CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
5 January 2009
Implementation Investments
PTC And Dallara Automobili Celebrate 15-Year Technology Partnership in Building Winning Race Cars
PTC announced it is celebrating a 15-year technology partnership with Italian company Dallara Automobili, which for decades has specialized in racing car and super-car design and manufacturing. A customer since 1993, Dallara has standardized on the PTC Product Develop System (PDS) to design its race cars.
Dallara designs cars for the Formula Three and the American Indy Racing League. In addition, Dallara products also include two-seater sports cars that run at the Le Mans 24 hours in France and, since 2005, the GP2 series cars. One of the latest Dallara achievements is the Grand Am, a covered-wheel car prototype for the United States market.
Forty Dallara engineers use PTC Pro/ENGINEER® to design aerodynamic vehicles that can achieve maximum speed while also adhering to safety requirements. The design method demonstrates the continued strength of PTC technology in the automotive industry, where Pro/ENGINEER provides a functionally complete, integrated 3D CAD/CAM solution. For Dallara, the integration of design is expanding into the product development information management area. For example, PTC’s Pro/INTRALINK data management software enables Dallara to make available its design information to other corporate areas beyond the traditional boundaries of the engineering department.
“We have been using PTC Pro/ENGINEER since 1993 for the design of our cars,” says Luca Pignacca, chief design officer, Dallara Automobili. “We use Pro/ENGINEER for both the car structure and body. The entire design of a new car takes place in an integrated PTC environment that makes the most of parametric modelling, the available structural analysis, and its integration with other simulation software.”
Continues Pignacca, “Because every part of a racing car must be integrated in an aerodynamically-optimised unit, the parametric features of Pro/ENGINEER are key to the development of our designs. The wind tunnel is the first test of the design of each part, and the parametric feature of Pro/ENGINEER is used to replicate a key part in a substantial number of slightly different prototypes which then have to be physically manufactured and selected according to the results of the wind-tunnel test. The relation between the mathematical model of the part and all that stems from that – from the 2D table to the CAM tool process – is essential to optimise performance and meet a very tight schedule,” explained Pignacca.
The design-structural analysis method, implemented at Dallara for the development of racing cars, is also applied to its ‘super-cars.’ As proof of the efficiency of Pro/ENGINEER in the production of such cars, Pignacca notes the recent KTM X-Bow project, which, starting from an Audi engine, turned into a car ready for the 2007 Geneva Car Show in just 10 months time, from April 2006 to February 2007.
“For this kind of super-car, developed in cooperation with motorbike-specialist KTM, PTC Pro/ENGINEER delivered all the capabilities we needed,” explains Pignacca. “The powertrain was designed by Audi in the same CAD environment that we used to design the chassis and the body and this enabled us to be very efficient in the development of these new very special road cars, which already have a race version.”
“We are proud of our long, successful partnership with Dallara Automobili,” said Iain Michel, vice president business development, PTC. “The PTC Product Development System delivers the technology that Dallara requires to continue its push for delivering innovative, next-generation race car designs. We look forward to working with Dallara as the company continues to implement PTC solutions as part of their effort to advance their product development initiatives.”
About Dallara Automobili
Dallara Automobili is a race car constructor which was founded in 1972 by Dr. Gian Paolo Dallara. It’s based near Parma in Italy and currently employs over 170 people. The company has had major success in Indy Car, One make single seater championships, Formula 3 and Sports Car racing and has designed, manufactured and collaborated on racing programmes for numerous Major Motor Car Companies. These have included: the highly successful Audis R8 and R10, the Ferrari 333 Sports Car, the Beta Montecarlo Group 5 and LC1 Group C cars for Lancia, the aerodynamics for the Toyota Le Mans cars, in 1999 the Honda Formula One car and other major collaborations and successes which cannot be mentioned for confidentiality reasons.
Dallara’s facilities are ‘state of the art’ and include two wind tunnels, a 7 post Dynamic Test Rig, CAD, FEA, CFD design facilities and a modern well-equipped machine shop. In short facilities that would rival the top Formula One teams.
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