Advanced CAE software suite accelerates delivery of innovation projects: Altair Engineering announced today that Germany's Brunel, a leading engineering consulting firm specializing in project development and innovation, has included the use of HyperWorks into its tool sets employed for service offerings. Starting with service and consultancy projects within the automotive industry, the engineering service provider will use the software framework both on site at their customers and within their competence centers. To date, HyperWorks results have shown great potential in automotive applications. As a result, Brunel sees the need for HyperWorks also within other industries, such as the aerospace industry. Primarily, Brunel is using OptiStruct for topology optimization especially within the first development phases. HyperMesh will be used for the meshing of finite-element models within its competence centers and on site at different customers for consulting projects. Brunel will extend the use of HyperWorks to other areas and industries, as requested. "We have been using HyperWorks for the optimization of components since February 2007, following a customer request coming from an automotive OEM," said Peter Mikolaj, manager of Numerical Simulation, at Brunel, Germany. "We are very pleased with the results we have from HyperWorks, and plan to apply especially HyperMesh and OptiStruct in upcoming projects for our aerospace and automotive customers. HyperWorks offers us the possibility to work very closely with our customers, as well as react quickly to any request within the areas of optimization and meshing. As an integrated solution, HyperWorks provides a smooth development process and has put the powerful tools our engineers need within easy reach. For the future, I see a high need for the HyperWorks framework coming from all of our customers and from any industry." "Simulation tools such as HyperWorks provide the answer to many engineering challenges for today's industries. Especially within the area of optimization, we expect more requests from customers such as we have had from Brunel in the engineering service area," said Dr. Detlef Schneider, managing director of Altair Engineering, Germany. "All industries have to frontload their development processes and will need to optimize their products as early as possible. The HyperWorks framework is an integrated solution, offering all the tools needed to deal with engineering tasks within this area. I am very happy that Brunel has chosen HyperWorks, and I am sure that the Brunel engineers and their customers will soon benefit from the excellent results achieved with HyperWorks." Altair HyperMesh is a user-friendly, high-performance finite-element pre- and post-processor for popular finite-element solvers. It allows engineers to analyze product design performance in a highly interactive and visual environment. It also contains a morphing capability that permits users to quickly parameterize models and stretch finite-element meshes, while keeping mesh distortion at a minimum. Altair OptiStruct is a highly advanced finite element-based software for both structural analysis and design optimization. OptiStruct is used to design, evaluate and improve performance of mechanical structures. Unlike classical finite-element solvers, OptiStruct software proposes new and better solutions throughout the entire design process. Powerful optimization routines are deeply integrated with popular analysis types, including linear statics, buckling and frequency analysis - making design optimization easy, robust and accurate.