Fan Tutorial 2 - Design System - Part 1

In this tutorial, we will go through the typical use case of designing a system within Valispace. This process involves creating a digital model of the system, including the system breakdown, calculating the performance parameters, tradeoffs, and design decisions within Valispace.

We will go through the use case in two parts. The first part covers the system breakdown and inbuilt calculations within Valispace. The second part covers the tradeoffs, design decision and adding the budgets on the analysis block.

This part of the tutorial is expected to take around 25-40 minutes to finish. The values of the components provided are arbitrary.

(1) Configure the ValiTypes

ValiTypes ensure that every new component you create already contains Valis of a certain type with a default formula and a unit (e.g. Mass, Power Consumption, etc).

Ensure that the correct Valitypes exist.

• In the left sidebar, click on the Settings symbol in the lower left-hand corner and select Settings from the drop-down

• Click on the Valitypes (1) button in the navigation pane to see all the existing Valitypes available in the project (see Figure Valitypes)

• Now, check whether the following Valitypes exist. To do that, hover over the Name column header to see the filter option. Click on the highlighted filter icon and enter the following filters by name:

  • Mass in kg

  • PowerConsumption in W

• If they do not exist, add them by clicking on the + button on the bottom right, below the page heading Valitypes and add the Valitypes with the above names.

• Change the Valitypes properties so that your configuration looks like in the Figure Valitypes.

The units for the PowerConsumption might be in kW or W. If the unit is in kW, double click on the cell and delete the “kW” and Convert to “W”. Also, in this tutorial, we will use the mass property of the components in grams, its your choice to keep the unit in Kg or g.

• Ensure that both tick boxes Add by Default are ☑ activated (2). These Valitypes will be automatically added to every new component you create (see step 2 of this tutorial). Be aware that the Default checkbox is a user setting; this will not affect which ValiTypes other users have checked as Default.

soc() means the sum of children and ensures that by default this Vali adds up Valis which are of the same type in components (1 level) below in the tree.

(2) Add Components to your Project

Let's start building your fan! Every product can be broken down into its subcomponents, like a tree. The hierarchical component tree is one of the core features of Valispace.

Create the System “Fan”

Based on the requirements and the stakeholder needs, we have identified the design a system “ValiFan,” which meets the requirements.

In the System Design Module, you can create and access the Component Tree, which includes all components and Valis. In the left sidebar, click on the System Design (1) Module.

• Create a new component by using the + Add Component (2) button in the project navigation pane. Name the new component Fan (3) and click Create (4) (see Figure Creating a new Component)

• You can see that the Valis “Mass” and “PowerConsumption”, which we configured in the Valitypes Settings, have automatically been added to your new component. Alternatively, if you had not marked them as "Add by Default", you can always add new Valis to your component by clicking the "Add Property" button (see Figure Add a new Vali).

Breakdown the system

Since we created our system, it's time to break it down into subsystems or parts.

• Now, right-click on the new Fan component in the navigation pane and select + Add component. Name the new component Propeller. Expand the fan component to see the new sub-component in the navigation tree.

• Repeat to create the Fan's sub-components Motor, Speed_controller, and Structure. You can click the “Enter” button from the keyboard or select the Create & add new option to create multiple components without leaving the popup.

• Your components tree should now look like in Figure Fan Structure.

You can drag and drop components in the tree. You can also move components to another project by selecting Move to Project in the right-click menu.

(3) Change the Values

In Valispace, Valis are parameters of components that contain your engineering values. Valis have properties such as formulas, values, history, and much more. Your newly created components already contain two Valis, Mass and PowerConsumption. So, let's go ahead and add values to your Valis!

Change the Mass and the Power Consumption Value

• If you wish to see more information and attributes for your Valis, you can expand the Vali by clicking on the vali name. This opens up the “details” page of the Vali where you can also edit its formula here. But for now, let's change the values within the list view

• In the list view, double-click on the 0g and 0W values for the following components and enter the new values by double-clicking on the cells:

  • Motor: Mass = 110g, PowerConsumption = 1W

  • Propeller: Mass = 30g, PowerConsumption = 0W (make sure to enter "0W" instead of "soc()")

  • Speed_controller: Mass = 15g, PowerConsumption = 0.1W

  • Structure: Mass = 80g, PowerConsumption = 0W  (make sure to enter "0W" instead of "soc()")

  • See the example in Figure Adding Mass to the Motor to see how it is done.

• Note that Valispace has automatically calculated the total Mass of the Fan to 235g or 0.235 kg and its total PowerConsumption to 1.1W.

When users input the “Value” of a property, it is essential to include both the numerical value and its unit, formulated together, as showcased in the example above: 110g.

In the “Display Unit” column, users are empowered to specify the unit they wish the value to be represented in. Thus, by initially inputting the value as 110g and setting the “Display Unit” as kg, Valispace will seamlessly convert and display it as 0.11kg.

Note that for calculations, Valispace uses the unit provided in the "Value" field. If a user requires the unit to be displayed in an alternate format, like pounds, Valispace will convert the displayed unit accordingly. Learn More: find here the list of units used by the ValiEngine

Please make sure to always use dots (.) as decimal separators for your values.

(4) Add a new Vali

In previous steps, we have shown how to add Valitypes. However, the valis(properties) are not restricted to mass and power consumption. There can be different types of properties that can be added to the components. In Valispace, the user can create new Valis that can be a number with a unit or unitless. It can also be a matrix, textvali (e.g., material), datevali (e.g., purchase date) and datasets. You can access Valis in formulas using the $ symbol in any field.

Add the Propeller Efficiency and Delivered Power

• Go to the Propeller component.

• Select the + button in the bottom right (1) to open the Create Property dialogue. Select Vali field, type Efficiency (2) in the 'Name' field and 0.85 in the Formula field (3)

• Leave the unit field empty and click Create (4)

• Repeat for another Vali with the name power_delivered and add the formula as  $Motor.PowerConsumption*$Propeller.efficiency, a drop-down will appear where you can choose the desired Vali after you start typing the $-sign

• Leave the unit field empty to be calculated automatically from the formula or specify the display unit mW, then click Create. The Valis of Propeller should now look like in Figure Creating valis and using them in formulas.

• You can click on each Vali's name or the details tab to show Vali’s description and alter its properties. For example, you can change its unit.

PowerUserTip: to access a Vali from a different project in a formula or analysis, just type: $Valiname and click on From other projects.

(5) Changing the Display Units of Valis

At times, you may need to work with various Display Units. Valispace includes a built-in feature that can identify different units and perform accurate calculations, regardless of the selected units.

• Open the System Design Module and select the Motor.

• Change the Display Unit of the Motor Mass from kg to g by double-clicking on kg. You can also change within the details section as shown in the Figure Changing Display Unit.

Changing the Display Unit changes only how the value is displayed. If you double click on the value 0.11, you will see the real value and its unit as 110g.

(6) Detail your Design and Reuse Components

Once you have a basic design in place, you can create a more detailed model of your product. If there are components that need to be duplicated, you can utilize the "connected copies" feature. This ensures that they remain synchronized: if you make changes to one connected component, all others will be automatically updated as well.

In our example, we have three rotor blades and all of them are the same.

Create three connected rotor blades

• Right-click on the Propeller component and click + Add Component to create a sub-component named Blade1.

• After creating this component, right-click on it and select Copy & connect. A new connected component Blade2 appears on the same level.

• Repeat the previous step also to generate Blade3.

• Go to Blade1 and select the Blade1 Details tab on top of the screen. In the "Connected Copies" section, you can verify that the copies have been created correctly.

• Select any of the three blades and change its Mass to 10g and the PowerConsumption to 0W. You can verify in any of the other blades that all connected blades now have the same Mass and PowerConsumption.

PowerUserTip: you can disconnect Valis or entire components by clicking on the connection symbol next to their names. More details can be found in the connected copies documentation.

Mass Budgets

All Valis with the formula ”soc()”, or Sum of Children, have an associated budget table and chart which can be viewed in the Vali information (see Figure Budget Tables).

• Head to component "Fan" and click on the name "Mass" (1) to open the details tab. Click on the budget (2) in the details tab highlighted below to view a breakdown of your fan’s total mass.

• Within the details section, Click on the pie chart (1) highlighted below to view a breakdown of the total mass of your fan. The pie chart shows you the mass breakdown for your immediate lower level of subsystems.

(7) Make use of Margins

At an early development stage, you are usually not sure about the exact value of any property. This is why you put a margin on top of the value. Valispace takes care of propagating this uncertainty throughout all your calculations.

Add Margins to your Vali Table Columns

• Click on the Propeller component. In the table, check if the Margin columns are visible. If not, click on the columns tab (on the right - see Figure Margins).

• From the list, select Margin+ and Margin-.

Add an uncertainty margin to the propeller Mass.

• At the early design stages, you might not know the mass's final value; in most cases, you end up with a mass higher than expected. For these cases, you can add a security margin to your Vali. With the help of this margin, Valispace automatically calculates a worst-case for your Vali. Let's do this for example with the Propeller mass (see Figure Margins on Valis).

• Click on the Propeller component and go to the Mass Vali.

• Add an upper margin "Margin+" (1) to the Vali by clicking the arrow symbol or directly entering a value of 10 (meaning a 10% margin) (2).

• Open the details tab of the Propeller Mass (expand the Vali by clicking on the mass vali “name” field) to see how the worst-case value is changed to 0.033kg due to the addition of the margin (3). If you go to the Fan component and expand the Fan's Mass, you can also see that the Fan's Mass now has a total margin of +1.28% and a worst-case of 0.238kg.

• Alternatively, you can also add margins within your Vali’s details, and you might also consider adding bottom (-) margins to some of your Valis.

(8) Tags for your Custom Needs

Tags are a multi-purpose tool for your specific team needs. You can use it to mark Valis, Components or Analyses. Use them to indicate:

• reliability of a value (assumption / calculated/measured)

• actions for team members (review: Tom/approval: Christine)

• any other marking or grouping

Tag the Mass of the motor as a measured value

• Select the Motor component in the product tree.

• In the row of the Mass, double click on the area under the Tags column, type measurement, and hit Enter to add the tag to the Motor.

If you want to search and filter for this tag, select the three horizontal lines which become visible when you hover over the header and select the filter option as shown in Figure Filtering.

PowerUserTip: if you want to change the colour of the tags, click on your Profile --> Settings and choose a new colour. 

Linking Component(s) to Requirements

Now that you have your basic System structure, let's establish a connection between the Fan system and the Requirements from our Fan_Specs Specification. This creates a direct link between the System Design and the Requirement. To do this go to the Requirements Module and access your Fan_Specs specification (1). Then select all the Requirements (2) and double click into the Applicable Component Column (3). Here select the Fan system (4).

Now you can click on “Open“ when hovering over the “Fan“ system, in the Applicable Component column to access the “Fan” system in your System Design Module.

Here you can check on the Requirements that are linked to this system by clicking on the “Requirements“ tab above the Vali table.

Whenever you create a Requirement here it will be automatically linked to the currently selected System.

For further insights on the Applicable System feature please check out our documentation on this.