Altair > Case Studies > Pranav Vikas Achieves Material Savings and Optimised Product Designs with Altair HyperWorks™ Solutions

Pranav Vikas Achieves Material Savings and Optimised Product Designs with Altair HyperWorks™ Solutions

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
Sensors - Utility Meters

Applicable Industries

Life Sciences
Oil & Gas

Applicable Functions

Facility Management
Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Manufacturing Process Simulation
Virtual Prototyping & Product Testing

Services

Testing & Certification

About The Customer

Pranav Vikas (India) Private Limited (PVL) is one of the largest and most diversified heat-exchanger manufacturers in India with over two decades of experience. PVL operates out of three locations in India, each focusing on specific product lines and market segments. The company is the only fully integrated Condenser manufacturer in India with their own state-of-the-art Micro-tube facility. PVL serves leading global and Indian Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the Passenger, Commercial, and Off-road vehicle segments. Some of their major customers include Mahindra and Mahindra, Bajaj Auto Ltd., Tata Motors, Sanden Vikas/Maruti Suzuki, General Motors, Hindustan Motors, Honda, Kawasaki, Hero MotoCorp, VE Commercial Vehicles Ltd., Escorts, Haier, Videocon, Kohler, and Bergstrom.

The Challenge

Pranav Vikas (India) Private Limited (PVL), a leading heat-exchanger manufacturer in India, faced several challenges in their manufacturing process. The rapidly changing vehicle market and customer requirements necessitated the use of lightweight materials for components to maintain compact product sizes. This required thorough testing and implementation of every new material for product optimization, pushing the team to innovate and develop new manufacturing processes and engineering techniques. Additionally, PVL had to address warranty issues in existing products. Two distinct challenges were faced in recent projects: an oil cooler failure on the Pad-Plate joint for a model that had been in operation for five years, and the need for a design overhaul of the inlet/outlet pipes of a heat exchanger product that required weight reduction without causing warranty failure issues.

The Solution

PVL chose Altair HyperWorks as their partner for design and simulation requirements. For the oil cooler failure issue, the team simulated the oil cooler in Altair HyperWorks for Road Load and Engine Vibration Load conditions. The simulations revealed that a fixture in the assembly process was causing pre-stressing of the oil cooler, leading to the Pad-Plate joint failure. The fixture was removed, resolving the issue. For the pipe bend issue, the team used Altair HyperMesh™ and Altair OptiStruct to simulate the heat exchanger inlet/outlet pipes, significantly reducing the product weight. To address concerns about warranty failures due to thinning and thickening during the bending process, the team used Altair HyperForm™ for bending of the pipes and measured the thinning and thickening percentages. The required structural analysis on the pipes yielded positive results, leading to lighter pipes without concerns of warranty failures.

Operational Impact

The use of Altair HyperWorks helped PVL to resolve warranty issues and save on raw material costs. In the case of the oil cooler failure, the team was able to identify and remove a problematic fixture in the assembly process, resolving the warranty issue and strengthening the customer's faith in them. In the case of the pipe bend issue, the team was able to reduce the product weight and save on raw materials without causing warranty failures. The adaptability of Altair HyperWorks to minor changes was of utmost importance given PVL's wide range of product portfolio. The use of Altair HyperWorks has helped PVL in reducing their prototyping time and cost, and minimizing warranty failure instances by providing optimized designs to all their customers.

Quantitative Benefit