Software offers enhanced capabilities for composites design

Citation

(2001), "Software offers enhanced capabilities for composites design", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 73 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2001.12773fab.009

Software offers enhanced capabilities for composites design

Software offers enhanced capabilities for composites design

Keywords: Vistagy, Software

Vistagy, Inc. have announced the release of Version 3.4 of FiberSIM™, software that enables engineers working with sophisticated computer-aided-design (CAD) systems to create products made of lightweight-high-performance composite materials (see Plate 7). FiberSIM,3.4 incorporates XML tools for sharing specialized design information about composite parts with other applications, throughout the enterprise. The updated software also provides enhanced documentation features, and editing, customizing, and display capabilities for manipulating geometric and non-geometric design data. Companies that design and manufacture composite products can reportedly utilize the new tools in FiberSIM 3.4 to streamline product development cycles and automate manufacturing processes.

Plate 7 This view of a ply book generated by FiberSIM 3.4 running within CATIA shows a composite aircraft cowling. To the right of the ply book is a ply table showing data exported from FiberSIM and displayed in a Web browser

"Over the past six years, FiberSIM has progressively simplified the complex challenge of designing with composites", says Dr Olivier Guillerman, product manager for FiberSIM. "Working closely with customers on each software release, we continue to strengthen the CAD environment to handle the special requirements of composites engineering. Many companies have used FiberSIM to reduce product development cycles and manufacturing times by more than 50 per cent. The, new data-sharing tools and enhanced design capabilities in FiberSIM.3.4 will support their efforts in achieving further productivity gains".

New XML tools in the software exchange design information with product data management, ERP, and other enterprise collaboration applications, allow the automatic creation of text documents, spreadsheets and Web pages. The tools export geometric data, such as ply boundaries, origins and thicknesses. Engineers can also share non-geometric design information, such as ply name, orientation, sequence, and step, along with materials specifications, flat pattern area, material cost, and total laminate weight, with other systems. This is said to make it easier for engineering teams to respond to design changes throughout the development cycle, resulting in improved accuracy and increased productivity.

Using enhanced editing, customizing and display tools in FiberSIM 3.4, engineers can more flexibly define and change aspects of the design such as ply naming, sorting and listing. Revisions, such as a modification of a ply origin, are signaled by highlighted ply boundaries on the digital model. A customizable display better organizes placements of flat patterns in the model.

Updated design automation tools are said to simplify such tasks as creating ply boundaries and splices. The software enables engineers to generate curves on a lay-up surface to assist in defining ply boundaries. It also claims a feature for designing ply overlap that defines the overlap thickness proportional to ply thickness. Instead of entering an overlap dimension for each splice of a ply, the engineer can choose to use a multiple of the ply thickness value. The software then reportedly extrapolates overlap values based on that number, eliminating time-consuming manual data entry. In addition, new tools for generating core and insert boundaries have been developed to handle more complex geometry, minimizing curve manipulation and duplication in the CAD system.

The new release of FiberSIM also claims significant enhancements to documentation functionality. Users are now able to shade plies in ply books, resulting in a more intuitive representation of the part. With enhanced annotation capabilities, users can have ply naming information point to its ply boundary. The software also outputs a scaled representation of a 2D flat pattern in a ply book. And a new geodesic propagation vector indicates the initial direction to lay-up plies.

The design database of FiberSIM 3.4 includes additional materials and processes. For example, the software can now simulate producibility and generate flat patterns for ±458 woven fabrics.

FiberSIM is integrated with the CATIA, Pro/ENGINEER and Unigraphics CAD systems. It operates on HP (HP-UX), IBM (AIX), SGI (IRIX), and Sun (Solaris) platforms.

Further details are available from VISTAGY. Tel: +1 781 290 0506; ext: 300; Web site: www.vistagy.com