Product category:
Fluid, thermal, noise and vibration analysis software
News Release from: CD-adapco | Subject: Star-Works
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 15 May 2006
Up-front CFD provides competitive
advantage
By reducing the development time to just a few days from a year, Viasys Healthcare has managed to save several hundred thousand dollars in development costs alone.
CD Adapco partner Viasys Healthcare has delivered huge savings in product development by using CD Adapco's up-front CFD tool Star-Works By using Star-Works early in its design cycle Viasys has been able to reduce the timescale for the initial design phase of a new ventilator from a year to just three days, saving several hundred thousand dollars in development cost
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 29 Jun 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Viasys pneumatic specialist Steve Han and his colleagues were responsible for the redesign of an infant CPAP ventilator device.
Continuous positive airway pressure (or CPAP) is a method of respiratory ventilation used in the treatment of apnea, a condition in which a patient's natural external breathing suddenly stops due to a self imposed (but involuntary) obstruction to their airway.
The consequences of apnea in small infants are potentially lethal - any breathing interruption over 20 seconds has the potential to cause serious damage or even death.
Further reading
CFD software attempts to understand pasta
The University of Padova has been using Star-CD CFD software from The CD Adapco Group to help transform shapeless pasta dough into the spaghetti, penne and farfalle we know and love.
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Caterpillar has been using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to make vital adjustments to some of its hydraulic systems.
Using Star-Works, Viasys was rapidly able to evaluate multiple design changes using desktop computers.
All of the analyses were performed within the SolidWorks environment.
As all the CFD functionality is accessible through additional menus in the SolidWorks GUI, the team was able to begin using Star-Works for serious design analysis within a few hours of first installing.
"The whole project took about three days, with about a day to get familiar with the software", says Han.
"Within three days Star-Works had paid for itself".
The improvements were both immediate and impressive.
"It was difficult to believe at first", says Han, "almost every design change resulted in a significant improvement".
"Incredibly, within three days we had reduced the supply pressure required to the unit by 48%".
This significant reduction in supply pressure has a number of positive ramifications, not least of which is a significant increase in the salability of the product.
"Saving 48% of the supply pressure allowed us to use the CPAP unit with the majority of our patient ventilators, rather than just two 'critical care' ventilators as had been the case previously", says Han.
"The reduction in cost achieved in doing this alone, has the potential to treble sales of the product".
By reducing the development time to just a few days from a year, Viasys Healthcare has managed to save several hundred thousand dollars in development costs alone.
The introduction of CFD simulation into its design process enabled Viasys to deliver a more patient friendly product and steal a critical advantage over its competitors by radically reducing its time to market.
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