HEEDS Professional - Red Cedar Technology

THE WORLD’S FASTEST, MOST COMPREHENSIVE OPTIMIZATION SOFTWAREDesign to Win. Faster.PROFESSIONAL EDITION

PROFESSIONAL EDITIONDesign to Win. Faster.HEEDS (Hierarchical Evolutionary EngineeringDesign System) Professional is an intuitive andpowerful software package that interfaces with allof the popular CAE applications to automate andexpedite the design optimization process. It intelligentlyconducts a broad, efficient search for optimized designs,often in a fraction of the time it would take to performa handful of manual design iterations.Whether you need to improve the design of a simple engineeredsystem or solve multidisciplinary problems, HEEDS Professionalis flexible and powerful enough to rapidly identify the parametervalues, or attributes, that satisfy your design criteria.Benefits of UsingHEEDS Professionaln Discover innovativedesigns, fastern Significantly reducedevelopment costsn Leverage existingCAE tools, hardwareand talentn Satisfy multiple,even conflicting,design criteriaObtain a greater understanding of your design space, including tradeoffs among competingobjectives, and relationships among variables and objectives, through extensive graphicaland tabular views of your design study results.

Be more productive and lower your costsHEEDS Professional guides the developmentof products that are higher performing, safer,lighter and less expensive.Design OptimizationWithin HEEDS Professional, engineers caneasily define design parameters and multidisciplinarydesign goals, and choose analysistools to judge a design’s performance.Then, HEEDS performs design iterationsautomatically while searching for designparameter values that simultaneously meetall targets and criteria.Using advanced proprietary optimizationalgorithms and intelligent strategies, HEEDSProfessional effectively searches even the mostcomplicated design spaces, so you discoverbetter designs, faster.Optimization algorithmsn SHERPAn Multi-objective SHERPAn Genetic algorithmn Quadratic programmingn Simulated annealingn Response surfacen Multi-start local searchDesign ofExperiments (DOE)When it’s important to predict design sensitivities,or gain a clearer understanding ofyour design space, a HEEDS Professionaldesign of experiments (DOE) study is oftenthe ideal approach. It allows you to extract agreat deal of useful information quickly, withthe least computational or experimental effortpossible. In a HEEDS DOE study, your CAEmodel is automatically evaluated multipletimes with the design variables set to differentvalues in each run.DOE sampling methodsn Full factorial designs (two-leveland three-level)n Fractional factorial designs(two-level and three-level)n Taguchi orthogonal arraysn Plackett-Burman designsn Latin hypercube designsn Central composite designsn D-optimal designsn Taguchi robust design arraysn User-defined arraysn User-defined response dataEasily predict design sensitivitiesA HEEDS DOE study helps you identify,and focus on, the variables that affect yourdesign the most. Variables that are notimportant can then be ignored or set to valuesthat are most convenient or least costly. Thisallows you to control quality more effectivelywhile lowering cost.Clearly understand your design spaceThe results of a HEEDS DOE samplingprocess can be used to generate anapproximate model of your system, oftencalled a response surface model (RSM).These models are very convenient forn Visualizing your design spacen Examining the relationships amongvariables and their effects onkey responsesn Quickly evaluating different designswithout performing additionalexpensive CAE evaluations orexperimentsHEEDS Professional offers a broad range ofDOE sampling methods and post-processingfeatures. Also, if you’re not an expert at DOE,HEEDS’ unique DOE wizard can guide youthrough the definition of your problem,ensuring that you obtain the informationyou need.Process AutomationThe HEEDS Professional process integrationmodule makes you more productive bycapturing and automating your existing processes.With HEEDS, your data flowsautomatically between CAD, meshing tools,simulation tools, in-house proprietary codesand cost models, eliminating tedious manualdata transfer and costly errors. After a processis captured and validated, it can be usedover and over by engineers throughout yourorganization.HEEDS Professional process automationfeatures include:n Direct portals to common CAEtools for data extractionn Automated execution of multiplesimulation and analysis tools withina design evaluation processn Integration and sharing of dataamong separate simulationsn Support for parallel processingon networks, clusters, andmultiprocessorsQuality Design ToolsFinite geometric tolerances, variationsin material properties, and uncertaintyin loading conditions will cause any manufacturedpart to perform slightly differently inservice. However, the performance of a robustand reliable design will not change much withthese expected variations and remains abovean acceptable level at all times. To evaluate therobustness and reliability of a design,its variables and system inputs are madestochastic – they are defined in terms of botha mean value and a statistical distributionfunction. The resulting system performancecharacteristics are then measured in terms of amean value and its variance.With HEEDS Professional, stochastic variationscan be assigned to all design variablesas well as fixed system parameters so that astochastic simulation can be performed, helpingyou achieve designs that meet the highestquality standards for robustness and reliability.Quality design capabilitiesn Taguchi robust design arraysn Structured samplingn Random (Monte Carlo) sampling

How HEEDS Optimization WorksHEEDS Professional works the way you do. It captures andautomates your current design workflow, based on the design andanalysis tools you prefer to use. Then, it automatically explores thedesign space to quickly identify solutions that meet all of yourperformance and cost goals.HEEDS optimization begins within your preferredmodeling and analysis tools, where youcreate and execute the analysis models neededto fully evaluate the performance of a baselinedesign. The input and output files generatedduring each step in the model creation andanalysis contain the data that HEEDS will useas a starting point for its optimization process.Next, within the HEEDS Modeler, youn Capture the modeling and analysis processthat HEEDS will automatically repeat toevaluate potential designs.n Identify the project variables that will bevaried and the responses of interest.n Define the constraints that specify whethera response should be greater than or lessthan a particular value.n Define the objectives that specify whethera response should be maximizedor minimized.HEEDS begins its search by selecting valuesfor the project variables within the ranges youhave specified. It creates new model input filescontaining these values, and evaluates eachdesign with the same analysis software tools thatproduced the baseline input and output files.After each evaluation, HEEDS automaticallyextracts the corresponding response values fromthe output files.As the search progresses, HEEDS uses anintelligent mathematical process to discoverrelationships among variables and responses,and leverages this knowledge to identify higherperformingdesigns, until it converges on theoptimal solution.Other HEEDS design studies, such as Designof Experiments or Reliability and Robustnessstudies, are performed in a very similar manner.The primary difference is in the definition of thesampling methods and in the post-processingof the results.Automatic iterationscontrolled by HEEDSwithout humaninterventionMODIFY DESIGNHEEDS decides howto change inputparameters usingintelligent mathematicalsearch strategiesHEEDS modifies analysisinput files accordinglyin preparation for thenext analysesNoINPUTBaseline model withinitial guesses for designvariables such asgeometry, layout,materials, etc.ANALYSESStructures, Fluids,Thermal, Acoustics,Electromagnetics,Multiphysics, Cost,Manufacturability, etc.OUTPUTPredicted values ofresponses such asstress, deflection,flux, temperature, flow,pressure, etc.Terminationcriterion met?YesOPTIMIZEDDESIGNParallel Execution of a Design StudyIn order to speed up anoptimization, DOE, or reliabilitydesign study, HEEDS Professionalcan perform multiple designevaluations simultaneously onmultiple processors.Each of these evaluations mayinvolve multiple steps (analyses)and require the use of severaldifferent CAE tools. For example,one evaluation may involve the useof a CAD model to create a newgeometry, a Mesher to generate anew finite element mesh, a Preprocessorto generate a completefinite element model, a CAE Solverto perform the finite elementanalysis, and a spreadsheet-basedcost model. Each of these stepswithin a design evaluation may utilizea different software package whoselicense exists on a different machine.Hence, for a single design evaluationit may be necessary for data to flowto several different machines anddifferent CAD/CAE tools.This is all handled automaticallywithin the optional HEEDS MPD(multi-processor design) module.Each set of analyses can beperformed on the same set ofmachines or on a different set ofmachines, to account for the case inwhich software licenses are availableon different machines. The HEEDSMPD module has its own queuingprocess, but it can also interfacewith third-party grid software suchas LSF and PBS-pro.

The HEEDS AdvantageHEEDS’ proprietary optimizationsearch strategies are themost efficient and robustavailable, shortening designtime from weeks to days.And, shorter design timetranslates into reduced productdevelopment costs.At the same time, HEEDS providesa more thorough search with thepotential to yield truly innovative designalternatives that satisfy multiple, evenconflicting, criteria.Finally, HEEDS easily integrates withyour existing CAE tools, hardware,and talent, maximizing the investmentyou’ve made in these resources.SHERPA: Simultaneous Hybrid Exploration thatis Robust, Progressive, and Adaptiven Finds better solutions the first time, withoutiterating to identify the best method or thebest tuning parameters for your problemn Enables non-experts to successfully applyautomated optimization the first timen Performs direct optimization based onactual model evaluations, rather than usingapproximate response surface modelsn Uses multiple strategies concurrently to moreeffectively and efficiently search even the mostcomplex design spacesn Adapts itself to each problem, eliminating theneed for user-specified tuning parametersn Achieves both global and local searchsimultaneouslyEffectiveness and Efficiency of Search (Goal=1)Normalized average best solution21.81.61.41.2150 75 100 150 250Maximum allowable evaluationsMO-SHERPA: Multi-Objective SHERPAn Performs multi-objective Pareto search using amodified version of the SHERPA algorithmn Handles multiple objectives independentlyto provide a set of optimized solutions thatrepresent trade-offs among the objectivesn Uses multiple search strategies simultaneouslyto more effectively explore the Pareto frontn Contains no tuning parameters, making itsimple for non-experts to achieve successevery timeSHERPAGASANLSQPRSMOn average, SHERPA requires significantly fewermodel evaluations than other leading methods doto identify optimized designs.This efficiency can savedays or even weeks of CPU time during commonengineering optimization studies.The results shownhere are typical. SHERPA finds the optimal solution(a value of 1 in this case) within about 125evaluations in nearly every run.The next bestalgorithm for this problem requires approximately350 evaluations to consistently achieve the same levelof optimization. Other methods are even less efficientfor this problem.Whether you need to improve the design of a simple engineered system or solvemultidisciplinary design problems, HEEDS is flexible and powerful enough toidentify the parameter values, or attributes, that satisfy your design criteria.Leverage the Power of HEEDS’ Exclusive Search Strategies