Autodesk customer success story Howden France

Project summary

Since all of its industrial fans are custom-made,

Howden France sets itself a target of reducing

the engineering time required during the design

stage. By using Autodesk® Inventor®, Autodesk®

Vault®, and Autodesk® Simulation Mechanical,

Howden France has reduced the lead time

through the design office by as much as 40

percent, while also improving its product

designs.

Howden France, with 665 million euros turnover

in 2010 and more than 4,000 employees,

specializes in air and gas handling equipment.

The company is part of the Charter International

plc group, which includes ESAB, a global market

leader in welding equipment. Howden France,

which is based in Villeneuve d’Ascq in northern

France, supplies centrifugal fans, axial fans, and

blowers.

The challenge

Howden’s product ranges cover applications in

the petrochemicals, mining, steel manufacturing,

and cement industries, as well as ventilation

Howden France reduces engineering time for its industrial fans by 40 percent

COMPANY

Howden France

LOCATION

Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

SOFTWARE

Autodesk® Inventor Autodesk® Vault Autodesk® Simulation Mechanical

systems for mines and tunnels. Howden

specialists are responsible for the design,

manufacture, quality and control, and on-site

implementation of its products. “A large variety

of machine design activity goes through the

design office, so we had the motivation to

reduce the engineering time,” says Laurent

Tisserand, technical director.

In the design office at Howden, three Autodesk

software solutions are used on a daily basis:

Inventor, Vault, and Autodesk Simulation. “Our

fans contain complex shapes, and from the very

start 3D CAD allowed our designers to

comprehend these much better,” says

Tisserand. “With manufacturing being

subcontracted, the objective is to communicate

the most relevant information possible—here

once again, 3D is the best method there is.”

The solution

Throughout the process, the company quickly

realized that controlling files, assemblies, and

design variants is not an easy task. “Designing

alongside several other people without a product

Image courtesy of Howden France. Copyright © Howden Group Limited.

Autodesk customer success story Howden France

Autodesk, Autodesk Inventor, and Inventor are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2013 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

data management software (PDM) system

becomes difficult. We introduced an integrated

version of Autodesk Vault in 2008 to work more

smoothly and to share files between different

users. Vault is an excellent tool; it avoids conflict

and provides you with a central database,” says

Tisserand. “A vast number of possible fan

configurations exist, and all of these different

solutions have been developed and structured in

Vault. This shows the interaction and

interoperability that exists between Autodesk

programs. Now, we couldn’t imagine working

with Autodesk Inventor without Vault.”

While implementing Autodesk Vault, the design

office worked with the French integrator

Prodware on the automated design of 3D

models and 2D manufacturing plans. “We have

set up a system based on Excel construction

files,” says Tisserand. “All we have to do is

incorporate the Excel table values in the

Autodesk Inventor modeler to obtain our fan

models.”

Another development was implemented on the

commercial side: the creation of project plans

used in after-sales activities to quickly develop

product documentation with front, top, and 3D

views. Tisserand says, “The innovation lies in

the fact that the person creating the plan doesn’t

need to be a skillful user in Autodesk Inventor—

the software remains transparent to the user.” In

a matter of minutes, sales representatives are

able to create a project plan, which displays all

the useful dimensions for the client, so they can

get an idea of the machine, the layout, and how

the accessories are arranged.

Howden France has been using Finite Element

Analysis (FEA) calculation capabilities along

with Autodesk Simulation Mechanical. “In the

same way that we had built an in-house

software solution that works automatically to

create drawings of our fan wheels, we

envisioned introducing an automated calculation

model,” says Tisserand.

He continues, “When you design a welded or

sheet metal working model of a fan, you need

beveled edges, radii, and so on. These elements

are not necessary for the FEA calculation. It is

important to be able to easily create simplified

geometry by stripping features and unwanted

details in preparation to make the CAD models

calculable and usable for Autodesk Simulation

Mechanical.”

Autodesk Simulation features cyclical symmetry

functionalities for slicing up the fan wheel into

sections, which means that calculations can be

made on a single section of the fan. Then, the

design office on the project can make its

calculations much more quickly. The software

simulates the wheels according to the stress

level, taking fatigue and creep into account,

optimizing thickness and weight of the product.

This last important criterion is essential for

manufacturing and has major repercussions on

performance.

“By optimizing the weight, we reduce inertia for a

better performance and can reduce the power of

the motor required,” says Tisserand. “Reducing

power means lower operating costs.”

Previously, Howden France worked with another

company in the group for making calculations

and simulations by FEA, but now has an in-

house team. “We are using Autodesk Simulation

Mechanical once or twice a week,” says

Tisserand. “We knew how to create the

justification, and the software will soon have

paid for itself.”

The result

Tisserand says, “Our target was to reduce lead

time. If we’re talking about time saved, we have

improved by 35 to 40 percent the lead time

through the design office. Out of this total, Vault

represents 10 to 12 points and the automation

built around Inventor explains the rest. This

figure is a 2010 figure compared with the lead

time in 2004 when we were working in 2D with

AutoCAD. For example, Autodesk Inventor

quickly and automatically provided us with the

inertia and masses of the rotors and that in itself

is significant timesaving.”

Image courtesy of Howden France.