CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

30 January 2009

Implementation Investments

Toyota Continues Strategic Partnership Using LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim full Vehicle Energy Management Studies

LMS announced that Toyota has extended its strategic partnership with LMS International to full vehicle thermal management analyses. The LMS engineering team will provide Toyota with three vehicle energy management flow simulators for three different vehicles: the Toyota Corolla, the hybrid Toyota Prius, and the new micro-four-seater, the Toyota IQ. With these new dedicated simulators, Toyota will be able to investigate heat management strategies and architectures using one-dimensional simulation extremely early in the development cycle. This will let Toyota study the direct influence of design changes on fuel consumption as well as CO2 emissions and, in the end, significantly reduce the number of physical prototypes.

Many engineers at Toyota already use LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim to create and share early design stage models. Toyota particularly appreciates the groundbreaking thermal management work they have done using LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim as well as the sophisticated and complete libraries and models from the dedicated LMS Vehicle Thermal Management automotive applications. Engineering ideas can be visualized within LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim to create straightforward multi-functional one-dimensional vehicle thermal mock-ups that are readily available for various engineering teams. It is not uncommon that the first preliminary studies have been signed-off well before the engine is even available. In this sense, the LMS Imagine. Lab AMESim solution offers tangible cost and time savings.

This is not the first time that LMS Imagine and Toyota have worked in this area. Toyota started using LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim in 2000 for diesel injector development. This was followed by a successful lubrication overview project and several engine thermal management projects. In 2007, the Toyota successfully modeled a full vehicle energy management flow for the Toyota Avensis using LMS’ engineering expertise. This project, which led to the current full three-vehicle energy management study project, included creating a set of libraries including all subsystems used by the simulators. Based on this project, the current full vehicle energy management flow project includes a post-processing tool to create an energy flow distribution chart, and interface development with Toyota database TEPS.

"LMS’ strong position and professional expertise in vehicle thermal management simulation definitely helps us design innovative vehicles that fit market demands and match Toyota’s brand value," stated Mr. Yamada, Assistant Manager of Vehicle System Engineering Dept. R&D Group1 at Toyota. "Thanks to LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim, Toyota can gain a competitive advantage in regards to energy management issues and create real innovative engineering approaches.”

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