JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #76 - October/November 2012 - 44

innovations

JEC Innovations Report and News

The Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) is one of Europe’s largest application-oriented research organizations. Together with the Western University in London, Ontario (Canada), the ICT works on developing and processing composite materials for lightweight vehicles in the joint Fraunhofer Project Centre for Composites Research@Western, the world’s latest state-of-the-art equipped press centre in full industrial scale. The FPC@ Western offers a not-for-profit environment open to all clients. Through its independency, it offers a creative atmosphere for full industrial-scale applied research. The centre’s research mainly focuses on fibre composites for lightweight construction in various markets, especially the automotive sector. Its work is oriented particularly towards the needs of the regional North American market. The FPC is equipped with a state-of-the-art hydraulic press with a maximum clamping force of 2,500 tons suitable for research on parts in full industrial scale. Material and process research is carried out in processing technologies such as Direct Sheet Moulding Compound (Direct SMC). The first manufacturing line in North America is being installed in the FPC facility – a manufacturing line for Direct Long Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastics (LFTD) as well as compression moulding. The FPC@Western started operations in London, Ontario, in fall 2012.
www.eng.uwo.ca/fraunhofer

automotive

In today’s competitive environment, there is less time than ever to get new and innovative products to market. Due to the complexity of designing composite products, organizations run the risk of failing to achieve first-to-market advantage. One of the most significant bottlenecks is the lack of communication between the analyst and the designer. The exchange of information between these disciplines is critical to the successful development of a composite product, but currently this exchange is manual and prone to error. The analyst deals with meshes, elements, loads and boundary conditions. The designer’s language consists of surfaces, curves, plies, core solids, and splices and darts. With different languages and representations, it becomes difficult for the designer and analyst to quickly reach consensus. The Fibersim™ 13 portfolio of software for composites engineering from Siemens PLM Software introduces a new workflow that enables analysts and designers to communicate better and make more informed decisions. A designer can now visualize, understand and compare his composite definition to the one created by the analyst. In addition, because Fibersim 13 is an open and flexible solution, it can be used by industries such as aerospace, automotive and wind energy in conjunction with preferred CAD and CAE platforms. By being able to visualize and compare the product definition of the analyst, the designer has the tools to make only those changes intended by the analyst. In addition, analysts often define packs of plies by elements or clusters of elements, representing only minimum material conditions, thus creating rough approximations of the boundaries. Fibersim 13 provides the designer with the tools to refine the boundary definition as determined by the analyst. The new workflow allows easy visualization, comparison and refinement of the designer’s definition based on the analyst’s model, providing more time to achieve optimized solutions.
www.siemens.com/plm

44 jec composites magazine / No76 October - November 2012

simulation

Applied research centre > Booth J23 for composites in North America

Fibersim 13 streamlines the decision-making proces between designers and analysts

> Booth C28

http://www.eng.uwo.ca/fraunhofer http://www.siemens.com/plm

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #76 - October/November 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #76 - October/November 2012