Composite Engineering
Lighter, Stronger, and More Cost-Effective
From aircraft fairings to train noses, boat hulls, wind blades, and a variety of individual components, composite engineering offers significant opportunities for meeting today's cost-driven market requirements and environmental responsibilities.
Why design with Composites?
In addition to supporting budget constraints and environmental requirements, using composite material presents various additional benefits over the use of traditional materials, these include:
- Strength-to-weight ratio: Compared to alternative metals such as steel and aluminium, composites are extremely strong and can be engineered to be strong in a specific direction. For example, the high strength of carbon fibres is important for structural components of a vehicle/aircraft such as floor beams, wings and stabilisers. The combination of their high strength and light weight means that composites also have one of the highest strength-to-weight ratios of all materials.
- Durability: Composites can resist damage from moisture and corrosion from chemicals such as acid rain that would otherwise damage alternative metals, and the impacts of rust.
- Ability to create complex designs: Composites can be moulded into a variety of complex shapes, without the need to use high-pressure tools.
- Thermal conductivity: Composite materials are also poor conductors of heat and electricity, making them very good insulators for parts where insulation is necessary.
TriMech Composite Engineering Solution
Learn how the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform allows engineers to design with composites
Design, optimize, validate and produce complex composites parts on a single integrated platform, with 3DEXPERIENCE
Developed in partnership with Industry leaders, the 3DEXPERIENCE solution for composites combines, on a single platform, the power of CATIA for virtual product definition. SIMULIA for virtual testing, DELMIA for virtual production, and ENOVIA for end-to-end product lifecycle management.
- Accurately create and modify plies with tools based on assembly context and sizing pre-studies.
- Optimize the performance and weight of the composite parts thanks to the integration of composite structural analysis and finite element analysis with the Design tools.
- Minimize development costs and prototyping by managing composite manufacturing constraints all along the design process.
- Predict manufacturability of the composites part with advanced simulation of manual and automated manufacturing processes.
- Produce best in class composites outputs for downstream manufacturing processes, including laser projection devices.
- To name a few, we can help customers with eVTOL flight and community noise testing, as well as improving racing car aerodynamics designs for optimal performance and certifying vehicle designs for WLTP fuel efficiency rules.
TriMech Solution
CATIA Composites Design Package
CATIA Composites Design allows designers to take a process-centric solution when designing composite parts, ensuring compliance with composite part design best practices and ensuring the optimal quality.
Benefits of using CATIA Composites Design:
- Manage multi-part geometries better than standard composite design solutions.
- Save money and time by avoiding restarting the design process with automatic updates.
- Predict the behaviour of composites across complex surfaces, taking corrective action where necessary.
- Integrate CATIA CPD across production systems.
Reach Sustainability Goals with Composites
Finding ways to produce products cost-effectively is challenging enough as it is. But now, manufacturers are under increasing pressure to comply with strict environmental regulations to reduce carbon emissions – which is compounded by the need to continually lower costs without sacrificing strength or quality.
One method these companies have employed to combat high costs and high carbon emissions is their use of composite materials in the development of parts and components. Due to their lightweight structure, composites can increase fuel efficiency and hence reduce a vehicle's carbon footprint.
Composite Engineering Software from TriMech
CATIA
CATIA is used across a variety of industry sectors including aerospace, automotive, plant design and consumer goods to support all phases of the product development process, shortening development cycles and bringing new products to market faster.
CATIA ICEM Surf
CATIA ICEM Surf allows for Class-A surface design construction phases with extended control and flexibility in defining and analyzing curve & surfaces.
SIMULIA
Engineers and analysts may use SIMULIA FEA, CFD simulation software to help reveal the environment we live in thanks to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
Composite Engineering Content
Learn more about Composite Engineering solutions with our resource content: