Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is a renowned global architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. Known for some of the world’s most technically and environmentally advanced buildings, SOM applies creativity and emerging technologies to design buildings for the future. SOM designed the new United States Courthouse in Downtown Los Angeles to be an open and transparent public space, while also constantly considering the materials used in the project and the project's environmental footprint. The structural design specialists at SOM used Altair OptiStruct to generate an ideal project plan that considered sustainable regulations and manufacturing constraints.

In modern passenger transport systems, flawless operation, comfort, and safety are key engineering criteria for design. To guarantee these key performance indicators, demanding fatigue tests are performed to ensure a component’s performance and strength. Advanced simulation methods can help to achieve an optimal design and ensure that components meet even the highest safety requirements.

Using Altair Inspire, Doppelmayr, a manufacturer of ropeways and innovative transportation systems for ski areas and urban areas, built a design that passed the safety test, and optimized the gondola station to be lighter, safer, and more durable than requested. More recently, Doppelmayr also started using Altair SimSolid™ to explore its designs and create structural efficient concepts for large models and complex assemblies.

Mass timber construction is the future of buildings – after all, there aren't many construction technologies that trap more carbon dioxide than they generate!  But although it is not new technology there are still a number of challenges in the design of these structures, some of which are yet to be addressed by available design standards. Mike White from structural engineers Smith and Wallwork will run through some of the benefits of mass timber construction and discuss some of the big topics in the industry including fire performance and footfall vibration analysis.

Presented as part of Altair's 2021 Future.Industry Conference.

Eric Rusinol, an Architect from The Sagrada Família Foundation, gives us some insight into the project to finish Antoni Gaudí's iconic Cathedral in Barcelona, touching on the teams use of optimization and concept generations technologies from Altair.