Working with the Latin American team at Dassault Systèmes is like going home again.  Some would say that being raised 100 percent in a Spanish household gives me an “insider track” advantage.   Not quite.   Latin America is a fascinating place but it is not a homogenous region.   For anyone doing business here, these facts are critical to know:

• In Latin America, there are 35 countries in a region of nearly 500 million people including Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America. The two predominant languages are Spanish and Portuguese.
• According to the Market Intelligence Alliance group, “Mexico City and São Paulo in Brazil are two of the largest cities in the world, each with over 20 million inhabitants in their metropolitan areas. This will increase, as 36 percent of the region’s population is below the age of 15 years.”
• For anyone who thinks Latin Americans speak only Spanish, eat only spicy food (“comida picante” to be accurate) and dance the tango and salsa like ballroom stars, they are in for a big surprise.  (My very own cultural advice.)

So I was quite excited to hear that Dassault Systemes Latin America is led by Marcelo Lemos, president for the region and a man that is no stranger to the company, the industry and the cultural sensitivities needed to navigate in this growing market.

Marcelo’s base is his birthplace of Buenos Aires, Argentina, home to the largest mechanical flower in the world, the Floralis Generica.  Better known as the Steel Flower, Floralis Generica was created by the Buenos Aires born MIT professor and world-known architect, Eduardo Catalano.  The flower weighs 18 tons and is 23 meters high.  Very much the same way airplane wings are designed with CATIA, Lockheed Martin used CATIA to model and test Floralis Generica’s challenging geometrical 6-petal surface.

In a recent visit to the new Dassault Systèmes offices in Buenos Aires, I met with Marcelo to discuss his vision and priorities for the region. Greeted by his friendly and most helpful assistant we sat in his Puerto Madero district office,  a district representing the most successful architectural reconstruction of a port located on the banks of  Rio La Plata.  The entire area has street names and statues dedicated to the role of local women and is marked by a beautiful pedestrian bridge known “El Puente de la Mujer” (A Woman’s Bridge).

Lemos is excited by the recent IDC number updates by Latin America Vice President of Research, Ricardo Villate. In his mid-year forecast, he cites that “Latin America’s Information Technology (IT) growth for the enterprise sector is predicted at 6.6% for this year and this is more than double the expected global average growth of 2.8%.  Villate adds:  “Many new eyes will be focusing their efforts to beginning business in Latin America as well as strengthening their existing business in the region.”

Marcelo points out that DS’ PLM business in the region has grown three times faster than the predicted IDC growth for 2010, and that DS business has grown consistently over the last several years.  The future in Latin America includes continued support for traditional industries such as aerospace, automotive and equipment and machinery, but Lemos is clear:  “ We will turn up the volume on emerging sectors such as energy, consumer product goods, lifesciences and hi-tech.”

From business and cultural perspectives, Dassault Systemes Latin America is well positioned for this plan with offices in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, and partner representation across the region.  Watch the Latin America space for upswing in 2010 and 2011!

In my experience, there are perhaps two common threads across the Latin American region:  1) the colonial past, and, 2) an uncontrolled passion to win the World Cup.  I lived the last one this summer working at Dassault Systemes.  And ironically so, the World Cup winner (Spain) brought some of us back to the past. But we are still very happy they won.

By the way, what do you think about the Steel Flower?

Hasta pronto,

Elena

Elena Fernandez is the Dassault Systèmes PR manager for Latin Americas.

Hello Everyone!

One of the things that interest me most about Verney Yachts is the amount of business acumen and collaboration skills that you must have to be able to drive a project forward. It’s impossible to get a project like this down the slipway without collaborating with other people and organisations.

To that end, Verney Yachts are working with Capvidia, a partner of Dassault Systèmes and now Verney Yachts. Tim has used FlowVision CFD coupled with Abaqus to perform a Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) simulation.

The FSI analysis simulates the above surface aerodynamics of the boat, and is critical to V39-Albatross’ success.  It establishes overall aerodynamic forces and moments acting on the boat with different control inputs. Multiple analyses are conducted all with different boat velocities. This process helps the Verney team tune the control system to minimise control cross coupling and to maximise forward thrust, whilst maintaining roll balance of the overall boat.

Also part of Dassault Systèmes’ Passion for Innovation programme, the Verney Yachts team is using SolidWorks for the structural 3D design and Abaqus for realistic virtual testing. These tools are critical to the on time, low cost design and build of the boat.

As Tim Clarke, lead engineer and founder of Verney Yachts mentions:

“One of the side effects of building a keel for such high speed sailing is that it becomes very sensitive to twisting under load. We’re using Abaqus to tune the carbon fibre composite keel to minimise twisting across the speed range.”

It’s this perfect example of working collaboratively with multiple partners that drives projects like V39-Albatross on to break world records!  Do you agree?

Tune in next week for more on Verney Yachts. I’ll be looking at the project goals and what breaking a world record for speed sailing actually involves!

Cheers,
Tom

@tombianchi

The F1 Team of the Ocean

It’s been a while since I last blogged, but I’ve been saving up a good one for you as follow-up to my first Verney Yachts post.   This is the first in a three part mini-series of blogging about Verney Yachts (@V39Albatross), so stay tuned for the next three Tuesdays to find out more!

At the 2010 SCC – Tim Clarke of Verney presented an excellent overview of the preliminary design of the wing-sail for the V-39 Albatross. He mentioned that the Verney team is conducting all of the design and the prototype work virtually using Abaqus and other CAE tools, with no plans to build a physical prototype – “Numerical simulation is the only realistic method to test the boat” It’s the wing-sail that I’ll talk about in today’s post.

This method is a similar one to the F1 team Virgin Racing who designed this year’s car 100 percent using numerical methods, including CFD and FEA.

The wing-sail is a unique device designed to do two things; propel the boat forwards, as well as lifting it out of the water so it flies in ground effect just above the surface. This is similar to an Ekronoplan in concept just without an engine.

A wing-sail is made up of an inner and outer plank. Each plank can rotate about its longitudinal axis into the local air-stream. The amount of lift generated by each plank can be controlled by the pilot. This approach to the control of each wing-sail has massively helped the team keep weight to a minimum – the low weight of the boat is essential to its success.

That’s all for this week, tune in again next week to hear about Verney becoming part of the Dassault Systèmes Passion for Innovation programme, and more on the team as they strive towards the record attempt.

Until next week,

Tom

@tombianchi