Next-gen vehicle platform developed by Altair & Ferrari

A collaboration has taken place with, Altair and luxury sports car maker, Ferrari, to design and engineer the company’s ‘Next Generation’ vehicle platform which will be the basis of several new flagship vehicle derivatives. The announcement signifies the strong and mutually beneficial relationship that the two companies have enjoyed since Ferrari started working with Altair over a decade ago.

To develop the platform, Altair supplied a highly specialized group of designers and engineers working on-site at Ferrari’s vehicle development center in Italy. The team worked alongside Ferrari’s own design, engineering and manufacturing teams.

Maximilian Szwaj, Director of Innovation and BIW Development, Ferrari, commented: “It was important for Altair to supply both CAD and CAE expertise to facilitate tight integration particularly when packaging ideas and manufacturing process are so fluid. The speed of the optimization processes deployed were able to control the weight whilst achieving the demanding structural targets as new packaging changes were introduced. For Ferrari, the ‘Next Generation’ platform is a significant engineering achievement and a symbol of our successful collaboration with Altair.”

Innovation is the driving force behind the vehicle development process at Ferrari and Altair’s team successfully utilized innovative design optimization methods (e.g. Altair’s Concept Optimization Driven Process C123), driven by the HyperWorks suite of simulation technologies. Outstanding performance is a fundamental part of Ferrari’s DNA. The Next Generation platform is 15% lighter, while enhancing the performance of crash, NVH and other critical attributes by over 20%. Altair’s solver and optimization technologies, RADIOSS and OptiStruct for crash and NVH respectively were key tools in achieving the outstanding weight and performance characteristics.

“For Ferrari to trust Altair to support the delivery of the ‘Next Generation’ platform as a strategic partner was a great compliment. Ferrari provided an Innovation Environment where, together with Ferrari’s engineering team, our engineers and designers had the freedom to apply new technologies. As an innovation strategy, Ferrari encourages ideas from everywhere and our new design processes were able to rapidly assess the majority of ideas,” added Dr. Royston Jones, Executive Vice President, European Operations, and Global CTO, Altair ProductDesign. “I love the ‘Next Generation architecture’, it has an organic nature, with the structure flowing smoothly from sections to joints. It’s an outcome of a massive deployment of structural optimization defining optimum material layout resulting in outstanding weight / performance characteristics. I believe it truly warrants the title of ‘Next Generation’ and importantly, repays Ferrari’s trust.”