Nos ambientes de desenvolvimento de sistemas integrados da atualidade, os requisitos dos sistemas devidos ao alto grau de funcionalidades incorporadas vêm-se incrementando, gerando uma alta complexidade nos projetos. Isto traz como consequência o aumento na quantidade de ciclos dentro do fluxo de projeto. Uma solução tem sido o uso de blocos IP para acelerar o desenvolvimento. Entretanto, para garantir um grau elevado de confiabilidade destes componentes, os processos de verificação devem comprovar que todas as propriedades do circuito estejam sendo cumpridas. Uma das técnicas utilizadas para isto é verificação funcional por simulação, que procura explorar, através da injeção de vetores de teste, a maior porção possível de todo o espaço de estados do circuito. Quanto maior o número de estados possíveis, maior o número de vetores de testes que devem ser inseridos. Portanto, o número de vetores de teste deve ser reduzido de forma considerável, entretanto, por este fato, métricas para determinar a completeza do processo de verificação, definidas como modelos de cobertura, têm sido necessárias. As métricas de cobertura são estabelecidas segundo as estratégias de observação do projeto sob verificação, DUV, sendo bastante comum na indústria a de caixa preta que tem como objetivo a estimulação das entradas e a observação dos eventos de saída do DUV. Neste caso, para determinar se o sistema cumpre com as especificações, o engenheiro de verificação, deve definir os eventos à saída que considera relevantes e as métricas para determinar a quantidade de vezes que devem ser observadas. Este tipo de modelagem é conhecido como cobertura por itens. A quantidade de itens e os eventos a serem observados podem ser dfinidos pelo conhecimento especialista, dos engenheiros de verificação ou, para simplificar esta tarefa, uma distribuição uniforme é adotada. Como estas formas de modelagem não abstraem todas as propriedades do circuito, o perfil da distribuição de valores dos eventos (parâmetros) escolhidos, em geral, não estão correlacionados com o perfil real verficado durante a execução dos testbenches , tendo como consequência o aumento dos tempos de simulação. Para tratar do problema acima, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo geral o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para obter um modelo de cobertura de saída que apresente um perfil de distribuição semelhante ao real e que, assim, assista o engenheiro de verificação na seleção dos pontos ou intervalos de saída de interesse, adicionado-os às decisões derivadas de seu conhecimento especialista. Pela metodologia utilizada, encontra-se a(s) equação(ões) que define(m) a(s) saída(s) do circuito sob verificação e, a partir destas, a distribuição probabilística por evento observável. No centro da metodologia está a ferramenta PrOCov (Probabilistic Output Coverage), projetada com os objetivos acima. A metodologia e a ferramenta foram testadas com alguns exemplos de circuitos, modelos em alto nível do filtro FIR, do processador FFT e do filtro Elliptic, todos descritos em SystemC. Nos três casos testados, o PrOCov encontrou satisfatoriamente os respectivos perfis de saída. Estes foram comparados com os perfis obtidos por simulação, mostrando que uma excelente precisão pode ser obtida; apenas pequenas variações foram encontradas devidas a erros de aproximação. Também variações de precisão e tempo de simulação em função da resolução dos parâmetros de saída (eventos) foram analisadas nesta dissertação. / In current integrated system development environments, the requirements for the design of multi-function systems have increased constantly. Consequently, the number of iterations in the design flow has also grown. A solution for this problem has been the use of IP-cores to speed up the hardware development. However, to guarantee high level of reliability for these components, the verification process has to be kept strict in other to prove if the all system properties have been satisfied. The mainstream technique that has been used in the industry for the verification process is the dynamic functional verification. It aims to explore, by test vector injection, all the state space of the circuit. The higher the number of possible states, the higher the number of test vectors to be inserted. Therefore, the number of test vectors must be kept as low as possible. Due to that, completion and sufficiency metrics, identified as the coverage model, should be carefully defined. The coverage metrics are established according the observation strategies of the design under verification, DUV, where the black box approach is very common in the industry, being aimed at the stimulation of the inputs and observing the events of the DUV output. To determine whether the system meets the specifications, the verification engineer must define the events (s)he considers relevant at the output and the metrics used to determine the amount of times that the results must be observed. This type of modeling is known as item coverage. The amount of items and events to be observed may be defined by the experience of the engineer, but in most cases, to simplify this task, a uniform distribution is adopted. Those forms of modeling do not abstract the functionality of the circuit, then, the probability distribution of the chosen events is uncorrelated to the real simulated distribution, when the testbenchs are implemented. Therefore, the resulting simulation time increases. To solve the problem that is mentioned above, this work aims the development of a methodology to compute the output coverage, which should be similar to the real output value distribution and thus assist the engineer in the selection of the proper check points or output ranges of interest, by adding them to the decisions derived from his(her) knowledge. This methodology finds the equations that represent the outputs of the DUV and, from them, it computes the output probabilistic distribution. At the core of this methodology is the PrOCov (Probabilistic Output Coverage) tool, which was developed with the goals above. Both methodology and tool were tested with three circuits described in high level language, the FIR filter, FFT processor and Elliptic filter, written in SystemC. In all three cases, PrOCov presented a satisfactorily output distribution. Excellent precision could be achieved by the results, with only small variations found due to approximation errors. Also variations of accuracy and simulation time due to different resolutions of the output parameters (events) were analyzed in this dissertation.

Circuitos integrados analógicos são essenciais em sistemas eletrônicos modernos, sendo responsáveis por tarefas como conversão analógica/digital e digital/analógica, comunicação por radiofrequência, filtragem, etc. O projeto deste tipo de circuito e sistema é de grande complexidade uma vez que deve atender a especificações de desempenho cada vez mais exigentes e ter um tempo de projeto reduzido a fim de não comprometer o tempo total dos projetos de sinal misto. Diversas ferramentas são propostas na literatura visando auxiliar o projetista a aumentar sua produtividade. Apesar disso, devido à forte interligação entre etapas, o fluxo de projeto de circuitos integrados analógicos ainda é, tradicionalmente, realizado utilizando-se apenas cálculos manuais e posterior ajuste fino através de softwares de simulação elétrica. Neste trabalho, são estudadas técnicas de síntese de circuitos analógicos utilizando métodos modernos de otimização em nível de circuito e sistema. Após este estudo, é proposto um novo algoritmo de Simulated Annealing/Simulated Quenching, incluindo um mecanismo para utilização do operador de crossover considerando informações de múltiplos objetivos. É realizada a hibridização entre o algoritmo desenvolvido e um algoritmo de Particle Swarm Optimization para criação de um segundo algoritmo capaz de realizar a busca pela fronteira de Pareto. As características dos algoritmos propostos foram elaboradas visando a síntese de circuitos integrados analógicos, no entanto, resultados indicam que eles também têm excelente desempenho em comparação com diversos algoritmos atuais do tipo sem derivada para determinados problemas matemáticos. A generalidade dos métodos modernos de otimização permite que variações da mesma técnica sejam utilizadas em nível de circuito (dimensionamento e polarização de componentes do circuito) e de sistema (tradução de especificações de sistema em especificações de blocos). Dessa forma, são propostas técnicas para a criação de uma ferramenta de síntese em nível de sistema e circuito utilizando métodos modernos de otimização. Uma interface através de arquivos texto de entrada foi desenvolvida para tornar a ferramenta versátil e poder ser utilizada para uma grande variedade de tipos de circuitos eletrônicos. Para validar o algoritmo e a ferramenta na síntese em nível de circuito, foram sintetizados circuitos em tecnologia 0,35 µm, 180 nm e 130 nm. Entre eles, foram sintetizados amplificadores do tipo Miller, amplificadores do tipo folded cascode complementar, amplificadores de baixo ruído operando em 2,45 GHz e fontes de referência. Comparações utilizando o teste não paramétrico de Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon mostram que o algoritmo proposto tem melhor desempenho que os demais algoritmos comparados para os casos estudados. Comparações com projetos manuais e outras ferramentas confirmam a eficácia dos algoritmos e ferramenta. Para validação da ferramenta em nível de sistema, foram sintetizados filtros do tipo Gm-C. / Analog integrated circuits are very important in modern electronic systems, performing tasks such as analog to digital conversion, digital to analog conversion, radio frequency communication, filtering and others. The design of this type of circuit requires attending to several performance specifications as well as a time specification in order to avoid compromising the overall design time of mixed signal projects. Several tools are proposed in the literature in order to aid the designer, however the traditional design flow for analog integrated circuits is usually accomplished using only hand calculations and adjusts through the use of electrical simulators. In this work, techniques for analog design synthesis for circuit and system level are studied. An optimization algorithm is proposed based on Simulated Annealing/Simulated Quenching with a mechanism for using the crossover operator considering multiobjective information. An hybrid algorithm combining the proposed algorithm with Particle Swarm Optimization was created to properly explore the Pareto front The characteristics of the algorithms are made to enable the synthesis of analog integrated circuits, however, tests indicate they have excellent performance in comparison with many other derivative-free algorithms when applied to certain mathematical problems. The generality of modern optimization methods allow that variations of the same techniques can be used in circuit level (sizing and biasing of circuit components) and in system level (translation of system specifications to block specifications). Therefore, techniques for the creation of a circuit-level and system-level tool are developed. An interface using spice-like text files as inputs is developed to allow the designer to use the tool for a wide range of electronic circuits. In order to validate the proposed algorithms and circuit level tool, circuits were synthesized in 0.35 m, 180 nm and 130 nm. The synthesized circuits included Miller amplifiers, complementary folded cascode amplifiers, low noise amplifiers operating at 2.45 GHz and voltage reference circuits. Comparisons using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test showed that the proposed algorithm has better performance than the compared algorithms for the studied cases. At the system level, syntheses of Gm-C filters were performed to validate the tool.

Einleitung und Motivation Im ZIM-Projekt Vestainnen wird die Entwicklung einer stationären Wirbelschichtfeuerungsanlage (SWSF) kleiner Leistung fortgesetzt. Dabei liegen die Schwerpunkte auf der Modellierung und Simulation der Belastungen an Anlage und den Abläufen in der Feuerung. Insgesamt sind am Projekt sieben Partner beteiligt, die parallel und weitgehend unabhängig arbeiten und die Entwicklung ihres Teilprojekts vorantreiben. Bedingt durch die Vielfalt der Aufgaben kommt bei jedem Partner eine eigene, für die Teilaufgabe geeignete Softwarelösung zum Einsatz. Um die Entwicklungsergebnisse jedoch gemeinsam nutzen zu können, müssen diese eigenständigen Teilmodelle jederzeit auf einen gemeinsamen Stand gebracht werden können, um dieselbe Baugröße und Konfiguration der SWSF abzubilden.

Aus der Einleitung: "Produktentwicklung und Fertigungsplanung innovativer komplexer technischer Produkte sind heute ohne massiven Rechnereinsatz gar nicht mehr möglich: Produkteigenschaften wie Funktion, Fertigung, Montage, Bedienbarkeit, dynamisches Verhalten, Reaktion auf Störgrößen, Ästhetik, Instandhaltung bis Recycling sollten möglichst früh im Entwicklungsprozess durch virtuelle Prototypen technischer Produkte und Verfahren beschrieben und abgesichert werden (Höhne 2009)."

Ire designs and produces high-end furniture and solutions for home and public environments. This thesis describes the product development of a stool for Ire Möbel AB (Ire). The stool is aimed towards the Scandinavian market. Our collaboration began with a meeting at their headquarters in Tibro together with their CEO, Dick Thunell and their lead product developer, Thomas Ahlgren, who has also been my supervisor. The goal of the meeting was to settle on a specification and project plan for the stool. This meeting was followed by a pilot study. The study involved benchmarking to screen the market for similar products. After the pilot study, we launched an idea and concept generation. The proposals were then passed on to Ire, so that they could make their selection. The selected concept was then modelled and a complete development schedule was created, including a bill of materials and all the components needed from the existing suppliers. We then created a functional prototype in their workshop and a complete cost summary. The conclusion is that all of their requirements were fulfilled by one concept. The next step is to send the concept drawings to the carpenters who will review the construction and return with a final quote for production. The stool is expected to hit the market during the fall of 2017. / Sammanfattning Det här examensarbetet beskriver produktutvecklingen av en pall för Ire Möbel AB (Ire). Ire producerar och designar möbler för både hem- och offentliga miljöer. Ambitionen med projektet va att utveckla en pall som riktar sig mot den skandinaviska marknaden. Samarbetet inleddes med ett möte på företagets huvudkontor i Tibro tillsammans med VD:n Dick Thunell och Thomas Ahlgren. Thomas Ahlgren är ansvarig för produktutvecklingen på Ire och har varit min handledare under arbetet. Syftet med mötet i Tibro var att skapa en kravspecifikation och projektplan för pallen. När kravspecifikation och projektplan var färdigställda inleddes en förstudie. Under förstudien gjordes en benchmarking. Syftet var att granska likartade produkter på marknaden för att få en känsla för utbudet. När förstudien var klar påbörjades en idé- och konceptgenerering. Koncepten framfördes till Ire och ett urval gjordes för vidareutvecklingen. Konstruktionen modulerades därefter i CAD-programmet Catia V5 och samtliga tillverkningsunderlag togs fram. Detta inkluderade materialvalen och samtliga komponenterna från befintliga underleverantörer. En prototyp tillverkades i modellverkstaden i Tibro och en kostnadskalkyl gjordes för att sammanställa samtliga kostnader för tillverkning. I avsnittet diskussion och slutsats tas det upp vad arbetet resulterat i, samt riktlinjer för en eventuell förlängning av kollektionen. Där redovisas också förslag för vidareutveckling. Slutsatsen blev att ett av koncepten uppfyllde samtliga krav från Ire. Nästa steg blir att skicka pallens ritningar till stols snickeriet som granskar konstruktionen och återkommer med en slutgiltig offert för tillverkning. Pallen väntas finnas ute på marknaden för försäljning under hösten 2017.

Seitdem die Methode der Finiten Elemente dank der rapiden Fortschritte der Hard- und Softwareentwicklung ihr anfängliches Nischendasein aufgeben konnte, ist sie zu einem unverzichtbaren Werkzeug der Produktentwicklung geworden. Anwenderseitig wurde mit dieser Entwicklung jedoch nicht immer Schritt gehalten. Anstelle der wenigen Spezialisten früherer Jahre nutzt inzwischen beinahe jeder, der über die entsprechenden Programme verfügt, die FEM, mit zuweilen zweifelhaften Resultaten – »The stark reality is that probably the majority of users are blissfully unaware that their analyses are invalid.« (Horspool 2010). In diesem Beitrag wird die aktuelle Anwendungssituation untersucht, und es werden Ausbildungskonzepte vorgestellt, die zu besseren und sichereren Analysen führen sollen. In den folgenden drei kleinen Szenarien sind zur Einstimmung typische Fehlschlüsse – ein wenig überzogen – dargestellt.

Undo is a command that users rely on in most software applications. Its importance in multi-user CAD is no different. However, due to its unique nature, users may have different expectations regarding how undo should behave. This research seeks to better understand users' expectations regarding undo in multi-user CAD by having users participate in collaborative design exercises and then asking them how they would expect undo to behave. In addition, users participated in a survey in which they watched 8 videos showing users interacting within multi-user CAD and were then asked about how they would want undo to behave. Based on these findings, various recommendations are made for how undo ought to be implemented in multi-user CAD. These include recommendations regarding the user experience/user interface as well as proposing an equation that seeks to quantify whether a user expects to share an undo stack with another user or if they should only be able to undo their own actions.

Proplate, a world leading company, is expert on volume-based cutting and machining of both ordinary steel as well as stainless steel. One of Proplate’s mayor products is tension bars, which is a component made to balance high forces and give stability to structures such as cranes, buildings, bridges and much more. Proplate builds their tension bars in different high strength steel materials, purchased from SSAB, and sells them worldwide. Proplate would like to market themselves better and wishes to produce a catalogue for the maximum load that can be applied to their tension bars, as competitors Pretec and Macalloy, already have for their tension bars. The purpose of the project has been to investigate the tension bars and the maximum load they can withstand before failure. The tension bars have been modeled in the CAD-program Creo Parametric, and then sent to the finite element method program ABAQUS to analyze their structural strength. Three different types of tension bars, and a fourth tension bar (called the walnut-strap) used as a connecting element between some of the tension bars, were investigated. They were modeled with sprints, to hold several tension bars together, and with a construction called loader, to simplify the model load application step. The three different types of tension bars have been analyzed as individual and also when connected to other tension bars. Some tension bars could be directly connected to each other with sprints, and some used the walnut-strap to connect other tension bars to each other. The project was limited to fatigue analyses, which is an important factor to control. This could instead be a great continuation of the project. The results from the strength analyses show that the stress is higher at the surfaces around the hole at the end of each tension bar, and the maximum load the tension bars can withstand depends on this area. The length, thickness and orientation of the tension bar has been varied, and the maximum load that each model can withstand has been listed. The length and direction of the tension bars did not influence the result for singular tension bars, but the thickness did. Both the length and the thickness of the tension bars did influence the result when multiple tension bars where connected to each other. Tables have been derived which shows the absolute maximum load that the tension bars can withstand. Proplate can use the tables in their catalogue, and they can also put a safety factor on the models to make them safer. Another part of the study was to investigate advantages and disadvantages with if the sprints, the connecting element between the tension bars, were replaced with screws instead. The result describes the yield strength needed for the screws and how the structures would behave compared to the current structure. A larger investigation into the effect of using screws may be one way to continue the work after this project, together with other investigations of, for instance, the use of compression bars. / Proplate är ett världsledande företag, som är experter på volymbaserad skärning och tillverkning i både vanligt stål såväl som rostfritt stål. En av Proplates huvudprodukter är deras dragstag, som är en komponent gjord för att balansera stora krafter och tillbringa stabilitet till strukturer, exempelvis lyftkranar, byggnader, broar med mera. Proplate bygger sina dragstag med hjälp av olika typer av höghållfasta stålsorter, köpta från SSAB, och säljer sedan produkterna över hela världen. Proplate skulle vilja marknadsföra sig bättre och önskar att ta fram en katalog över den maximala kraften som kan appliceras på dragstagen, vilket konkurrenter som Macalloy och Pretec redan har för sina dragstag. Syftet med projektet är att undersöka dragstagen och den maximala kraften som dragstagen klarar av innan de går sönder. Dragstagen har modellerats upp i CAD-programmet Creo Parametric, och sedan skickats till finita-elementmetodsprogrammet ABAQUS för hållfasthetsanalyser. Tre olika typer av dragstag, och en fjärde variant (kallad valnöts-staget) som använts som ett sammankopplande element mellan olika typer av dragstagen, har undersökts. De har modellerats tillsammans med sprintar, för att hålla samman flera dragstag, och en konstruktion vid namn loader, som ska förenkla kraftapplikationssteget i analyserna. De tre olika typerna av dragstag har analyserats individuellt och sammankopplade till andra dragstag samtidigt. Några av dragstagen kunde direkt sammankopplas till andra dragstag med hjälp av sprintar, men andra behövde valnöts-staget för att sammankoppla dragstagen till varandra. Projektet var avgränsat så att utmattningslaster, vilket är en mycket viktig faktor, inte analyserades. Resultatet från hållfasthetsanalyserna visar att spänningarna i ytan kring ett hål i kanterna av dragstagen blir som störst, och den maximala kraften som dragstagen kan klara av är beroende på denna yta. Dragstagens längd, tjocklek och orientering i rummet har varierat, och den maximala kraften som varje modell kan klara av har tabellerats. Dragstagens längd och riktning i rummet påverkade inte resultatet när individuella dragstag analyserades, men dess tjocklek gjorde det. Både längden och tjockleken av dragstagen påverkade resultatet när flera dragstag blivit sammankopplade till varandra. Tabellerna visar den absolut maximala kraften som dragstagen kan klara av. Proplate kan använda dessa tabeller till deras katalog, och de kan också lägga till en säkerhetsfaktor på modellerna för att göra dem säkrare. En annan del av analyserna var att undersöka fördelarna och nackdelarna om sprintarna, som är det sammankopplande elementet mellan de olika dragstagen, blivit utbytta mot skruvar istället. Resultatet beskriver vilken sträckgräns som skulle behövas för skruvarnas material och hur strukturen skulle bete sig i jämförelse till den nuvarande strukturen. En större undersökning angående effekten med skruvar kan vara en bra fortsättning på arbetet efter detta projekt, tillsammans med andra undersökningar som exempelvis angående användning av tryckstag.

This thesis concludes a description of construction and functions of Electronically commutated motors. The main target is modelling of thermal field of Electronically commutated motors. For modelling was chosen Ansys Workbench setting with CAD geometry. There was a measurement for verifying result of simulation, and its proof is described in my thesis. This project also concludes comparison of results from simulation itself and results obtained from measuring thermal profile of EC motor.

Diploma thesis deals with change of component part production technology. It replaces conventional production technology with CNC machining using CAD/CAM application.