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Accelerated Product Development in the Valve Industry
To optimize performance, a German valve-manufacturing specialist relies
on NIKA's Engineering Fluid Dynamics software. Costs of prototype production
are minimized and the time-to-market is reduced significantly.
Whereas life has its ups and downs, the world of valves consists of a steady on and off (close/shut and open).
Valves control the flow for all fluid materials: steam, water, ammonia, gas, fuel and even oxygen. The properties
don’t really matter; it can be heavy, light, thick or thin as long as the flow rate is accurate.
Buschjost, a German valve manufacturer, is a leading worldwide producer of process-valves. The sixty-five year
old company’s products are used in a wide range of industries such as engine, process, energy, agriculture and
forestry. Their portfolio of designs consists of 5,000 different designs including the very popular solenoid valves
and the sophisticated 3-way bus engine check valves for cooling circuits. But what’s truly unique about Buschjost
is its ability to not only manufacture a wide range of standard products but also to react quickly to individual
customer requests and market requirements.
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 Picture: Buschjost
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Computer Technologies Optimize Processes
While it may look simple, turning valves on/off is based on very complicated, angled and hardly visible parts.
Designing these valves requires significant know-how for not only single valves but also product families with
multiple design variants. Buschjost uses an integrated CAD/CAM/CAE solution based on SolidEdge solid modeling
software for the design of its valves. It then enhances the designs by simulating the complex flow conditions in
the valves with EFD.Lab Engineering Fluid Dynamics software (EFD) from NIKA GmbH.
EFD.Lab is based on EFD technology which offers a radically different approach from Computational Fluid Dynamics
(CFD). While based on the same exact mathematical foundation as CFD programs, EFD programs speak the language
of the engineer. As a result, these programs are powerful yet extremely easy to use. In addition, EFD.Lab uses the
same geometry kernel as SolidEdge -- this feature is a huge time saver since EFD.Lab can use CAD data directly
from SolidEdge and can automatically transfer changes made to the model during the simulation back to the
CAD system. This integration was a very important feature for the company.
“We needed a continuous solution which shared one model database, thereby offering us economic efficiency for
the simulation process, a low error rate and a fast overall turnaround time” explains Hans-Joachim Beckmann,
CAD Product Manager at Buschjost. “This feature was our primary decision criterion for the new software.”
In addition, they needed a Windows-based solution to ensure easy integration into their existing hardware
configuration. And last but not least, Buschjost needed a program that was easy to learn, easy to use and one
that did not require specialist level experience in computational fluid dynamics. “We don´t have any traditional
analysts for fluid analysis in our company; therefore, we have to solve our fluid simulation problems with our
engineering know-how,” adds Beckmann. NIKA´s EFD technology has proven to be a perfect solution for this
team since it was especially created for the engineer. Analysis expertise is not necessary for successful simulation
since the EFD.Lab user interface allows definition of computation goals, which it then uses as base for the
automatic control for the whole simulation process. Therefore, time-consuming mesh generation is not applicable.
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Picture: Buschjost
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Computational Analysis Instead of Prototyping Tests
To maintain its status as a market leader, Buschjost decided to not only continually optimize the flow thru valves
but also to shorten the product development cycle by reducing the number and cost of test prototypes. To optimize
their flow rates, the engineering team focused on the Kv-value (the Kv-value is the factor which determines the
flow resistance). Vendors can easily differentiate their products through the Kv-value: the higher the Kv-value, the
smaller the flow rate loss.
Valve manufacturers regard this value as the most important parameter for optimizing their products. Reinold Pape,
Manager of Development and Design, explains: "The flow region within the valve housings are ruled and limited by
the manufacturing processes. Therefore, we can't arbitrarily optimize the fluid flow. The component just couldn't be
manufactured unless we acquired other manufacturing technologies." As a result of these restrictions, Buschjost
uses fluid simulation primarily for the development of new valves and housings.
Before Buschjost implemented EFD.Lab, their engineers measured Kv-values on physical prototypes - a process
requiring extensive construction and testing. "The worst case was producing a new prototype with unacceptable
Kv-values since the process was very time consuming and expensive. Sometimes we could not make additional
improvements due to time restrictions and we had no choice but to live with the results", added Pape.
Now the team optimizes their new designs on their computers. With EFD.Lab, the team simulates the effects of
changes of diameters, stroke dimensions, flow bevels, etc. on their virtual prototypes. After inputting all parameters
such as the fluid medium, boundary value and the computation goal, EFD.Lab analyzes the flow field for the team.
Undesirable turbulences, re-circulation zones and dead water areas are then easily identified on the resultant color
plots.
"Fluid dynamic simulation does not run in the veins of design engineers. Therefore NIKA´s analysis tool is a huge
help" describes Pape. He points out that it is not essentially necessary to optimize the analysis results in the smallest
detail for Buschjost but that " we want to recognize the direction where our product design must go,and to make
changes fast to save time. We have already achieved this goal in one year. We were able to reduce the costs
drastically during the prototyping stage because we definitely needed fewer prototypes."
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» Customer Showcase Buschjost (PDF, 940KB)
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