The positive displacement pump used to power hydraulic-assisted steering is one of the main noise sources in an automotive steering system. DHB Componentes Automotivos, a manufacturer of steering systems for automotive and marine applications located in Brazil, is using ANSYS CFX software to analyze and understand the flow behavior within their pumps.

Customers are now looking for cars with very low noise levels. As engines are improved for quiet operation, noise from other areas such as the steering system is becoming more and more apparent. Noise level is now the first requirement analyzed when an automotive manufacturer selects a hydraulic steering system.

A troubling statistic from the survey quoted in the article is that:

the survey revealed low adoption rates of industry standard formats like STEP and IGES. Though these neutral formats were created specifically to facilitate the exchange of disparate CAD models, only 19 percent of the respondents reported using either of them.

As a result, the engineers surveyed had developed their own solutions for dealing with the problem which includes exchanging PDF files and rapid prototypes rather than CAD models.

The effect of mesh skew on accuracy and convergence was observed. Fourteen operating speeds were simulated from 1000-7500rpm at 500rpm increments.

APUS-CFD is a fully interactive, Arbitrary Polyhedral Unstructured Solver. It provides a complete solution from model-building to automatic mesh generation and from parallel and grid computing to real-time visualization in an integrated and interactive environment. The APUS-CFD solver is robust, fast, scalable and has been validated on a number of industrial applications.

Flow Science, Inc. is a privately-held software company specializing in the development and support of high fidelity fluid dynamics modeling software for industrial and scientific applications worldwide. Flow Science has a growing worldwide sales and support network for its FLOW-3D® software and services. Flow Science is headquartered in Santa Fe, NM.

The City Hall, one of Sheffield’s key multi use venues, is nearing completion of a £12.5 million refurbishment project to bring better patron access to seating and facilities, improved performer areas, new balconies and seating, and advanced conferencing and IT equipment.