The 2021 SIMULIA Champions come from locations around the world, as well as from a variety of industries. Several of them have agreed to share their stories about how they are using simulation and what led them to the engineering field.

​​​​​​​Dr. Guiqiang Liang is a Technology Director/Technology General Manager at LinghangKegong in Beijing. He is also the founder of the company, which he began as a continuation of his PhD research. His academic degrees are all in machining process, and after receiving his doctorate he decided to found LinghangKegong to promote the industrialization of machining process simulation.

Dr. Liang has been using Abaqus for five to six years, and finds it helpful in simulations like cold processing and forming, including the optimization of turning, milling, drilling, bending, and pressing.

“SIMULIA software, especially Abaqus software, can meaningfully contribute to machining process optimization and process digitalization for companies in tooling, aerospace and automotive manufacturing industries,” he says. “For example, they can be used to create parametric models for machining process simulation and find the nonlinear solution for complex machining conditions.”

Abaqus has helped Dr. Liang and his team solve numerous problems, though FEA simulation overall is highly complex, he says, as it is a cross-discipline technology. Challenges include incorporating common project context and process knowledge into the use of the software.

“This software mainly helps us to enable: firstly, optimization of commonly-used machining process and forming; and secondly, creation of simulation platform to digitalize our machining process and forming,” he says.

He recommends that new users of SIMULIA software read the software user manual for methods and use cases from a variety of industries.

Aspects of Abaqus that Dr. Liang particularly appreciates include its advanced solvers, which greatly help the optimization of the cutting process, as well as the “extraordinary” depth and breadth of the software’s interfaces and functions. He fully leverages these interfaces and functions in his work to simulate the cutting process, and he is still studying how to best do so using Abaqus technology.

Dr. Liang suggests that new engineers learn more about the pain points of enterprises by starting with application scenarios in their respective industries. They can then develop simulation cases to solve these pain points before fully leveraging simulation technology in their product development or production.

Dr. Liang finds his work in cutting simulation technology to be exciting, and is driven to invest more time and effort into it by the positive feedback he receives from companies and universities. His business uses Abaqus to help its manufacturing customers in two ways: through improving cost and productivity by optimizing various processes; and through the creation of an integrated IT-enabled and digitalized simulation platform for machining and manufacturing processes.

“I like simulation because: 1) when we successfully complete a case, we will have excitement about our accomplishment. 2) After we solve a process issue for our customer, we can feel the sense of responsibility and mission, as we have made contributions to building IT-enabled and digitalized manufacturing,” he says.

In the future, Dr. Liang wants to contribute value to process optimization and the digitalization of China’s manufacturing sector, as well as the digitalization of machining processes across the world.