VI-grade Supplies MRacing Formula SAE Team with VI-Motorsport
Founded in 1854, the University of Michigan College of Engineering is one of the premier Engineering schools in the world. The school’s strong partnership with automakers later led to the formation of MRacing Formula SAE in 1986. With over 25 years of experience, the team is able to continually push the envelope of vehicle design. In the summer of 2011 the team proved the value of this history by rising to #1 in the world after 6 consecutive top 10 competition finishes. With many of the same engineers still on the team, a newly formed business sector, and new exciting industry partnerships, MRacing is well-equipped to continue succeeding on an international level for the foreseeable future.
“Major racing teams in all series are using vehicle simulation of all kinds to increase competitiveness in an environment with less physical testing and demands for more performance,” said Professor Tim Gordon, Team Advisor, FSAE Team of University of Michigan. “We want our students to learn the same processes and be equipped with the same tools as the racing industry uses. Thanks to the support of VI-grade’s technology, we will increase our ability to predict the performance of our designs and race setups using simulation. ”
John Logan, MRacing Chassis/Suspension Team Leader, added: “We are looking forward to an excellent year with the help of this software.”
“We are very excited about the collaboration with the University of Michigan,” said Patrick McNally, Director of VI-grade Americas. “We are looking forward to supporting the success of this team and we welcome them into the community of our many customers in the racing industry.”
About VI-Motorsport
About MRacing - Formula SAE of the University of Michigan
VI-grade Supplies the racing teams of Changsha University of Science & Technology and Tongji University with VI-Motorsport
Marburg, November 23rd, 2012 – VI-grade, the leading provider of best-in-class products and services to bridge the gap between real world testing and technical simulation, today announced that the Formula SAE team of Changsha University of Science & Technology (CSUST Racing Team) and of Tongji University (TJU Racing Team) have selected VI-MotorSport, VI-grade’s complete suite for system-level racing simulations, to optimize the setup of their racing cars in preparation of their participation to the FSAE competitions.
Changsha University of Science & Technology Racing Team (CSUST RACING), which is in charge of the College for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, was founded in September 2011. Currently, there are 40 members in the team, most of whom are junior students majoring in vehicle engineering. There are two departments in the team: Functional Department (including Financial Group, Marketing Group and Propaganda Group) and Technical Department (including Frame-body Group, Suspension Group, Engine & Electrical Group, Steering Group and Brake Group). In compliance with the school motto “Erudite, Endeavor, Integrity, Innovation”, CSUST RACING is certainly a great racing team with both high responsibility and professional level.
TJU Racing Team was founded in 2007. It is a semi-commercial team which belongs to the Innovation Base of Our College. Our members are those students who have great intelligence and they come from College of Automobile, College of Machinery, College of economics and Management, College of Communication and Art. We design and produce a new car all by ourselves to take part in the FSAE competitions in China and oversea every year.
“For our first participation to the FSAE competition, we worked hard to manufacture a very performing racing car with the objective of achieving success right from the start” said Liu Ze, captain of Changsha University of Science & Technology Racing Team (CSUST Racing). “Thanks to the support of VI-grade’s technology, we had the ability of combining conceptual design and practical test-driving, thus enabling our team to quickly seek for the optimum performance of our racing cars.”
“We are very excited about the collaboration with Changsha University Of Science & Technology and with TJU Racing Team” said Guido Bairati, Sales Director of VI-grade. “We are looking forward to supporting the success of these teams that join today the community of our customers belonging to the racing industry.”
About VI-Motorsport
VI-Motorsport is a software environment for vehicle modelling and dynamic analysis, which helps race cars designers and track engineers to predict vehicle performance when set-up parameters are modified, before the car is built and also in support of race events. VI-Motorsport is based on a faster-than-real-time simulation solver which can predict the virtual car behaviour and has been extensively validated against test data in various race car series. The VI-Motorsport environment is complemented by the ability to create road data (both drivelines and tire contact profiles) starting either from GPS, laser or telemetry data measurements, or from a fully analytical description. VI-MotorSport will also write out data that is fully compatible with ATLAS from McLaren Electronic Systems, making it simple to integrate with existing tools. Finally VI-grade’s advanced driver model allows users to drive the vehicle model around the specified track. For all those companies involved in the process of finding best vehicle set-up and performance whilst at the same time limiting economic resources, VI- Motorsport is an unprecedented support and a revolutionary aid to the engineering team. VI-Motorsport includes the following software modules: VI-CarRealTime, VI-Road, VI-Tires, VI-Driver, VI-Animator and VI-SuspensionGen.
About Changsha University Of Science & Technology
Changsha University of Science & Technology (CSUST) is an engineering-centered multidisciplinary university integrating engineering, science, management, economics, liberal arts and law, with strong disciplinary advantages and prominent features in the industries of communications, electric power and water conservancy. The university is jointly established by the Central Government and Hunan Provincial Government, mainly under the administration of Hunan Province in China. The university boasts of 17 schools and departments, with 1 post-doctoral workstation, 3 discipline and 15 sub-disciplines for doctoral degrees, 18 disciplines and 104 sub-disciplines for master’s degrees. It is accredited to confer master’s degrees to those with equivalent academic attainments and to confer master of engineering and MBA and other five types of professional master degrees. It has 7 key disciplines at provincial or ministerial level, 21 key specialties at provincial level. The university also establishes 13 key laboratories at provincial or ministerial level, 7 research bases of Philosophy and Social Sciences at provincial level, 6 demonstration laboratories for basic courses at provincial level, 20 excellent Bases for Educational Practices at provincial level.
About Tongji University
Tongji University is one of the leading universities directly under the State Ministry of Education in China. It offers degree programs both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The university now registers over 50,000 students at all levels from certificate and diploma courses to Bachelors Degrees, Masters, PhD programs and post doctoral attachments. There are over 4200 academic staff for teaching and/or research, among whom there are 6 Members of Chinese Academy of Science, 7 Members of Chinese Academy of Engineering, over 710 professors and 1500 associate professors. The university offers diverse courses in its 82 Bachelors Degrees, 218 Masters, 94 PhD programs and 16 post doctoral mobile stations. As one of the state leading centers for scientific research, the university has 22 state key laboratories and engineering research centers.
CSR Sifang Co. Ltd selects VI-grade railway solutions
The company, that operates in manufacturing, maintenance, renting and services for passenger coaches, rapid transit coaches and locomotives, will use VI-Rail to to simulate and optimize the performance of high-speed passenger coaches, and in conjunction with control software solutions like Matlab Simulink, to simulate and optimize its traction motor or braking devices, testing their virtual behavior together with the multibody models of complete railway vehicles.
“We are excited about the technology offered by VI-grade for the railway industry,” says LIU Degang, CSR Sifang Co.,Ltd. “Our company, a professional railway vehicle manufacturer, will use the VI-Rail solution to help accomplish our goal of becoming the reference for the research, development and manufacture of railway vehicle in the field of domestic railway transportation.”
“High-speed railway is the major project for the domestic railway constructions of the future and the development of new railway and metro lines is required by all major cities in China,” says Dr. Ji, Hirain Technologies. “This is a great opportunity for our customers to introduce new railway technologies in the local market and we are looking forward to supporting the fast-growing railway industry with our skills and competences in simulation software and services.”
“We are happy to report another commercial success through HiRain in the railway industry,” says Guido Bairati, Sales Director, VI-Grade. “This demonstrates the efficiency of our commercial strategies in the Asia-Pacific region, that relies on a capillary network of experienced and respected resellers. We are looking forward to a continuous a fruitful collaboration in China!”
About VI-Rail
About CSR Sifang Co. Ltd
About HiRain Technologies
VI-grade helps BMW Team Brasil to optimize their BMW Z4 GT racing cars
Marburg, Aug 29th, 2012 – VI-grade GmbH, the leading provider of best-in-class products and services to bridge the gap between real world testing and technical simulation, today announced that BMW Team Brasil will use VI-Motorsport to optimize the behavior of their BMW Z4 GT racing cars in preparation of the remaining races of the current edition of the Brazilian GT Championship.
In detail, VI-grade will provide to the team its competence and know-how in racing simulation, mapping detailed road models out of telemetry data and thus enabling the racing team to virtually optimize the performance of the vehicle using the VI-Motorsport real-time vehicle simulation software.
“Today, we are proud to report our first success in the Brazilian motorsport industry,” says Alvaro Costa Neto, Managing Director, Multicorpos Engenharia. “Brazilians are very passionate about motorsport activities and there are several different race teams, in different categories and championships, that can benefit from the VI-grade simulation software and from the Multicorpos technical expertise. We are looking forward to supporting the local racing industry with our skills and competences in simulation software and services.”
“We are very excited about the collaboration with BMW Team Brasil” says Guido Bairati, Sales Director of VI-grade. “BMW is a great company to work with and Brasil is a very important country for us and for our solutions. We have great plans to increase our presence in this emerging market and we are recently having exciting successes that tell us we have implemented the right strategy. We are looking forward to supporting the success of this team that joins today the community of our customers belonging to the racing industry.”
About VI-Motorsport
VI-Motorsport is a software environment for vehicle modelling and dynamic analysis, which helps race cars designers and track engineers to predict vehicle performance when set-up parameters are modified, before the car is built and also in support of race events. VI-Motorsport is based on a faster-than-real-time simulation solver which can predict the virtual car behaviour and has been extensively validated against test data in various race car series. The VI-Motorsport environment is complemented by the ability to create road data (both drivelines and tire contact profiles) starting either from GPS, laser or telemetry data measurements, or from a fully analytical description. VI-MotorSport will also write out data that is fully compatible with ATLAS from McLaren Electronic Systems, making it simple to integrate with existing tools. Finally VI-grade’s advanced driver model allows users to drive the vehicle model around the specified track. For all those companies involved in the process of finding best vehicle set-up and performance whilst at the same time limiting economic resources, VI- Motorsport is an unprecedented support and a revolutionary aid to the engineering team. VI-Motorsport includes the following software modules: VI-CarRealTime, VI-Road, VI-Tires, VI-Driver, VI-Animator and VI-SuspensionGen.
About BMW Motorsport
BMW M GmbH (previously: BMW Motorsport GmbH) is a subsidiary of German car manufacturer BMW AG. BMW M, also known as M-Technik or just "M" (for Motorsport) was initially created to facilitate BMW’s racing program, which was very successful in the 1960s and 1970s. As time progressed, BMW M began to supplement BMW's vehicles portfolio with specially modified higher trim models, for which they are now most known for to the general public. These M-badged cars traditionally include modified engines, suspensions, interior trims, aerodynamics, and exterior modifications to set them apart from their counterparts. All M models are tested and developed on the Nürburgring. The program for the BMW Z4 GT3 will have an increasingly international flavor to it in the 2012 season: this year, the new BMW Team Brazil will line up in the Brazilian GT Championship (GT Brazil) with two GT3 cars developed by BMW Motorsport. Under the guidance of Team Principal Antonio Hermann (BR), the AH Competições squad will also send two BMW M3 GT4 cars into action in the series. BMW Team Brazil is supported by BMW Brazil. The GT Brazil series was founded in 2007. This year, the calendar includes eight race weekends, with teams contesting two races per event. The curtain-raiser to the season takes place on 18th March 2012 at the “Autódromo José Carlos Pace” in São Paulo (BR). The series returns to the iconic circuit on the outskirts of the metropolis for the season finale on 16th December. The BMW Z4 GT3 will be employed by BMW customer racing teams in numerous championships held in accordance with GT3 regulations, including the FIA GT1 World Championship, the FIA GT3 European Championship and the Blancpain Endurance Series. It will also be used in national championships like the German ADAC GT Masters, the VLN Endurance Championship, the Japanese Super GT, the British, French, Italian, Swedish and Brazilian GT championships, and the 24-hour classics at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife (DE) and Spa-Francorchamps (BE). For additional information click here.
About Multicorpos
Multicorpos is an exclusive software reseller for CAE analyses in Latin America for the most prestigious companies in these fields, such as CD Adapco for CFD analysis, MSC Software for structural and dynamic analyses, Dassault for manufacturing and digital simulations, VI-grade for specialized system-level simulation solutions. Multicorpos also includes a dedicated service team able to perform advanced dynamic analyses using the computational tool for Multibody Systems by means of MSC.ADAMS. The team also owns expertise in structural analyses using the technique of finite elements simulation as well as in the analysis of fluid systems using computational techniques (CFD). Located in the high tech district of São Carlos, Multicorpos provides counseling support in the business area and relies on qualified human resources through a close relationship with two of the most important universities (UFSCar and USP). For additional information, click here.
VI-grade helps J.A.S. Motorsport to set the pace with VI-Motorsport
In detail, the engineers at J.A.S. Motorsport will use the vehicle dynamics technology provided by VI-grade to investigate suspension behavior, to export suspension curves to the vehicle modeling environment, to model track files starting from telemetry data and to predict laptime performance with different vehicle set-ups.
“In order to maximize the chances of our success, we need to explore as many vehicle variants as possible in the shortest time possible,” says Andrea Adamo, Chief Designer, J.A.S. Motorsport. “Thanks to the real-time capabilities of VI-Motorsport, we can virtually run endless configurations of our vehicle on realistic models of tracks, identifying the best vehicle setup for each track. This is a key point for our racing team that is committed to set the pace and win the race!”
“We are very excited about the collaboration with J.A.S. Motorsport” says Guido Bairati, Sales Director of VI-grade. “We are looking forward to supporting the success of this team that joins today the community of our customers belonging to the racing industry.”
About J.A.S. Motorsport
About VI-Motorsport
Southwest Jiaotong University selects VI-grade railway solutions
Marburg, June 28th, 2012 – VI-grade GmbH, the leading provider of best-in-class products and services to bridge the gap between real world testing and technical simulation, today announced that 1898-founded Southwest Jiaotong University, one of the oldest universities in China majoring in engineering, selected the VI-grade suite of railway solutions, based on VI-Rail.
Located in Chengdu, Sichuan, the university, that operates in the following areas: mechanical and electrical train control, information systems and railway vehicle dynamics, will use VI-Rail, in conjunction with th e MSC Adams and Ansoft Designer products, to simulate vehicle dynamics and to analyze in detail the wheel-rail contact mechanics.
“We are excited about the technology offered by VI-grade for the railway industry,” says Professor Wu Pingbo, SWJTU. “Our university will use the VI-Rail solution to analyze in detail railway vehicle dynamics, with particular focus on the wheel-rail contact interaction.”
“Railway industry represents a strategic market for HiRain, and SWJTU is undoubtedly a very important part of this industry,” says Dr. Ji, HiRain Technologies. “We are looking forward to supporting the oldest engineering university in China with our skills and competences in simulation software and services for the railway industry.”
“We are happy to report another commercial success through HiRain in the railway industry,” says Guido Bairati, Sales Director, VI-Grade. “This demonstrates the efficiency of our commercial strategies in the Asia-Pacific region, that relies on a capillary network of experienced and respected resellers. We are looking forward to a continuous a fruitful collaboration in China!”
About VI-Rail
VI-Rail is the specialized railway simulation software from VI-Grade. VI-Rail enables to quickly build a complete, parameterized model of a new railway vehicle, easily define its suspension, wheelset, wheel-rail contact, and other vital characteristics. Running through a battery of simulations it is possible to determine the vehicle’s stability, derailment safety clearance, track load, passenger comfort, and more. The performance of a railway vehicle design can be optimized virtually in the computer, before cutting a single piece of metal or running a single physical test. VI-Rail users can instantly see the effects of design changes on railcar performance in high-speed animation, easily detecting component interferences, excessive wear, instability, and performance limitations. Users can also plot key parameters in graphs to compare results from different designs.
About Southwest Jiaotong University
Southwest Jiaotong University was originally founded at Shanhaiguan, Hebei in 1896, and it is currently located in Chengdu, Sichuan, a major city in the southwest part of the country. The University has three campuses: the main Xipu campus, the Jiulidi campus in downtown Chengdu, and Emei campus about 90 miles to the southwest of the city snuggled at the foot of the Mount Emei, one of China’s four sacred Buddhist mountains. The university offers programs at the graduate and undergraduate level to approximately 60,000 students. Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) was founded at Shanhaiguan in 1896, named then Imperial Chinese Railway College. It is one of the oldest universities in China majoring in engineering. In 1905, it was moved to Tangshan, Hebei Province, and was renamed Tangshan Jiaotong University, Tangshan Railway Institute, and so on. In 1972, the university was removed to Emei, Sichuan province, and began to use its present name-Southwest Jiaotong University. In 1989, it was moved to Chengdu, and in 2002, the construction of a new campus was started in Chengdu. With this, a new pattern of “one university, in two places, with three campuses” is coming into being. Currently, the university has 18 schools, 3 departments and 2 divisions, with students totaling more than 38000, teachers and staff over 3900, which including full-time teachers about 1800, professors and associate professors about 1000, 3 CAS academicians and 2 CAE academicians. In addition, there are also 29 academicians from CAS and CAE who serve as part-time professors at the university’s invitation. There are now 45 PHD programs, 95 master degree accredit posts, 61 undergraduate majors and 7 post-doctorate research centers, 3 national basic scientific research and teaching talents training bases, 6 national key disciplines and 1 national key lab. SWJTU pays great attention to international exchanges and cooperations, and has now established good collaboration relationships with over 70 universities of 50 countries and states. Each year, SWJTU invites over 250 long and short-term international experts, and over 300 long-term international students from more than 20 countries and states study here. In light of the inscription by Comrade Jiang Zemin, “carry forward the cause and forge ahead into the future, be bold in scaling heights, and strive even harder to turn the Jiaotong University into a first-class university in the world”, SWJTU will adhere to the fine tradition of “Rigorous Scholarship” and accelerate its development so as to make itself into a first-class university in the world.
About HiRain Technologies
HiRain Technologies, founded in 1998 and headquartered in Beijing with offices in Hongkong, Shanghai, Chengdu, Changchun and Wuhan, is a high-tech 500-employees service company in rapid and consistent development. HiRain provides integrated system level solutions to meet challenging needs. HiRain distributes integrated solutions to more than 500 customers in China, in areas that include control system design & simulation, in-vehicle network design & development, signal processing and control, CAE, system engineering, etc. As AUTOSAR associate member, HiRain is active in working together with leading associations to bring latest advanced technologies into customers in China.
VI-grade Supplies Shanghai Jiao Tong University with VI-Motorsport
The team will participate to the FSAE China competition in October 2012 and is also planning to attend hybrid vehicle competitions in the future.
“Due to resource limitations, performance adjustments through test-driving is quite inconvenient and largely restrained. Therefore, during the design procedure we are working on the improvement of the performance of our racing cars by means of CAE tools, which leads to higher efficiency and lower risk with respect to the traditional physical prototyping approach.” says Dr. Mian Li, Director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) Racing Car Team. “Fortunately, VI-grade is capable of assisting us to combine conceptual design with practical test-driving, thus enabling our team to seek for the optimum performance of our FSAE racing car.”
“We are very excited about the collaboration with SJTU” says Guido Bairati, Sales Director of VI-grade. “We are looking forward to supporting the success of this team that joins today the community of our customers belonging to the racing industry.”
About VI-Motorsport
VI-Motorsport is a software environment for vehicle modelling and dynamic analysis, which helps race cars designers and track engineers to predict vehicle performance when set-up parameters are modified, before the car is built and also in support of race events. VI-Motorsport is based on a faster-than-real-time simulation solver which can predict the virtual car behaviour and has been extensively validated against test data in various race car series. The VI-Motorsport environment is complemented by the ability to create road data (both drivelines and tire contact profiles) starting either from GPS, laser or telemetry data measurements, or from a fully analytical description. VI-MotorSport will also write out data that is fully compatible with ATLAS from McLaren Electronic Systems, making it simple to integrate with existing tools. Finally VI-grade’s advanced driver model allows users to drive the vehicle model around the specified track. For all those companies involved in the process of finding best vehicle set-up and performance whilst at the same time limiting economic resources, VI- Motorsport is an unprecedented support and a revolutionary aid to the engineering team. VI-Motorsport includes the following software modules: VI-CarRealTime, VI-Road, VI-Tires, VI-Driver, VI-Animator and VI-SuspensionGen.
About Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Since the reform and opening up policy in China, SJTU has taken the lead in management reform of institutions for higher education, regaining its vigor and vitality with an unprecedented momentum of growth. Today SJTU has 31 schools (departments), 63 undergraduate programs, 250 masters-degree programs, 203 Ph.D. programs, 28 post-doctorate programs, and 11 state key laboratories and national engineering research centers. SJTU boasts a large number of famous scientists and professors, including 33 academics of the Academy of Sciences and Academy of Engineering, 92 accredited professors and chair professors of the "Cheung Kong Scholars Program" and more than 1,900 professors and associate professors.
Dromo Uses VI-Road to increase safety of race tracks
Marburg, Feb 29th, 2012 – VI-grade GmbH, the leading provider of best-in-class products and services to bridge the gap between real world testing and technical simulation, today announced that Italy-based Dromo, a development enterprise specialized in racetracks and motor structures, selected VI-Road, VI-grade’s software solution for three-dimensional performance road design, to redesign and optimize racetracks for an optimal combination of safety and entertainment.
With a proven twelve years experience through the greatest organizations and facilities all around the world, Dromo is working on projects involving national and international partners to develop modern, functional and safe structures, using the most advanced know-how in motorsport and official FIA, FIK and FIM regulations. In particular, Dromo is using VI-Road in conjunction with the custom developed software DroCAS™ to simulate and optimize the layout of the Italian racetrack in Imola, Mugello and the new Termas de Rio Hondo racetrack in Argentina, that will host MotoGP from 2013 on.
“Safety is the primary racetrack design concern since the dawn of the motorsport era: designers need to minimize the risk of racetracks during competitions, ensuring at the same time that the race is characterized by the highest level of entertainment”, says Jarno Zaffelli, Dromo. “Dromo’s approach to circuit design brings back the old school of road design, proven to be more difficult to do especially with the CAD software available today. But with modern software solutions and state-of-the-art technologies like VI-Road, it is today possible to simulate vehicle dynamics and behavior of race cars, designing and assessing motorsport circuits in order to increase safety, decreasing at the same time racetrack realization costs and maintenance costs.”
“We are excited about the application of our VI-Road technology at Dromo,” says Guido Bairati, Sales Director, VI-grade. “This demonstrates the efficiency of our software that can be used components of custom-specific solutions for redesigning and optimizing race tracks.”
About VI-Road
VI-Road is the specialized software for three-dimensional road design from VI-grade. VI-Road enables to prepare accurate road data files for vehicle, motorcycle and aircraft simulations, using analytical descriptions as well as experimental measurements for a very realistic mapping of real-life road profiles and race tracks. VI-Road additionally supports a series of advanced capabilities, such as the possibility of modeling kerbs and of specifying variable friction coefficients and track disturbances. Thanks to an embedded solver, VI-Road enables to estimate the static limit speed profile for a given vehicle on a specified trajectory. VI-Road is compatible with other VI-grade products, such as VI-Driver, VI-Animator and VI-DriveSim. For additional information, please visit www.vi-grade.com.
About Dromo
Dromo (Applied Italian Circuit Design) is a development enterprise specialized in racetracks and motor structures. With a proven twelve years experience through the greatest organizations and facilities all around the world, is working on projects involving national and international partners to develop modern, functional and safe structures, using the most advanced know-how in motorsport and official FIA, FIK and FIM regulations. For additional information, please visit: http://www.studiodromo.it
The VI-grade Logo and all VI-grade product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of VI-grade GmbH
The Dromo and DroCAS™ logo are trademarks or registered trademarks property of Jarno Zaffelli