The Multibody Dynamics Simulation Solution

Adams helps engineers to study the dynamics of moving parts, and how loads and forces are distributed throughout mechanical systems.

Product manufacturers often struggle to understand true system performance until very late in the design process. Mechanical, electrical, and other subsystems are validated against their specific requirements within the systems engineering process, but full-system testing and validation comes late, leading to rework and design changes that are riskier and more costly than those made early on.

Simulate "Real World" Physics

As the world's most famous and widely used Multibody Dynamics (MBD) software, Adams improves engineering efficiency and reduces product development costs by enabling early system-level design validation. Engineers can evaluate and manage the complex interactions between disciplines including motion, structures, actuation, and controls to better optimize product designs for performance, safety, and comfort. Along with extensive analysis capabilities, Adams is optimized for large-scale problems, taking advantage of high performance computing environments.

Utilizing multibody dynamics solution technology, Adams runs nonlinear dynamics in a fraction of the time required by FEA solutions. Loads and forces computed by Adams simulations improve the accuracy of FEA by providing better assessment of how they vary throughout a full range of motion and operating environments.

"Adams simulations permitted us to get different loading conditions to be studied through an FE analysis, putting to evidence the most critical loading combinations,” Bianchi F - AgustaWestland

Adams Multidiscipline Solutions

Optional modules available with Adams allow users to integrate mechanical components, pneumatics, hydraulics, electronics, and control systems technologies to build and test virtual prototypes that accurately account for the interactions between these subsystems.

Adams Control integration - Adams Control and Adams Mechatronics

Adams Mechatronics is a plug-in to Adams which can be used to easily incorporate control systems into mechanical models. Adams Mechatronics has been developed based on the Adams Control functionality and contains modeling elements which transfer information to/from the control system. For example, using Adams Mechatronics in Adams Car, you can quickly create assemblies of vehicle systems including control systems, and then analyze them to understand their performance and behavior.

• Add a sophisticated controls representation to your Adams model
• Connect your Adams model to block diagram models you've developed with control applications such as Easy5® or MATLAB®
• Experience flexibility in simulation styles to suit your problems' needs: simulate within Adams, within the controls software or co- simulation
• Access advanced pre-processing for Adams Controls
• Setup and couple a control system to a mechanical system
• Convert signal units automatically
• Connect transducer and actuator signals to the control systems easily
• Conveniently review and modify the control system input and output specifications
• Ideal for complex integrations

Adams Flexible Body Integration – Adams Flex and Adams Viewflex

Adams Flex provides the technology to correctly include a component’s flexibility even in presence of large overall motion and complex interaction with other modeling elements. Greater emphasis has been placed these days on high-speed, lightweight, precise mechanical systems. Often these systems will contain one or more structural components where deformation effects are paramount for design analyses and the rigid body assumption is no longer valid. Adams Flex allows importing finite element models from most major FEA software packages and is fully integrated with Adams package providing access to convenient modeling and powerful post-processing capabilities.

• Integrate FEA-based flexible bodies into your model
• Better represent structural compliance
• Predict loads and displacements with greater accuracy
• Examine the linear system modes of a flexible model
• Broad and convenient control over modal participation and damping

The ViewFlex module in Adams View enables users to transform a rigid part to an MNF-based flexible body using embedded finite element analysis where a meshing step and linear modes analysis will be performed.It is our new product module powered by MSC Nastran, allowing one to create flexible bodies without leaving Adams View and without reliance on 3rd party Finite Element Analysis software. Also, it’s a streamlined process with much higher efficiency than the way users have traditionally generated flexible bodies for Adams in the past.

• Create flexible bodies entirely within Adams View or Adams Car
• Reduce reliance on 3rd party FEA software using built in MSC Nastran technology
• Generate a flexible body from existing solid geometry, imported meshes or newly created extrusion geometry
• Obtain detailed control over mesh, modal analysis and flexible body attachment settings for an accurate representation of component flexibility

Adams Durability - Integrate with MSC Fatigue to do component life prediction

Durability testing is a critical aspect of product development and issues discovered late in the development cycle lead to project delays and budget overruns. Worse yet, “in service” failures lead to dissatisfied customers, safety issues, and warranty costs. Adams Durability allows engineers to assess stress, strain or life of components within mechanical systems to design products to last. Direct access to physical test data in industry-standard file formats enables engineers to use loads data captured during tests, and to easily correlate simulation and testing results.

• Shorten your development cycle, reducing costly durability testing
• Provide direct file input and output in RPC III and DAC formats to reduce disk space requirements and improve performance
• Perform modal stress recovery of flexible bodies within Adams
• Export loads to popular FEA software including MSC Nastran for detailed stress analysis
• Integrate with MSC Fatigue to do component life prediction

Adams Vibration - Create input and output channels for vibration analyses

With Adams Vibration, engineers replace physical tests on shaker devices with virtual prototypes. Noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) are critical factors in the performance of many mechanical designs but designing for optimum NVH can be difficult. Adams Vibration allows engineers to easily study forced vibration of mechanical systems using frequency domain analysis.

• Analyze the forced response of a model in the frequency domain over different operating points
• Transfer your linearized model from Adams products to Adams Vibration completely and quickly
• Create input and output channels for vibration analyses
• Specify frequency domain input functions, such as swept sine amplitude/ frequency, power spectral density (PSD), and rotational imbalance
• Create frequency-based forces
• Solve for system modes over frequency range of interest
• Evaluate frequency response functions for magnitude and phase characteristics
• Animate forced response and individual mode response
• Tabulate system modal contributions to forced vibration response
• Tabulate contribution of model elements to kinetic, static, and dissipative energy distribution in system modes
• Specify direct kinematic inputs
• Plot Stress/Strain frequency response functions