Putting a New Spin on Innovation: HSD Looks Toward the Future, with Support from Ansys

HSD Mechatronics, based in Gradara, Pesaro and Urbino, Italy, is the world’s second-largest manufacturer of electrospindles — machine tools with rotating shafts that support cutting, grinding, milling, and other work processes. A key component of production automation and mechatronics systems, electrospindles are designed to machine metal, wood, composite materials, glass, and stone. HSD provides high-performing electrospindles, many of which require product customization, to customers in the automotive, aerospace, industrial manufacturing, construction, defense, and other industries. These products must operate with incredible levels of precision in mission-critical applications, while being subjected to high-speed mechanical rotation, high thermal loads, and other harsh environmental conditions. HSD relies on a suite of Ansys solutions — including Ansys Fluent, Ansys Mechanical, Ansys Cloud, and Ansys Twin Builder — to not only optimize its existing product designs, but also to produce the extremely innovative electrospindle of the future, which is set to revolutionize manufacturing.

Challenges

An established global leader in electrospindle design, HSD is a partner in Italy’s prestigious Intelligent Factory Cluster, a public-private partnership aimed at making zero-defect manufacturing a reality. As part of a project called “Electrospindle 4.0,” HSD is developing a next-generation electrospindle that is digitally connected to the rest of its customers’ production environments. This project requires HSD to understand and optimize product performance at an entirely new level — in real time, as the machine is working in a customer facility. Increasing the interconnectivity of its machine tools with the larger production environment means HSD must place physical sensors on each electrospindle that monitor performance in real time. But it’s impossible to place physical sensors everywhere they’re needed due to the complexities of electrospindle operation. So an equally important component of Electrospindle 4.0 is creating an accurate digital twin of the working tool that’s equipped with a series of virtual sensors. Today, HSD must complement its traditional engineering simulations with a new focus: creating a working digital twin of each electrospindle deployed in a customer facility. 

Engineering Solution

Since 2019, HSD has relied on a suite of Ansys solutions, including Ansys Mechanical and Ansys Fluent, to simulate the real-world performance of its electrospindles and other machine tools in customer applications. HSD has used this Ansys solution suite to explore improvements such as new materials, as well as investigate issues such as deformation, fatigue, and overheating. HSD has leveraged Ansys Cloud to manage the large numeric problem sizes associated with rotating machinery. When HSD launched the Electrospindle 4.0 initiative in 2020, it added Ansys Twin Builder. Now HSD is able to model a specific tool’s operating conditions in Twin Builder based on live inputs from the digitally connected, working electrospindle — then the virtual model, equipped with virtual sensors, provides even more data points. By gathering data from both physical and virtual sensors, HSD can predict repair and maintenance needs, while gathering a large volume of real-time insights that lead to the continuous optimization of both the product and its performance. Ansys Twin Builder is the perfect solution for building a working model of the electrospindle and connecting it to the live, working tool in a customer’s facility.