Composite simulation helps fill gaps

There is no turning back from using carbon-fiber reinforced plastics and other composite materials for aerospace parts. Simulation providers are finding new opportunities to help reduce cost and improve efficiencies in designing and making aerospace parts made of composites.

“The significant emphasis in aerospace in recent years is to better design composite parts by improving the communication between design engineers and CAE analysts,” said Steve Peck, Director of Product and Market Strategy, Aerostructures at Vistagy. Although he noted the design process is similar in some ways to those in metal, modeling composites calls for additional information for the designer to specify. These factors include ply thicknesses, fiber orientation, and sequencing-factors that have acute effects on performance.

Most software providers in this field emphasize this integration of functions between design and analysis. Vistagy offers its Fiber-SIM as a composite-engineering environment to ease such communication and address challenges throughout the development process. It is fully integrated into a number of popular existing CAD and CAE systems, such as Dassault Systèmes' CATIA, Siemens' NX, and PTC's Pro/E. Some of the analysis packages FiberSIM is integrated with include those from Ansys, MSC.Software, and Siemens NX Laminate Composites.