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23 Jul 2008  -  United States

The lastest update of FiberSIM

© Vistagy

New FiberSIM® 5.4 software delivers optimized composites designs in a shorter period of time by enabling engineers to perform more design iterations later in the development process—which is essential to effectively evaluate tradeoffs between part performance, weight and manufacturing cost. The software improves the link between analysis and design and provides new tools to enable engineers to design for the specific manufacturing process. These key features make FiberSIM 5.4 a good tool for exploiting innovative uses of composite materials in products that never before made use of them.

Closing the loop between analysis and design
FiberSIM 5.4 is now integrated with MSC.Software’s SimXpert finite element analysis (FEA) software. FEA mesh information created in SimXpert can now be communicated to FiberSIM with the click of a button, creating a common data representation and design tool for composite lay-up. Because FiberSIM is completely integrated into commercial 3D CAD systems, the FiberSIM composite definition and SimXpert's FEA definition are linked directly to the same CAD geometry. Now, products can be designed, validated and optimized without having to translate volumes of data between different software tools. This eliminates data translations and inconsistencies between design and analysis and more effectively manages design changes throughout the development cycle. FiberSIM’s unique capability to update a composite design while preserving the design intent eliminates having to start the design over from scratch each time the stress department delivers new specifications. Engineers can now perform more iterations of the design much later in the development process, delivering more optimized parts in less time.

Designing for the manufacturing process
New features in FiberSIM 5.4 improve the ability of engineers to design specifically for the chosen composite manufacturing process:
• Ramp generation – New capabilities for generating ramp surfaces between ply zones handle multi-directional curvature and allow filleting of the ramp sections, resulting in an accurate surface for the creation of tooling.
• Color-coding of ply boundaries – Tools for color-coding plies based on material type and ply orientation provide rapid feedback on boundaries and sequences and give engineers a visual representation of the composition of the part to aid the manufacturing process.
• Core – New tools allow engineers to develop parts with more complex core conditions and support the multitude of ways engineers want to design with core.
• Splicing – In addition to tools for splicing for material width, FiberSIM 5.4 now provides the capability to splice for material handling requirements to aid the lay-up process. Many enhancements also make the tool simpler to operate.

FiberSIM 5.4 also makes it more intuitive and easier to find answers to your questions. Along with traditional .pdf help documentation, FiberSIM 5.4 provides html-based help that is much like browsing a Web page. Context-sensitive help lets FiberSIM 5.4 understand the specific step in the process the user is currently engaged in, and then automatically finds the proper documentation to present the solution. This reduces the time required to find answers to user questions.

Source : Vistagy