Engineers at Molex have created digital twins that can accurately predict and virtually validate how parts will work down to the component level, enabling customers to have a much better understanding of how their connectors will function throughout their lifespan before even being put into production, helping to reduce costs, recall risk and the amount of time used on physical testing and revisions.
In the past, the engineers who simulate what would happen with a given design and the engineers testing the designs operated in mostly separate worlds, with one group working on equations and the other developing and testing physical products. The team at Molex recognised that there was an opportunity to combine their efforts using digital twins, forming a single predictive engineering team.
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‘We took the power of simulation and the power of experimentation and combined them,’ said Vijy Koshy, a Molex senior director of engineering. ‘It’s a small group of people we deployed and told, “Your job is to predict the future through physics.”’
So far, the team has been able to create a high-fidelity digital twin that can accurately predict and validate a connector’s current rating with 95 per cent accuracy. The model helps eliminate the need for months of physical testing.
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And when they do perform physical tests, the team is testing to validate the data predicted by the digital twin, not to see if it meets some specification. With the knowledge the digital twins provide about current rating and other mechanical functions, they’ll create connectors that meet or exceed any other required specifications and work with their customers to come up with solutions to solve the specific challenges they’re facing.
The knowledge gained is shared with engineers across Molex to improve connector design and reliability wherever they are in the world.
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The lessons learned from these early electrical models will also soon be applied to other areas of the connector, such as its mechanical, sealing and thermal functioning. In addition to using these advanced digital twins to develop predictive models for its connectors, Molex is also using them to model and optimise production lines and develop 5G antenna systems for cars and trucks.