Doctoral training, at the core of MSCA-ITN programmes, aims to train engineers with high quality technical and transferable skills. The main driver for the InDEStruct project was the distinct lack of well-trained scientists in the area of multi-disciplinary optimisation of engineering systems that involve thermal and mechanical loading caused by vibration, aerothermal flow and their combined effect.
Industry 4.0 is about digital transformation of companies. One concept exploiting this for mechanical design and manufacture is the idea of a digital twin. It is a virtual representation of a physical system serving as a real-time digital surrogate, providing an indication of the system’s performance. Data is sent to the digital model from the physical product with the former then able to provide performance measures in order to optimize the product. This increases company productivity, as it can reduce or replace expensive and time-consuming physical testing of many candidate designs.
A digital twin is necessarily a multi-disciplinary concept, where well-trained scientists integrate technology that may arise from technical fields that could pose competing design constraints to provide indicators of engineering performance.
Vestas aircoil A/S, part of the InDEStruct consortium, designs and manufactures heat exchangers for marine and locomotive engines. A digital twin can provide warning concerning the health of the cooler, such that the risk of a train breaking down inside a tunnel can be minimized, thereby also contributing to human well-being. Such a digital twin required fundamental multi-disciplinary understanding of systems produced by this project. One study focussed on how vibrations and stress response will influence the life of the materials used for coolers. In this case one of the production methods of tomorrow: added metal manufacturing. To predict the vibration characteristics an efficient and accurate design tool was developed in parallel. Both studies were then complemented by an experimental modal analysis study of tube and fin structures, used in heat exchangers, and incorporating the cooler response to vibration and identify response changes, which can be an indicator of failure. Vibrations alongside corrosion being primary reason for charge air cooler failures. The final study focussed on heat exchanger optimisation, combining all material and dynamic aspects which included a vibration model/constraint with aerothermal modelling.
