Product development in the home office

Testing and inspection in development departments is also put to the test in times of Corona. This is because real tests or trials cannot be carried out, or can only be carried out with great difficulty. New technologies allow virtual tests under realistic conditions - even from the home office, as Merkle & Partner has long been doing successfully.

u-boat-simulation

Currently, most of our lives are put on hold. Valuable time is thus lost for design and development. Companies that have recognized the zeitgeist are already using virtual simulations and are correspondingly less constrained in their processing.

"From explosions to earthquakes, from crashes to shocks, from the overheating of vehicle engines on the race track to oil distribution in the gearbox: complete test cycles on the test bench can now also be mapped very accurately virtually as a simulation model," says Stefan Merkle, owner of Merkle & Partner GbR. In particular, it is also complex interrelationships that can be seamlessly united and combined, such as flow and structure or temperature and mechanics.

Examples include simulating lubrication and heat dissipation through the oil in a gearbox under different driving conditions. "The simulations provide insight into details that are hard to see under real tests. In addition, design engineers gain an enormous time advantage," says Stefan Merkle.

In recent years, simulations have played a major role in the optimization of designs and the rapid further development and market maturity of products. Car crash tests have been replaced by simulations for quite some time. Due to the legal situation, only the final crash tests are necessary, which are carried out physically. Whereby especially final testings consistently confirm the quality and accuracy of modern simulation technologies.

At the same time, real tests remain important. Especially when it comes to the behavior of materials. This is the basis for every simulation.

"The progress and the enormous facilitation that simulation technologies already offer us today are competitive advantages for our customers that cannot be dismissed out of hand," adds Stefan Merkle.

Thus, Merkle & Partner's servers do not stand still even, or especially, in times of Corona. On the contrary, they are currently working under high load, as neither the automotive industry nor design engineers in other sectors have any time to lose.

For more information, see:

Virtual test benches fit into even the smallest apartment

 

testing-of-pumps
Fig. 1: In some cases, entire halls are needed for a pump test stand alone. Not to mention the enormous energy input.
internal combustion engine simulation
Fig. 2: The end of the combustion engine has not yet come. Tests on an engine test bench.
u-boat simulation
Fig. 3: Virtual test benches are unlimited in size. This means that even submarines can be simulated in complete size and down to the last detail without any problems.
back-to-top