To leverage the advantages of computational modeling and digital technologies for personal protective equipment (PPE) development, new digital technology that allows for rapid design exploration to couple with state-of-the-art models is needed. This leads to this Topic with the objective to develop a digital design tool for PPE that allows for rapid exploration of the entire design space. To address the need of this Topic, Innovision team propose an innovative solutionIntegrated Digital Engineering Environment for PPE development (IDEEP), which consists of five functional modules, a knowledge base and data center, and a toolbox. Given a PPE selection and design objectives, design tasks will be performed by those modules, following a typical workflow as follows: (a) Initial design, which creates a set of design instances in the design space; (b) Virtual prototyping, which uses finite element modeling to create a virtual product of each design; (c) Virtual testing, which integrates a PPE model with a human body model to simulate the multi-physical performance of the PPE being designed; (d) Design optimization, which determines the optimal design based on simulation results using data-driven methodologies; and (e) Assessment/certification, which assesses the performance of the optimal design based on extensive simulations. If the optimal design meets design requirements and performance criteria, it will be taken as the final design; Otherwise, a new design iteration will be started until a satisfactory design is achieved.
Benefit: The framework developed in this research will realize a seamless process for PPE development, which includes initial design, virtual prototyping, virtual testing, design optimization, and performance assessment/certification. With the support of novel data-driven surrogate modeling and machine learning algorithms, IDEEP will overcome the issues associated with traditional design process, significantly shorten PPE design cycle, and substantially improve its performance. In addition, the utilization of advanced human body models and digital twins provides a real-time, high fidelity virtual environment to evaluate the design results. IDEEP will streamline the entire process from the initial design to the final design. It will provide a complete digital engineering solution for PPE development. It is transferable and scalable, as it can be used for other human centered product development and scaled up for commercials. Our technology can be used in several application areas including PPE design and PPE testing. In the DoD domains, IDEEP can reduce the time and cost for PPE development. It can be extended for the design of ejection seat, combat vehicle seat, and robotic exoskeletons. IDEEP can also be adapted for industrial PPE (figure 12), which share many commonly required performance characteristics (e.g., heat, impact, noise, chemical, ergonomics, etc.). Industrial market segments include manufacturing, construction, automotive, energy, chemical, and transportation. The global industrial PPE market size was $60B in 2020 with a 10% CAGR. With industry trends such as clean-energy and industry 4.0 underway, the cost and time saving generated by our technology will prove especially valuable.
Keywords: Digital Engineering, Digital Engineering, knowledge-based design, optimal design, virtual prototyping, Certification by analysis, Digital human model, Virtual Testing, Personal Protective Equipment
