuracy depends on the quality of input data. Industry leaders are using the latest technology to support CAE users with the best possible materials data every time. You can join a webinar (hosted by IEEE Globalspec) with General Motors and Jaguar Land Rover on December 7, ‘How Major Manufacturers Find the Right Materials Data for Simulation’, and hear about how Granta helps leading organizations to support simulation.

Granta’s Peter Cherns, who will speak in the Dec 7 webinar, also presented at a recent webinar hosted by Granta’s partners at Dassault Systèmes, addressing the materials property data needed by simulation analysts using the Abaqus/CAE® software. Read his blog to find out more about connecting Abaqus/CAE to a corporate materials database via an app so simulation users can find and apply the materials models they need without breaking their flow.

Granta and JAHM Software, Inc. recently announced an agreement to make JAHM’s extensive temperature-dependent materials property data available within the GRANTA MI and CES Selector software. The data includes over 2,800 materials (including metals, plastics, and ceramics) and 24,000 sets of temperature-dependent data for elastic modulus, thermal expansion, stress-strain curves, and more. This will give users of Granta software access to significantly more input data for simulation, along with an expanded library of high-temperature properties for use in materials selection. Read the press release.

4. Practical case studies from North European material intelligence seminar

Rolls-Royce, JLR, Doosan Babcock and SABIC share experiences at open seminar

The 2016 Material Intelligence Seminar (and associated 5th North European Granta User Group meeting) was hosted by Rolls-Royce in Derby, UK, last month, and it provided a forum for case studies of the practical application of materials information technology.

Amandeep Mhay, project leader of the enterprise materials information management project at Rolls-Royce, shared experience of rolling out the program over 12 years, from a few tens of engineers in one business unit to thousands enterprise-wide. The system collates, tracks, and qualifies vital materials information, and makes it available in a controlled manner. Cost benefits are estimated at £6.9m per annum.

The group was given a lively presentation by Jeremy Mansfield of Doosan Babcock, with many tips for handling data on its journey from raw specimen data to design allowable data. Also discussed was Additive Manufacturing and the importance of capturing and linking as much relevant information as possible.

A breakout session on Materials Selection heard from Tim van Erp of SABIC, who presented a case study on performance and cost when considering new plastics for an application related to large machinery. Another breakout session focused on Applying Materials Information, particularly in engineering and business processes such as simulation and restricted substance risk assessment. Andrew Haggie of Jaguar Land Rover shared the experience of creating “one source of the materials truth” for CAE engineers.

Find out more about similar seminars and user meetings in Spring 2017:

• Open Seminar & 5th D-A-CH Granta Design User Meeting, in Hamburg, Germany, on March 7-9
• Open Seminar & 5th French Granta Design User Meeting in Lyon, France, on May 10-11.

5. Improving digitalization of materials knowledge in Automotive

The 5th meeting of the Automotive Material Intelligence (AutoMatIC) Consortium was held in October, when founder members GM, JLR, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Rheinmetall Automotive (formerly KSPG) and Honeywell were joined by John Deere at Rheinmetall’s Neckarsulm facility in Germany.

The focus was on how member companies can improve the digitalization of their materials knowledge by advancing across 17 key areas, from knowledge management to PLM integration. The meeting included a technical session on the development of standardized schemas for wear and tribology testing, and a debate on materials assignment in CAD and PLM. Members also took part in a tour of Rheinmetall’s piston assembly lines.

6. EMIT discusses eco design and latest restricted substance data

The 17th Environmental Materials Information Technology (EMIT) consortium meeting was hosted by Emerson, at the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, Ohio, USA, on October 24-26. At this latest meeting, members discussed how to enable a more effective response to restricted substances regulations and environmental risks in product design. In particular, they discussed how product life cycle impact assessment can be streamlined and yet achieve similar results to full Life Cycle Assessment.

Members also discussed Granta’s latest update of restricted substances data, issued in November. This introduces new indicators of obsolescence risk for both materials and priority substances to help users make informed decisions during product design and to maintain a compliant product portfolio.

7. Granta and PTC team up to provide materials data in Creo 4.0

Sample materials property data from Granta will be available to users of the new Creo® 4.0 3D CAD software from PTC. Creo users will be able to browse property data covering 117 commonly-used metals, plastics, composites, and ceramics, and apply it to parts in their Creo model. The data includes density, thus supporting weight roll-up calculations, and mechanical and thermal properties to enable accurate analysis and smarter design decisions.

The data is a representative sample from MaterialUniverse, which covers over 3,800 types of engineering material. Creo users can access more of this library by purchasing the CES Selector PC software, from which property data can be exported in Creo format. If their company uses GRANTA MI to manage its proprietary materials information, they can use GRANTA MI:Materials Gateway for Creo which provides direct access to the Granta data library.

8. Cook Medical case study: ASM Medical Materials database

Granta has developed a series of innovative knowledge resources for healthcare. A recent collaborative webinar with David Chadwick, Director of Regulatory Affairs at Cook Medical, addressed best practice when applying materials data and predicate device information in healthcare. He spoke about using the ASM Medical Materials database (pictured), which combines engineering material properties and biomedical response data with medical device application information, to search for medical device materials, find competitor products, and find materials used in competitor products.

In her blog, Granta’s Sarah Egan, who co-presented the webinar, discusses why critical medical product development questions demand good materials information.

9. Career opportunities for application engineers

Granta is creating more than 20 new jobs to build on its success worldwide as part of the Granta is Growing campaign. We are always looking for great people who understand engineering and education, and we currently have opportunities for Application Engineers in the United States. If you know someone who might be interested, please pass on the information.

The roles will appeal to engineers or scientists with an interest in materials, keen to combine their technical knowledge with the enthusiasm, energy, and ambition required for a customer-facing role. Application engineers work closely with our commercial teams to help leading engineering enterprises to manage and apply vital materials information to optimize product development. Granta works with organizations in aerospace, automotive, defense, medical, and more. Full details are available on our website.

10. Optimizing the performance of a composite skateboard

FORCE Technology, a Denmark-based technology consultancy, addresses the challenge of developing products using composite materials: how to determine which materials to use and how to combine them to maximize the unique properties and benefits of each. We worked with the company to develop a case study showing how it used CES Selector to quickly identify candidate materials for a longboard (a type of skateboard) and evaluate how to combine them to achieve optimal results.

The final composite provided a longboard with a smoother ride and 30% weight saving compared to the current state-of-the-art board. Benjamin Hornblow, pictured, of FORCE Technology, explained: “It was great to use the multilayer Synthesizer Tool in CES Selector to ‘test out’ different materials, concepts and configurations early in the design process. This saved valuable time in the more labor-intensive CAD modeling and prototyping stages of the project.”

11. Training and video tip

Upcoming CES Selector and GRANTA MI training

GRANTA MI Training sessions are held on the second Tuesday of the month. CES Selector Training is usually held on the first Tuesday of alternate months but the next session will take place on Jan 17.

The next free, online sessions are:

Video tip—exporting CAE models

In each Granta Material News we link to information that helps users to get more from Granta software. In this clip, we look at exporting CAE models using MI:Materials Gateway. It shows an analyst directly accessing the GRANTA MI database from within their pre-processor environment and importing a CAE model while retaining full traceability.

12. Come and meet us at upcoming events

Meet us at these events, conferences, and workshops, or sign up for our webinars:

December:

January:

February:

March:

April:

International HQ: Granta Design, Rustat House, 62 Clifton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7EG, UK www.grantadesign.com