Siemens NX, the core of the comprehensive digital twin, revolutionizes the design and validation processes for automotive, transportation, and heavy equipment industries. With the increasing complexity of regulatory requirements and the necessity for enhanced safety and ergonomics, NX offers a transformative approach to vehicle design automation (VDA), addressing critical challenges and improving productivity across multiple stages of design.
What is NX Vehicle Design Automation?
NX Vehicle Design Automation (VDA) is an advanced toolkit within Siemens NX that facilitates the automation of vehicle design and validation. It offers a wide range of out-of-the-box (OOTB) functions, thereby enabling engineers to efficiently address key considerations such as occupancy ergonomics, driver visibility, mechanical packaging, and vulnerable road user safety. Additionally, by embedding industry-specific knowledge of standards (such as SAE, ECE, ISO, and more), NX ensures that vehicle designs comply with global regulations, starting from the preliminary stages and continuing through to detailed design.
Vehicle designs can be validated in the early phases of the project—reducing costly late-stage changes and improving overall product quality. NX integrates multiple stages of vehicle design, from conceptual layouts to detailed verification, through the use of a digital thread that connects all disciplines involved in vehicle development.
Industry Challenges and Market Trends
The automotive, transportation, and heavy equipment industries are facing increasing regulatory pressure to meet stringent safety standards. Notable trends include:
- Enhanced driver visibility regulations: Rules around driver sightlines and blind spots are becoming more rigorous.
- Expanding vulnerable road user protection: New standards are focused on improving pedestrian and cyclist safety in the event of a collision.
- Evolving ergonomic requirements: Interior designs must meet increasingly complex criteria for occupant comfort, with a greater emphasis on ensuring accessibility for a diverse range of users.
OEMs and suppliers are under constant pressure to achieve:
- Consistency and repeatability in the interpretation of complex standards.
- Early identification of issues during the design cycle, thereby reducing the likelihood of costly reworks, is a crucial benefit.
- Certification validation at the detailed design phase, ensuring that vehicles meet all necessary regulatory and safety requirements before physical prototypes are built.
NX VDA helps companies address these challenges by enabling accurate validation early in the development process. This ensures designs comply with multiple industry standards before finalization.
Key Benefits of NX Vehicle Design Automation
NX Vehicle Design Automation brings numerous advantages to the vehicle design process:
- Industry-Compliant Validation: The toolkit incorporates built-in knowledge of global standards, verified by leading industry experts, ensuring designs comply with safety, ergonomic, and visibility standards.
- Cross-Stage Compatibility: NX VDA functions across different design maturity stages and geometrical data types, supporting everything from early conceptual design to final detailed verification.
- Efficient Workflow Management: The ability to capture and store standards and requirements within a managed environment improves traceability and collaboration across teams.
- Optimized, Repeatable Processes: Validation processes are integrated and repeatable, reducing errors and enabling rapid adjustments to meet changing requirements.
- Support for Multiple Vehicle Types: NX VDA supports the design and validation of a broad spectrum of vehicles – ranging from cars and trucks to buses, aircraft, and heavy equipment—ensuring its versatility across industries.
Comprehensive Validation Tools in NX VDA
NX VDA provides several powerful validation capabilities designed to improve vehicle safety and functionality. These include:
- Occupant Packaging: Tools like the H-Point Design Tool and Manikin Placement enable accurate simulations of occupant positions. These simulations are based on industry standards (SAE, FMVSS, ISO, etc.). They support comfort evaluations, crash test preparation, and ergonomic assessments.
- Driver and Occupant Visibility: Vision validation tools allow engineers to ensure that drivers have optimal visibility under various driving conditions. These tools simulate eye ellipse and ocular eyepoint creation, thereby ensuring the design adheres to standards such as SAE J1050 and ECE R125.
- Pedestrian and Vulnerable Road User Protection: NX VDA provides functionality to analyze the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users in the event of a collision. This includes simulations of impact zones and head and leg impact energy calculations. Additionally, it supports active hood systems to reduce injury risk.
- Crash and Safety Analysis: Tools for head impact and seat belt anchorage verification ensure that designs comply with safety regulations. These include FMVSS 201U and ECE R14. The tools identify potential safety issues in a virtual environment before physical prototypes are tested.
- General Packaging and Vehicle Architecture: NX VDA offers tools for clearance analysis, crash barrier design, and other architectural considerations. These tools are critical to see that vehicles meet both functional and regulatory requirements.
Industry Standards and Regulations Compliance
NX VDA is designed to support a wide range of national and international standards. This is crucial for vehicles to meet regulatory requirements globally. Some of the key standards supported by NX include:
- UN ECE: For European regulations on vehicle design and safety.
- SAE Standards: For vehicle design requirements in North America.
- FMVSS and CMVSS: For U.S. and Canadian vehicle safety standards.
- ISO, MIL, and EN: For broader international standards relating to safety, ergonomics, and packaging.
NX VDA toolkit directly integrates these standards. This integration ensures that validation checks and analyses occur. These checks comply with the latest regulations. These include ECE R125, FMVSS 201U, and UN GTR-9.
NX VDA in Action: Workflow and Integration
NX VDA integrates seamlessly into the broader Siemens Xcelerator digital thread, connecting various disciplines and design tools across the development process. This integration ensures that data flows efficiently between design, simulation, and validation tools, enabling teams to:
- Define key vehicle hardpoints with precision using Base Data sources.
- Automate seat positioning and driver reach analysis based on industry standards.
- Conduct visibility validation for all-around vision and windshield datum points.
- Evaluate pedestrian impact zones and optimize designs for vulnerable road user safety.
This comprehensive workflow ensures that vehicle design is optimized for safety and performance. This ensures its alignment with industry standards throughout the process.
Enhancing Vehicle Design with NX VDA
Siemens NX Vehicle Design Automation is a cutting-edge solution that empowers engineers and manufacturers to design and validate vehicles efficiently, ensuring compliance with global safety and ergonomic standards. By integrating automated validation tools, NX streamlines the design process. It reduces errors and enables early identification of potential issues. Leveraging the power of the digital twin, NX helps manufacturers meet the demands of an increasingly complex regulatory environment. This allows them to deliver safer, more comfortable, and efficient vehicles to the market.
