Hymer pioneers its innovative and sustainable Venture S concept RV using Siemens Xcelerator software
Hymer AG is one of Europe’s largest recreational vehicle (RV) manufacturers based in Bad Waldsee, Germany. The company’s “Made in Germany” moniker for innovative caravans and motor homes has garnered countless industry awards and global recognition. Realizing the value of digitalization technologies to plan, design and manufacture their state-of-the-art vehicles, Hymer adopted the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of software and services for conceiving their newest VisionVenture line of campers.
The Hymer Venture S concept camper van meets the lifestyle needs of today’s tech savvy consumer, providing smart and innovative features such as solar panels, a built-in workstation, retractable projector, temperature regulators, modular walls for functional reconfiguration and a pneumatic pop-up roof for expanded cabin space, insulation and comfort. In addition, the Venture S camper van is designed using sustainable natural materials like stone, wood, leather and bamboo. The exterior paint finish of the Venture S provides energy-efficient and temperature-controlled benefits with Chromacool Technology that reduces the surface temperature of the vehicle in motion. This also allows customers to customize their vehicles with darker colors than standard white exteriors due to this new feature.
The Siemens comprehensive digital twin also on board
By developing comprehensive digital twin of the Venture S vehicle using Siemens Xcelerator software, the Hymer AG engineering team produced a fully digitalized product. Siemens Solid Edge 3D CAD software tool provided the foundation for the Venture S digital twin, which was easy to use with minimal training. This digital twin provided the “single source of truth” where all of the data across various engineering domains would be used for the development of the vehicle design, ensuring innovation and quality. The engineering teams then applied a digital thread throughout the entire product design process, with specific design disciplines applied to formalize the digital twin. For example, adding complex design elements such as water, gas, electrical or wastewater routing in tight spaces was easily achieved. The digital twin approach provided shared and distributed data to the design team, avoiding errors by introducing additional data from other sources and preventing design team silos. This permitted the engineering teams to work from a single source of data for their specific requirements.
3D modeling a key to success
Siemens NX software provided existing Hymer models for the Venture S vehicle design, which was also used to create new 3D models for defining complex surfaces. As the team evolved the digital twin, finite element modeling (FEM) analysis was deployed using Solid Edge for basic verification. To ensure more comprehensive stress analysis for vehicle construction, Siemens Simcenter 3D software for FEM provided a deeper level of design verification to reduce the number of physical prototypes.
The Hymer team also uses Siemens software to create and evaluate their vehicles in virtual reality (VR) by importing the digital twin created in Solid Edge into digital mock-ups of comprising parts of, or the entire, vehicle due to the complexity of the Venture S camper van. VR technology provided by Siemens Teamcenter software allows the Hymer design team to evaluate the ergonomic design of the vehicle, and augmented reality (AR) to ensure that the data is correct in the prototype stage.
State-of-the-art design in significant less time
The result of using Siemens Xcelerator software has reduced Hymer RV physical prototypes by 80 percent, and 65 percent variant time reduction by using a comprehensive digital twin of the vehicle. The Hymer Venture S concept RV provides state-of-the-art design for the modern tech savvy RV enthusiast, improved production methods, use of natural materials, and sustainability benefits for both Hymer and its customers.
To learn more, watch the Hymer Venture S video on their success using Siemens Xcelerator software, and read the following case study: Recreational vehicle manufacturer digitalizes concept of RV camper.
