Wheel maker American Racing Equipment Inc. of Rancho Dominguez, Calif., will implement product planning technology to help meet the company's aggressive 2003 product introduction schedule, said Andy Paskin, director of product engineering at the company. The aftermarket wheel manufacturer offers more than 100 alloy wheel styles.

The new software application, called ActiveProduct, will link everyone involved with product design and engineering.

Another software module, called ActiveProject, will allow tooling and mold suppliers to become involved in the design process at an earlier stage than they could previously, which helps them know about and anticipate design changes, Paskin said.

With the software, users can track the activities of design team members and make sure the members have access to the most up-to-date information about design changes.

The technology is manufactured by Framework Technologies of Burlington, Mass.

Plant design software and services will grow by 7 percent, to more than $479 million this year, according to the market research and analysis firm Daratech of Cambridge, Mass.

Despite a global recession and economic and political uncertainties, process and power plant operators are stepping up their investments in information technology. The aim: to help cut costs and head counts by using the plant design software to wring inefficiencies from power projects. The software also helps power operators collaborate with suppliers and customers and secure technology infrastructures, the research firm said.

Driving these new levels of investment are the pressures on top management to reduce the cost of production assets and control project risks, all in a shorter project-execution time frame, according to the research firm.

With revamps of existing systems making up the bulk of today's contracts in the process industries, the need for power operators to use software models for accurate costing, scheduling, procurement, and on-time delivery is spurring investment in laser scanning and in technology for coordinating and integrating the resulting data with three-dimensional design models from the project phase, the firm said.

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., say they've developed a way to increase control of the quantum bits, or qubits, that may some day store and process data using the principles of quantum mechanics.

Qubits represent information as ones and zeros as digital bits do in today's computers. The NIST team demonstrated a way to precisely control a computational operation, which they call a logic gate. They can control the operation between two qubits 97 percent of the time, compared to just 80 percent with previous techniques. With further improvements in logic gate reliability, universal computation on a large scale should be possible, the scientists say.

The scientists used ions, or charged atoms, as qubits, for their experiment. To increase control of quantum bits, the NIST scientists used lasers to manipulate beryllium ions trapped in a vacuum; they spin up or down to represent one or zero. The quirks of quantum mechanics allow ions to exist in blends of the two spin states and also to become entangled so that the properties of two ions are intertwined. Qubits, therefore, are able to represent multiple values simultaneously and to link values in logical ways.

It is the qubits' capability to be intertwined that would allow a quantum computer to perform tasks like factoring very large numbers that are impossible with today's technology. The NIST experiments focused on manipulating qubits to control their entanglement and thus the computation process.

The Renault Formula One Team of Enstone, England, recently installed CAD software specifically geared for composite design and manufacturing to help design the composite parts used on its race cars.

The Renault Formula One Team uses a CAD application, called FiberSim, to help design race car parts that are made of composite materials.

Because composite materials are strong and lightweight, many Formula One race car designers use them for the monocoque, nosebox, panels, rear wing, and other areas of the vehicle. But weaknesses can be introduced into the parts when they're manually assembled, said Alan Duerden, CAD support engineer for the Renault team.

Also, the parts must meet stress and load conditions mandated by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile of Paris, a world motor sport governing body. The CAD software, called FiberSim from Vistagy Inc. of Waltham, Mass., helps engineers ensure that the parts they design are strong enough to withstand shifts during assembly and to meet the federation's standards, Duerden said. The software allows engineers to test for strength as they design.

The Chrysler Group of Auburn Hills, Mich., has implemented new fatigue software that identifies and prioritizes potential automobile durability issues and predicts the life of components and structures used within a vehicle. The Chrysler Group is the North American-based business unit of DaimlerChryler AG.

The software, Fe-Fatigue, from nCode of Southfield, Mich., helps visually point Chrysler engineers to part areas that might fail due to fatigue. The information is then delivered to the automaker's physical testing and virtual prototyping groups so they can make necessary changes in part design.

The software includes features for fatigue analysis of spot and seam welds, vibration-induced fatigue, and temperature corrections for applications such as engine components.

Brazilian oil supplier Petrobras is using medical X-ray technology and visualization software to model oil flow inside the porous rocks of petroleum reservoirs to ensure that oil fields aren't abandoned before oil is fully tapped. Oil fields are sometimes abandoned even though as much as 70 percent of the oil remains, according to Petrobras.

Contrary to the image of the oil geyser, most oil doesn't sit underground in big pools. The source is usually within rocks or sandy soil. The trick is in getting it out of the ground. Most oil recovery involves pumping chemical-infused water into the ground to force oil out of the rocks. But this method extracts only about 30 percent of the oil inside a rock.

Engineers at Brazilian oil supplier Petrobras use medical X-ray techniques and visualization software to get an idea of the oil remaining inside porous rocks before abandoning oil fields.

The rocks from which oil is extracted are like tricky sponges, according to Petrobras engineers. Traditionally, engineers determined rock permeability and porosity with a procedure that measures how much water is injected and how much oil gets out under specific conditions of temperature and pressure.

They now use medical tomography equipment—similar to that used to X-ray human bones—to scan a rock sample that's been injected with water. They then construct a 3-D model of the rock from the scans and use computer simulations to numerically characterize the properties inside.

The computer simulation data is then loaded into visualization software called EnSight from Computational Engineering International of Apex, N.C., which generates 3-D animations that show fluid behavior inside the rock.

The visualization software gives Petrobras engineers a visual analysis of the permeability and porous properties inside the rock sample. They also use the software to share findings with other members of the team who can easily see and understand what's happening inside the rock.

To tie several discrete testing stations into one data analysis environment, General Motors Powertrain, a manufacturer of engines, transmissions, castings, and components for General Motors, has standardized on one data analysis system.

Linking the isolated testing stations via one system lets engineers evaluate test data from laboratories around the world, which saves engineering hours and cuts costs, according to the engine maker. GM Powertrain engineers use the Technical Test Data Environment from Quantum Controls of Detroit for the data analysis environment. Quantum Controls is partnered with data analysis software and hardware provider National Instruments of Austin, Texas, which provides the Diadem software used in the Quantum hardware. With the software, engineers view standard reports and conduct data analysis tasks that show the results of tests for temperatures, pressures, revolutions per minute, fuel efficiency, and emissions.

Previously, GM Powertrain engineers couldn't benefit from the work produced in multiple laboratories because of incompatible data formats and the fact that local data storage software applications weren't compatible. With the new system, engineers can access and analyze data from any location, according to the powertrain company.

The software converts the product-specific names into universal names and converts data into standard international units. Engineers use this acquired data to generate graphs and create portable document format file reports that can be stored on a server for access via the Internet.

Dana Corp.'s commercial vehicles systems group in Kalamazoo, Mich., makes and tests bus and motor home steering axles, drive axles, suspensions, brakes, and other components for the vehicle's original equipment manufacturers. The company recently purchased CAD model repair software that ensures CAD files passed back and forth between systems are complete and uncorrupted.

The software, called CADfix, from ITI TranscenData of Milford, Ohio, helps improve data exchange between Dana Corp.'s CAD and finite element analysis systems. The company uses CAD software from PTC of Waltham, Mass., and analysis software from Ansys of Canonsburg, Pa.

"In order to avoid file corruption between systems, we were having to defeature CAD models to such an extent that the FEA results lacked an adequate level of accuracy," said Prasad Mangalaramanan, the lead computer-aided engineering specialist at the Dana Corp. division.

Often, engineers must decrease the number of features included in a CAD file before that file can be adequately read by FEA software. The Dana Corp. division formerly used the neutral file-sharing initial graphics exchange specification, or IGES, format that allowed CAD files to be more easily passed to FEA software. But even using the neutral format, many features on complex CAD files couldn't be transmitted into the FEA software.

"We needed a way to mesh complex CAD components without spending too much time in defeaturing, to retain as much of the original geometry as possible, and to improve the accuracy of our FEA analysis," Mangalaramanan said.
The new CAD model repair software meets the division's needs, he added.

Executives at Bang & Olufsen in Struer, Denmark, a maker of music systems, televisions, loudspeakers, and telephones, recently announced a new business strategy: more new products and shorter time to market.

Though the strategy mirrors the quick pace of product development in today's speeded-up marketplace, it meant that engineers at the company had to find a way of reducing the number of prototypes needed before the final product met approval. To help with that goal, the company implemented a new CAD system that allowed engineers to design a product, analyze results, and make changes to the digital design before producing an actual prototype.

Bang & Olufsen of Denmark, which makes stereos and telephones, uses CAD software from PTC to track design modifications and to design products like the BeoLab 2 subwoofer.

Bjarne Frandsen, a technology specialist at Bang & Olufsen, helped to implement the new design software, Pro/Engineer, from PTC of Waltham, Mass. The CAD software ensures that all modifications are tracked within the system, he said.

"Even though we work in groups where every individual member is kept constantly up to date on what the other team members are doing on specific products, it's important that we can always be sure the latest version of the latest modification appears on everyone's screen," Frandsen said. "This applies in particular to those projects that involve teams whose members work in different parts of the world."

Design ideas introduced at brainstorming sessions are now often simulated and tested within the CAD software to ensure their viability before a design continues or becomes more specific, he added. Engineers have used the new software to design the company's BeoLab 2 subwoofer and the BeoVision 3 wide-screen television, he added.

CFX, a division of AEA Technology of Waterloo, Ontario, released CFX-5.5, the latest upgrade to its CFD software.

Web4 Inc., a subsidiary of netGuru Inc. of Yorba Linda, Calif., which is an Internet technology and services company, has entered into an alliance with Tekla Corp. of Helsinki, Finland. They will offer a Web-enabled as-is version of Tekla's Xsteel software for use over the Internet through Web4engineers.com.

Right Hemisphere of Los Angeles, a provider of visual software, has released its first CAD Module and Granite Module that work with the developer's Deep Exploration and Deep Server. Those two programs repurpose 3-D CAD data for use as animations or training documents.

Harmonic Software Inc. of Seattle, a maker of scientific, engineering, and technical computing software, has released its O-Matrix Run-Time Engine. The software allows the creation of technical computing stand-alone applications. The software applications are built partially or entirely with the developer's O-Matrix software.

Executives at Algor Inc. of Pittsburgh, a maker of software for mechanical engineers, say that the company's InCAD technology for direct CAD and FEA data exchange now includes associativity for Autodesk Inventor, Pro/Engineer, Solid Edge, and SolidWorks CAD packages.

Rand Technology Corp. of Mississauga, Ontario, has implemented an upgraded new group of services for companies implementing the CAD software and collaboration software Pro/Engineer from PTC of Waltham, Mass.

CAD maker Autodesk Inc. of San Rafael, Calif., has released its Autodesk Inventor Series 7 software, the latest version of the developer's application for 3-D design. It will also shortly release its Autodesk Streamline 5 manufacturing collaboration service.

CAM maker CNC Software of Tolland, Conn., has released Mastercam Version 9.1, which includes features designed to simplify complex processes, improve speed, and expand shop capabilities.

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