Process chain capabilities

Application of process chains in Simufact Welding

A welding process might be just one of several subsequent manufacturing steps, usually placed somewhere in the manufacturing process chain. A manufacturing process chain may cover different technologies like casting, forging, heat treatment, machining, or joining. Welding itself, especially if it comes to welding of complex assemblies, often happens in several steps, with cooling, unclamping or heat treatment in between.

The capability of transferring simulation results from one manufacturing step to subsequent steps is a prerequisite for accuracy in the simulation process chain.

Simufact products like Simufact Welding and Simufact Forming provide the so-called “prestate capability”. During and after the simulation solver writes special result files, called “prestate files” with the file extension “SPR”. These files can be used for the setup of subsequent process steps, they contain, together with usual result files of Simufact products, all information needed for starting a new simulation using components with already present results.

There are two options for using this functionality.

1. If there is a finished calculation inside a Simufact Welding project, it is possible to use the “Copy from results” function on the finished process. The user can select the result step to be used in the subsequent model, if more than one is present. A completely new process is then created, containing deformed components and fillets from the previous one, as well as boundary conditions.
2. The prestate files can be loaded into the Simufact Welding GUI in the same way as meshes a loaded. In this case they can afterwards be assigned to components.