Marburg, December 10th, 2010 – 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 Nanjing Puzhen Haitai Brake Equipment Co.Ltd, a professional manufacturer of braking systems in the field of railway transportation located in Nanjing, China, selected the VI-grade suite of railway solutions, based on VI-Rail.

The company, that operates in manufacturing, maintenance, renting and services for brake systems used in railway transportation, including high-speed railway, city railway and metro cars, will use VI-Rail, in conjunction with control software solutions like Matlab Simulink, to simulate and optimize its 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 Zhang Bin, Haitai Brake Equipments. “Our company, a professional supplier for the brake system of intercity railway and metro cars, will use the VI-Rail solution to help accomplish our goal of becoming the reference for the research, development and manufacture of braking system 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 our first 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. For additional information, click here.

About Haitai Brake Equipment

Nanjing Puzhen Haitai Brake Equipment Co.Ltd is a professional manufacturer of brake system in the field of railway transportation (including high-speed railway, city railway and metro). Established in October 2005 and located in the Nanjing Pukou Economic Development Zone, the company operates in manufacturing, maintenance, renting and consulting services for brake systems used in railway transportation. The annual manufacturing ability is of about 60 trains with the standard of 8 cars per train and includes high-speed railway (up to 300 km/h), large-unit composed railway (up to 250 km/h), as wele as metro and city railway vehicles. For additional information, click here.

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 600-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. For additional information, click here.

Marburg, October 7th, 2010 – MSC.Software, the leader in multidiscipline simulation solutions that accelerate product innovation, today announced that Talgo has upgraded to the Enterprise Advantage License Unit (EALU) licensing system to allow flexible access to a range of MSC simulation solutions for its growing R&D team. 

Talgo specializes in the design, manufacture and maintenance of railway material and equipment.  The company uses Adams to validate train suspensions to fulfill certification standards and to perform faster simulations of high speed trains.

The flagship product made by the Talgo manufacturing company is a high speed passive tilting train equipped with a variable gauge system. This system enables the Talgo train to operate on different track types and therefore travel between several locations where different track gauges are used (i.e. France and Spain).  During the development process for the 1668-mm gauge and 1435-mm gauge, the company was required to verify that the requirements according to the leaflet UIC 518 (testing and acceptance of railway vehicles from the point of view of dynamic behavior, safety, track fatigue and running behaviour) were respected.

This investigation was performed with Adams + VI-Rail and focused on the end car, conceived as the driving trailer and furnished with a free wheel rolling assembly and automatic gauge change system. A complete Talgo track inspection system, composed of traction bogies, car bodies, typical Talgo bogies with a passive tilting system, and detailed guidance system, has also been developed with the help of the Adams + VI Rail Template Builder. The results achieved in dynamic simulations, relative to comfort and safety, have been coherent regarding tilting in curves, lateral and vertical accelerations on car bodies, contact forces and guidance system.

“The simulation allowed us to accurately predict lateral contact forces and derailment quotients, required by the leaflet UIC 518, and therefore to virtually predict the fulfilment of the acceptance criteria,” Said Emilio Garcia, Head of R+D, from Talgo. “Since those values are very sensitive to guiding behavior, it has been essential to be able to accurately model the guiding system in detail with Adams.”

“We are really proud that Talgo decided to intensify its technological partnership with MSC.Software by selecting our flexible licensing system and by using Adams, the world’s most widely used and trusted solution for real dynamics of engineered systems, for the simulation of its high speed train,” said Kais Bouchiba, Senior Vice-President EMEA. “We are sure that the MSC CAE Solutions will help Talgo meet the safety and quality requirements and to accelerate its technology innovation.”

Enterprise Advantage License Unit (EALU) is a flexible, parallel licensing system provided by MSC.Software. EALU allows access to the entire solution portfolio from MSC.Software through a license pool. At the core of EALU is MD Nastran. It is also possible to access other engineering products, such as MSC Nastran, Patran, Marc, MD Adams, Dytran, and Easy5. MD Nastran combines MSC Nastran, Marc, Dytran and LS-Dyna into a completely integrated, multidiscipline solution providing linear, implicit, and explicit non-linear calculations within a single solver platform.

About Talgo

Created in 1942, Patentes Talgo (Talgo) develops three business areas: design and manufacture of high speed and very high speed trains, long distance, intercity and locomotives; manufacture of maintenance equipment; and maintenance services for railway operators around the world. Its own technology and innovative nature allow it to achieve the highest levels of quality, availability, reliability, safety and respect for the environment in its products, keeping itself at all times at the forefront of railway technology. The company has its headquarters in Spain, as well as two factories and 5 maintenance workshops. Talgo has extended worldwide, working in many countries, such as USA, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

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. For additional information, please visit www.vi-grade.com.

About MSC.Software

MSC.Software is a global leader of multidiscipline simulation solutions that help companies improve quality, save time and reduce costs associated with designing and testing manufactured products. MSC.Software works with thousands of companies worldwide to develop better products faster with simulation technology, software, and services.  MSC.Software employs 1,000 people in 20 countries. For additional information about MSC.Software’s products and services, please visit www.mscsoftware.com.

About VI-grade

VI-grade GmbH is the leading provider of best-in-class software products and services for advanced applications in the field of system level simulation. VI-grade, established in 2005, delivers innovative solutions to streamline the development process from concept to sign-off in the transportation industry, mainly automotive, aerospace, motorcycle, motorsports and railways. With office locations in Germany, Italy, Japan, and the USA, VI-grade is a young and growing company with a highly skilled technical team. For further information, please visit: www.vi-grade.com.

Marburg, Februay 5th, 2010 – 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 Lotus Racing has selected VI-MotorSport, VI-grade’s complete suite for system-level racing simulations, to optimize the setup of their racing cars.

Lotus Racing, the new Norfolk based F1 team, has purchased licenses of VI-MotorSport, a complete solution that includes advanced simulation tools such as Vi-grade’s flagship product VI-CarRealTime, VI-SuspensionGen, VI-Driver and VI-Animator.

“We were looking for a reliable solution that could enable us to test new designs very quickly” says Elliot Dason-Barber, Head of Vehicle Dynamics at Lotus Racing. “VI-MotorSport is the tool we needed to modify the setup of our racing cars, validating our new designs with the efficiency of a real-time solution. VI-Motorsport gives us the possibility to link activities done by engineering team with those performed on the track to search for maximum performance of the car. With one single vehicle model we will be able to run all different analyses needed in the development of a F1 car.”

“We are excited about the collaboration with Lotus Racing” says Diego Minen, Technical Director of VI-grade. “We are looking forward to supporting the success of this newborn racing team that joins today the community of our customers belonging to the racing industry.”

The VI-MotorSport simulation environment will be used by the Lotus Racing engineering department as a complete virtual product development solution. In particular, VI-Driver will be used to maximize the performance of the racing cars on different circuits, whereas the VI-Animator GUI will support the monitoring phase of all racing channels during the on-track tests.

About VI-Motorsport

VI-Motorsport is a software environment for vehicle modeling 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 behavior 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 following software modules: VI-CarRealTime, VI-Road, VI-Tires, VI-Driver, VI-Animator and VI-SuspensionGen.

About Lotus Racing

Lotus Racing was granted its entry to the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship in September 2009 and announced its driver line-up of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen in December. Under the technical direction of Mike Gascoyne, Lotus Racing is aiming to be the best of the new teams on the grid and with a strong driver pairing, Cosworth power and an army of fans around the world it has a strong chance of doing so. For further information about Lotus Racing please visit: http://www.lotusracing.my