Altair > Case Studies > Maxi-Cosi Child Seat Development: A CAE-Driven Design Process for Enhanced Safety

Maxi-Cosi Child Seat Development: A CAE-Driven Design Process for Enhanced Safety

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Virtual Private Cloud

Applicable Industries

Equipment & Machinery
Packaging

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Onsite Human Safety Management
Virtual Prototyping & Product Testing

Services

Hardware Design & Engineering Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Dorel Juvenile is a market leader in child safety in cars. The company was faced with the task of developing a new child seat, the Maxi-Cosi 2wayPearl, that could meet increased load requirements, fit into a reduced packaging space, and comply with new European I-size safety regulations. Dorel Juvenile is committed to ensuring the safety of children during car travel and is constantly innovating to meet changing safety standards and customer needs. For this project, they partnered with Code Product Solutions, an engineering service provider that supports customers in the development and optimization of products using computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools.

The Challenge

Dorel Juvenile, a market leader in child safety in cars, was tasked with the development of a new child seat, the Maxi-Cosi 2wayPearl. The challenge was to redesign a two-way facing safety child seat that could withstand increased loads, fit into a reduced packaging space, and meet the new European I-size safety requirements. The project's initial goal was to modify the existing Maxi-Cosi FamilyFix seat base to add rearward-facing functionality. The increased loads due to the two-way functionality and the reduced and modified packaging space for the seat base presented significant engineering challenges. The more forward position of the support leg required major structural changes. The introduction of a new European wide standard for child safety seats – the I-size regulation – during the course of the project added another layer of complexity, necessitating an almost complete redesign of the seat base.

The Solution

To tackle these challenges, Dorel Juvenile partnered with Code Product Solutions, an engineering service provider specializing in the development and optimization of products using computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools. The engineers at Code Product Solutions employed a CAE-driven design process using Altair's HyperWorks CAE suite. This suite included RADIOSS® for crash simulation, OptiStruct® for the layout of highly loaded plastic parts that comprise the reclining system, HyperMesh® for pre-processing tasks, and HyperCrash® and HyperView® during post-processing. The team also used Altair's PBS Professional™, a workload management tool, to efficiently schedule and manage jobs across its high-performance computing (HPC) cluster. The use of these tools and the CAE-driven design process allowed the team to get the design right with the first detailed design proposal, eliminating the need for physical prototypes or interim testing.

Operational Impact

The CAE-driven design process resulted in a highly efficient development process, with the design being right with the first detailed design proposal. This eliminated the need for physical prototypes or interim testing, saving time and money. The use of Altair's HyperWorks CAE suite and PBS Professional™ allowed for efficient scheduling and management of jobs across the high-performance computing (HPC) cluster. The redesign tasks were largely driven by material substitutions where plastic was used instead of steel. These changes, combined with an expanded number of defined load cases (12 in total), required a much larger number of simulation runs, e.g., to gain insights on the wall thicknesses and rib locations. This in combination with demanding performance requirements all led to a very successful design. Without the CAE tools, the only alternative available to engineers would have been trial and error, which would not have been sufficient to cover all required load cases, or at least not without a tremendous increase of time and money.

Quantitative Benefit

Shorter time to market due to the elimination of physical testing and prototyping
Reduced costs due to less physical testing and prototyping
First child seat on the market that fulfills all requirements of the new European I-size regulations for child seats