Tech Explainer: How Does Design Simulation​ Work? - Part 1

Design simulation is a type of computer-aided engineering used to create new products, reducing the need for physical prototypes. The result is a faster, more efficient design process in which complex physics and math do much of the heavy lifting. Rapid advances in CPUs and GPUs have made it possible to shift product design from the physical world to a virtual one. Engineers can create and test new designs as quickly as their servers can calculate the results and then render them with visualization software. Designing via AI-powered virtual simulation offers significant improvements over older methods. Now, we’ve got smaller design teams aided by increasingly powerful clusters of high-performance systems. Using the latest tech, designers can simulate new prosthetics in relation to the physiology they’ll inhabit. Simulations can warn medical pros about potential infections, rejections and physical mismatches. Simulation can take a product to the manufacturing phase, too. Once a design is finished, engineers can simulate its journey through a virtual factory environment. This virtual factory can help determine how long it will take to build a product and how it will react to various materials and environmental conditions.