Krones Revolutionizes Its Fluid Simulations

“Our solution integrates AI-based high-end fluid simulation into the digital twin of the filling machine, opening up completely new possibilities for forecasting, optimization, and visualization.”

— Thomas Albrecht
Head of Simulations, Krones

Krones, a global process manufacturing line provider for bottling, canning, and packaging, encountered a limiting obstacle: time-consuming fluid simulation methods developed decades ago.

Liquid dynamics in manufacturing are inherently fast-paced and unpredictable, requiring precise management at every stage. Velocity, design, and flow dynamics create significant challenges for controlling and simulating uncapped bottles, as every variable — including pressure, flow, and turbulence — must be meticulously controlled and predicted.

The inability to optimize these factors in real time can lead to excessive waste, inefficiencies, and operational problems during subsequent phases, making advanced simulation technologies essential for maintaining efficiency and minimizing losses.

Technology Used

• Ansys Fluent fluid simulation software® delivered world-class computational fluid dynamics (CFD), providing the backbone for credible, high-fidelity liquid and fast sloshing simulations
• Microsoft Azure supplied a reliable, scalable cloud infrastructure, leveraging Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for rapid deployment and robust performance
• NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform, libraries, and frameworks including NVIDIA Isaac Sim™ and NVIDIA Omniverse™ Kit App Streaming enable real-time, physically accurate simulations, where behaviors can be both predicted and optimized virtually
• Custom React.js web interface gives users full control and detailed insights, all in one location

This stack provided exactly what Krones needed: reliability, speed, scalability, and a demonstration platform to drive a strategy in line with Industry 4.0.

Engineering Solution

Together with Ansys, part of Synopsys, Krones revolutionized its fluid simulations with CADFEM, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and SoftServe.

Ansys Fluent software and NVIDIA Omniverse libraries brought the two worlds of accurate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and virtual assembly lines together. Fluent native GPU solver simulations were deployed seamlessly into the Krones Microsoft Azure account to provide access to High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure to improve simulation time and data management. SoftServe helped the partners implement these solutions on Azure, and CADFEM created models that form a physically accurate digital twin and supported the customer directly in the Fluent simulations (run on NVIDIA H100 GPU).

Krones built a physically accurate agentic digital twin by harnessing the combined expertise of these strategic partners, enabling operational agility and faster innovation.

Benefits

• Drastic reduction in simulation time: Simulation cycles shrank from one to two hours per simulation to ten to fifteen minutes. This efficiency made iteration and improvement possible on completely new terms, enabling more responsive and data-driven engineering.
• Intuitive and accessible demonstrations: Within the two-month time frame, Krones had a finished, polished first application, which now is the base for further improvement on a next level. Animated videos showcase results for an enterprise audience beyond engineers and technicians.
• Empowered decision-making: A unified dashboard provided by the web app centralized all simulation controls and data. This helped streamline the workflow and enabled direct scenario comparisons, turning complex analysis into actionable intelligence.
• Real, measurable cost and resource savings: Having control over fluid dynamics meant less water waste, reduced material costs, and a more sustainable production environment.
• A platform for scalability: Krones now stands ready to expand digital twin technology across additional production assets and intends to use this project as a foundation for digital excellence throughout its operations.