BAR Honda turns to virtual engineering support

Formula One team BAR Honda says its UGS virtual engineering environment is speeding up development of the new BAR Honda 007, ready for the next season. UGS has been partnering with the team to further ramp up design and development: the investment follows success with BAR Honda’s substantial SAP implementation 18 months ago. “Each year we are in a race against time to design and develop the car for the next Formula One season,” says Matt Harris, technical computing manager at BAR Honda. “The technical challenges in order to build a faster, better performing, safer car that keeps in line with any changes to the F1 authorities regulations are immense. NX and Teamcenter together give us the design power, accuracy and collaboration ability, as well as huge savings in time in order to meet these challenges.” The team is using UGS’ NX digital product development solution and Teamcenter engineering collaboration suite all the way from initial concepts, through testing and production to track-to-factory web working. BAR Honda’s design teams created a complete 3D model of the car, including more than 3,500 in-house designed parts. The software was also used in simulation and performance testing of parts and assemblies, including wind-tunnel simulations and animation sequences. NX models were also used to drive machine tool production both in Brackley and at suppliers’ sites. Meanwhile, BAR Honda says Teamcenter enabled full collaboration between teams of designers and engineers from BAR and Honda in the UK and Japan. The visualisation technology also enabled all parties to view latest 3D designs of the car and its parts in standard JT format and share feedback as they where modified. UGS has signed a new co-operation agreement with Mentor Graphics Integrated Electrical Systems Division (IESD) to deliver interoperability between the two companies’ systems. The agreement will result in a joint solution designed to enhance development and management for manufactured products using electro-mechanical (mechatronic) subsystems. Mechatronics is an increasingly important part of product development, involving management of MCAD and ECAD environments, as well as embedded control software.