Leading engineering services company uses Simcenter Samcef and NX to create turnkey products for the mechanical industry

Unique expertise

Providing turnkey products to its customers is the challenge that Studio Tecnico Zocca S.r.l. meets every day. Throughout the past six decades, the Italian company has employed the most advanced design and simulation technologies available to sustain its leading position in a highly competitive and increasingly globalized market.

Studio Tecnico Zocca’s main competitive edge is its expertise all along the product development process, including planning, analysis, calculation, design and construction of machines and components for the mechanical engineering field. Such expertise is extremely rare in the large engineering supplier market.

Thermal, pressure and screw clamping loads mapped on the finite element model of a two-cylinder diesel engine head.

Increasing efficiency

Studio Tecnico Zocca is proud to provide services to prestigious brands that are leaders in their respective industries. The company relies on engineers with highly skilled and advanced expertise to pinpoint solutions for a wide range of applications, from the project phase through to the final product.

All this contributes to create a wealth of experience and reliability that enables Studio Tecnico Zocca to develop technologically advanced solutions on a continuous basis. To further its competitive edge, Studio Tecnico Zocca focuses on accelerating the delivery, quality and functionality of its customers’ products. Its rigorous goals for “new and improved” require best-in-class software to support the creative talents of its team.

Rotor dynamic analysis of a compressor shaft and impeller with Simcenter Samcef.

Facilitating collaboration

Due to increased system complexity and component interdependence, product development projects require close collaboration between Studio Tecnico Zocca and its customers. It all begins with a faceto-face discussion to communicate the product development process and understand all requirements. It is essential to fully understand and precisely define the project’s specifications and objectives during the preliminary planning phase.

During the study phase, Studio Tecnico Zocca uses NX™ software from Siemens Digital Industries Software for computeraided design (CAD) and Simcenter 3D for computer aided engineering (CAE) in order to optimize mechanical component geometry. At the component level, engineers also use parameter and geometry optimization tools that help determine the best distribution of material in each component.

Verification of the project is carried out using Simcenter™ Samcef™ software, also from Siemens Digital Industries Software, in combination with Simcenter 3D to assess the most optimized structural and mechanical models. The Simcenter 3D environment for Simcenter Samcef enables Studio Tecnico Zocca engineers to use the powerful geometry editing, meshing, and general pre- and post-processing capabilities of Simcenter 3D to build analysis models for advanced nonlinear analysis with the Simcenter Samcef Solver Suite software.

“Accelerating the analysis process and improving the simulation accuracy of detailed models are required today,” explains Alessandro Zocca, president of Studio Tecnico Zocca. “Thanks to the new Simcenter Samcef environment in Simcenter 3D, we have closed the loop between NX CAD and the efficient, finite element solution for non-linear structural analysis in Simcenter Samcef.”

Harmonic response to check single critical node displacement in frequency domain.

Adopting advanced predictive software

Studio Tecnico Zocca has implemented the combination of Simcenter Samcef and Simcenter 3D on current projects for predicting the behavior of complex mechanisms such as gears and cams.

“For simulation of the global machine models, we use Simcenter Samcef for its multibody simulation capabilities, which resolve the dynamics of rigid or flexible bodies in movement by analyzing stress, deformation and acceleration of the operating parts,” states Zocca.

The modeling and analysis capabilities of Simcenter Samcef allow Studio Tecnico Zocca to analyze the mechanism behavior in terms of performance, stability and robustness. Engineers take full advantage of the unique ability to use mechanisms with nonlinear features, topological optimization, linear and nonlinear calculation of finite elements, dynamics analyses and advanced contact problems.

Integrated design and simulation help Studio Tecnico Zocca achieve its objective to bring higher-quality products to market at lower costs. “We are able to perform different analyses based on one single model,” notes Zocca. “Thanks to Simcenter Samcef, we can pilot from one solver as many series of specific computations as we need – including structural, mechanical or rotor dynamics ‒ to get insight into the physics of complex multi-rotor rotating machinery.”

Check for single member stress and displacement with Simcenter Samcef.

Simulating complex behavior

Simulation of mechanisms like gears or rotors must comply with standards of the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Using simulation for structural analysis is a necessity due to design complexity.

“In the frame of our engineering activities, we need to outperform our competitors to cascade innovation into our customers’ products,” says Zocca. “To do so, we combine the strength of NX for its high-performance design capabilities with Simcenter Samcef for its unique ability to analyze global or detailed nonlinear structural models. We are eager to take advantage of the full CAD-to-CAE associativity of these solutions in the future to more quickly and easily assess the mechanical behavior of the complex mechanisms we are studying.”

Nonlinear multibody simulation of a machine for leather treatment with mixed flexible and rigid parts. Objective was to find the torque needed on the pinion rack actuating mechanism.