Caterpillar Inc., the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines, uses AVS/Express to create an interactive, visual user interface to Caterpillar’s state-of-the-art casting simulation software. Caterpillar’s Casting Process Simulator (CaPS) software helps engineers predict the filling and solidification of metal castings for Caterpillar’s engines and components, and AVS/Express brings these simulations to life for Caterpillar’s engineers.
CaPS was developed in the early 1990s through collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the Department of Energy, based on ANL software used to analyze heat transfer and fluid flow in a nuclear reactor. Through enhancements by ANL, Caterpillar’s Technical Center and various universities, CaPS now provides a virtual casting environment that lets engineers accurately predict mold-filling patterns, shrinkage defects, and mechanical properties of the final casting while avoiding costly shop floor iterations.
