Aras Simulation

Management (SM) 12.0R1

User Guide

Document #: 12.0R1.02020072901
Last Modified: 7/30/2020
 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
User Guide

Copyright Information
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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
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Table of Contents
Send Us Your Comments ........................................................................................................................... 4
Document Conventions .............................................................................................................................. 5
1 Overview ................................................................................................................................................ 6
2 Use Cases Overview ............................................................................................................................ 7
Creating a New Simulation Study ................................................................................................ 7
Create a New Simulation Process by Creating and Concatenating Simulation Tasks ................ 9
Create a New Simulation Task ...................................................................................... 9
Record Simulation Task input and output data using Simulation Artifacts .................. 12
Concatenate Simulation Tasks in a Simulation Process ............................................. 14
Create and Manage Simulation Models in connection with Systems Architecture .................... 14
3 Visualize and Navigate Simulation Processes and Data Traceability ........................................... 18
Visualize and Navigate all Simulation Processes in a Simulation Study ................................... 18
Visualize and Navigate Simulation Artifact full traceability ........................................................ 19

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Send Us Your Comments

Aras Corporation welcomes your comments and suggestions on the quality and usefulness of this
document. Your input is an important part of the information used for future revisions.
o Did you find any errors?
o Is the information clearly presented?
o Do you need more information? If so, where and what level of detail?
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If you find any errors or have any other suggestions for improvement, indicate the document title, and the
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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
User Guide

Document Conventions
The following table highlights the document conventions used in the document:

Table 1: Document Conventions

Convention Description

Emphasizes the names of menu items, dialog boxes,

Bold dialog box elements, and commands.
Example: Click OK.

Code examples appear in courier font. It may represent

Code
text you type or data you read.

Code highlighted in yellow draws attention to the code that

Yellow highlight
is being indicated in the content.

Yellow highlight Red text highlighted in yellow indicates the code parameter
with red text that needs to be changed or replaced.

Italics Reference to other documents.

Note: Notes contain additional useful information.

Warnings contain important information. Pay special

Warning attention to information highlighted this way.

Successive menu Successive menu choices may appear with a greater than
choices sign (-->) between the items that you select consecutively.
Example: Navigate to File --> Save --> OK.

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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
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1 Overview
Simulation Management (SM) enables simulation in the Digital Thread of product data, managed
alongside parts, Bills of Material, CAD data and documents, quality, requirements, manufacturing,
maintenance, repair and operations data, and other key engineering, production, and service information.
Stakeholders from throughout the enterprise and across the product’s lifecycle can access simulation
insights, initiate simulation processes, and manage simulation inputs, steps, and results easily, alongside
the product configuration to which they relate.
Simulation domain experts can track all their processes and activities, models and data in the context of
simulation studies, creating a system of record for simulation accessible to more stakeholders throughout
the lifecycle.

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2 Use Cases Overview

The Simulation Management application supports a set of common use cases for a simulation system of
records. This section describes the following procedures:

1. Creating a new Simulation Study.

2. Creating a new Simulation Process by creating and concatenating Simulation Tasks.
3. Creating and managing Simulation Models in connection with the Systems Architecture
Application.

Creating a New Simulation Study

This use case enables you to create a Simulation Study to define a simulation activity scope and assign
it.
A Simulation Study is used to analyze a logical or physical Product element across multiple disciplines.
The work is controlled and managed at the collaboration level. This includes design evolution, change,
trade-off, sensitivity, optimization, integration, and the design of experiments.
The study scope is defined by Concepts (e.g. Design Variable, Design Principle) including information
about which product concept is to be varied, added, recommended or decided by the study (e.g. shape,
layout, technology standard, design concept, and loading philosophy).
The study objective is defined by Simulation requirements such as targets, limits, and method fidelity.
In order to create a Simulation Study item you either have to be directly added to the Can Add permission
or be part of Simulation Manager or Simulation Engineer identities.

Figure 1.

Look in the TOC for Simulation Management and click on Studies. Select Create New Study from the
drop-down menu that appears. The item form page opens in a new tab.

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Three fields are required to create a Study:

 Name
 Study Manager identity
 Objective

Figure 2.

 Study Number is Server Assigned.

 State depends on the Study’s Lifecycle state.
 Type is used for classification

You can define the study scope by editing the Description and Objective fields.
Use the Attachments relationship tab to add all related documents and the Design Representation to
create a relationship to the Parts Item(s) interested by the simulation activity.

Note: If you have installed the Systems Architecture application the optional package for the SM Design
Representation relationship enables you to also create relationships to Functional or System
Elements.

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Edit the required fields and click Save or Done to save the Study.
You can also nest Studies to create structures. This is used for example when you want to clearly
separate concurrent simulation processes so you can create child Studies for each domain or discipline.
The parent Study acts as an aggregator of the global results.
When the Simulation Study is ready for review or is completed, the Simulation Engineer can enter the
Limitations and Recommendations to provide additional information in order to correctly understand the
presented results. A Study Report can be attached.

Note: Visual Collaboration is enabled by default so attached documents in the form of picture formats or
PDF files can be directly viewed in the embedded viewers accessible from the sidebar menu. It
also automatically aggregates documents attached to the Tasks in the Study.

Create a New Simulation Process by Creating and

Concatenating Simulation Tasks
Once the Simulation Study is created and assigned to a Study Owner, you can start recording simulation
activities.
Two principal items are used to record simulation activities:
1. The Simulation Task Itemtype
2. The Simulation Artifact Itemtype
Simulation Tasks are used to record simulation process steps.
Simulation Artifacts are used to exchange data between process steps. Simulation Artifacts are used to
concatenate Simulation Tasks and can be at the same time output of a Simulation Task and input to the
following Simulation Task in the process.
To create a Simulation Task and Artifact items either you are directly added to Can Add permission or
should be part of Simulation Engineer identities.

Create a New Simulation Task

A Simulation Task always belongs to a single Simulation Study. To start a new Simulation Process from
the Study, click the New Simulation button in the main toolbar.
A new dialog appears to quickly create the Simulation Task by entering information in the following
required fields:
 Name
 Task Owner
 Type field is used for item classification

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Figure 3.

Click OK and the Simulation Task form appears in a new tab.

Figure 4.
 Task Number is Server Assigned.
 State depends on the Task’s Lifecycle state.
 Type is used for classification.

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 Study is the link to the parent Simulation Study.

 Stage allows you to identify the Task by the primary simulation activity.

Figure 5.

 The Authoring Tool and Tool Version fields can be used to record the application name and
version/release used to perform the simulation activity.

Figure 6.

In addition, you can use the Attachments relationship tab to add all related documents and the Design
Representation to create a relationship to the CAD Documents Item(s) used in the simulation activity.

Note: If you have installed Systems Architecture application the optional package for SM. Design
Representation relationship allows you to create a relationship also to Functional or System
Elements

Edit required fields and click Save or Done to save the Task.
If you are using a Simulation Model in the Simulation Task you can add the reference in the Simulation
Models relationship tab. See Section 2.3 for more information about Simulation Models.
When the Simulation Task is ready for review or completed the Simulation Engineer can enter
Conclusions to provide additional information to correctly understand the presented results, and a Task
Report can be attached.

Note: Visual Collaboration is enabled by default so attached documents in forms of picture formats or
PDF can be directly viewed in the embedded viewers accessible from the sidebar menu.

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Record Simulation Task input and output data using Simulation Artifacts

As Simulation Engineer you can decide to manually record all the data used to perform a given simulation
activity and the data generated as output of such activity, in the context of a Simulation Task item. This
allows you to keep full data traceability and collaboration.
In the Input Artifact relationship tab, you can either pick an existing Simulation Artifact or create one.
You can pick an existing Artifact when this already exists in the system, for example if it is the output of
another Task in the same Study or in another Simulation Study.
Click the New Artifact button to Create an Artifact from the Simulation Task relationship grid while in edit

mode .

Figure 7.
The Comment field in the grid is used to add some notes in the context of the Simulation Task where the
Artifact is used.

Right click on the new highlighted row and open the item. The draft item opens in a new main tab:

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Figure 8.
 Artifact Number is Server Assigned
 Task Number is Server Assigned
 State depends on the Study Lifecycle state
 Artifact Owner
 Artifact Type is used for classification
 Source field can be used to describe the origin of the data
 Thumbnail enables you to upload a small picture which can help to quickly distinguish between
Artifacts. The Thumbnail is visible in all search grids as visual aid

You can then use the Attachments relationship tab to add all related Documents and Files.
When you complete the simulation activity and you have all the data you want to store in the process you
can create one or more Output Simulation Artifacts using the same procedure from the Output
Artifacts relationship tab in the Simulation Task.

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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
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Concatenate Simulation Tasks in a Simulation Process

A Simulation Process is composed of a sequence of Simulation Tasks that represent the activities
performed by the Simulation Engineer. It is up to you to decide the right granularity that you want to
record in the system.
The tasks sequence is created when one or more Output Artifacts are used as Input Artifacts of another
Task.
1. Go the first Simulation Task and select one or more rows from the Output Artifacts relationship
tab.
2. Click the New Task button in the toolbar.

Figure 9.
The new Simulation Task is created using the selected Simulation Artifacts as Input Artifacts
relationships.

Create and Manage Simulation Models in connection with

Systems Architecture
Simulation Models can be stored and versioned and then used in Simulation Studies and Tasks.
Simulation Models can be:
 Control Flow Models – these models are used at the Systems Architecture Function layer. The
most popular tools used are Simulink (MathWorks), MapleSim (MapleSoft), Dymola (DSS) and
System Modeler (Wolfram), but many others exist.
 Physical Interaction Models – often known also as 0D-1D methods. These models are
simplified representations of the physical interaction of System Elements. Most popular are GT-
Suite, Maplesim, Modelica or SimulationX.
 CAE Models – these are representations of ‘Parts’. There are hundreds of commercial tools for
different applications, domains, and disciplines such as ANSYS, ABAQUS FEA, JMAG, and
ZMAX.

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You can create Simulation Models directly in the context of a Simulation Task or from the TOC pane. You
can find Simulation Models under the Simulation Management category. The Select Item Type dialog box
enables you to select the correct ItemType.

Figure 10.
Select the ItemType that you want to create and click OK. The new Item form opens in a new main tab.

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Figure 11.
 Model Number is Server Assigned.
 Name
 State depends on the Model’s Lifecycle state.
 Type is used for classification.
 Model Manager and Model Owner identities.
 Thumbnail allows to upload a small picture which can help to quickly distinguish between
Simulation Models. The Thumbnail is visible in all search grids as visual aid.
 Authoring Tool and Tool Version fields can be used to record the application name and
version/release supported by the Simulation Model.
 Description and Recommendations can be used to describe the model purpose and provide
additional information about the way to guide to the proper use of the model.

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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
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Figure 12.

You can then use the Attachments relationship tab to add all related Documents and Files.
Simulation Models can also be nested to create structures. For example, this is used when you want to
aggregate and/or assemble multiple independent Simulation Model objects.

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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
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3 Visualize and Navigate Simulation Processes

and Data Traceability
Graph Navigation is a platform service provided by Aras Innovator. Administrators can create and edit
Graph View Definitions to meet user’s needs. See Aras Innovator 12.0 - Graph Navigation Administrator
Guide and Aras Innovator 12.0 - Graph Navigation User Guide for more information.
In the Simulation Management application there are two predefined graphs. They are directly available
from the Item’s sidebar menu:
1. Simulation Study Graph View
2. Simulation Artifact Graph View

Figure 13.

Visualize and Navigate all Simulation Processes in a

Simulation Study
You can use the Simulation Study Graph View to visualize and navigate all the simulation processes
recorded in the study context. This includes Simulation Task sequences and the data exchanged
between them (Simulation Artifacts). It includes Simulation Models and Design Representations linked to
them.

Figure 14.

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 Aras Simulation Management (SM) 12.0R1
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Initial loading of the Graph View opens the graph expanded by a specified number of levels. This level is
set in the Graph View definition. Users can then manually expand the graph by clicking on connectors
visible on the node’s borders.
In Figure 14, the Simulation Study Graph shows the simulation process as a chain of Simulation Tasks
and Simulation Artifacts. Right clicking on any node you can jump directly to the selected item. For more
details on how to use Graph Navigation, please see Aras Innovator 12.0 - Graph Navigation User Guide.

Visualize and Navigate Simulation Artifact full traceability

You can use the Simulation Artifact Graph View to navigate the history of a given Simulation Artifact.

Figure 15.
In Figure 14, the Simulation Artifact Graph is expanded on the left Side. The context item (Simulation
Artifact), is the last node on the right and you can use this view to explore all the simulation activity and
data that led to the result. The view is built on pure data flow, Simulation Task that concurred to the
context Simulation Artifact can belong to different Simulation Studies. The information is available in the
Simulation Task’s Viewcards.
This is particularly useful when collaboration happens between nested Simulation Studies or, in general,
results are reused in different Studies.

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