Software aids design and manufacture of composite products.
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Press Release Summary:
Supporting end-to-end product development process, FiberSIM® is integrated into 3D CAD software systems and provides open engineering environment to support all composite manufacturing methodologies. Program offers zone-based solid generation, preliminary zone-based weight calculation, and composite stacking tool, which provides integrated laminate stacking and sequencing capability for automatically establishing order of plies and generating symmetric and balanced laminates.
Original Press Release:
VISTAGY Releases Latest Version of FiberSIM® to Expand Support for End-to-end Composite Product Development Process
New composites design software helps accelerate conceptual design phase while providing deeper manufacturing process support
WALTHAM, Mass., (USA), November 3, 2006 - VISTAGY, Inc., a leading global provider of specialized engineering software, today announced the latest release of its FiberSIM® suite of software, created specifically for the design and manufacture of composite products. This version of FiberSIM greatly expands support for the entire end-to-end product development process-from early conceptual design through downstream manufacturing. New tools for defining preliminary 3D solids and generating product weight studies help engineers solve the particularly complex challenge of assessing and reducing the weight of composite products very early in the design phase while ensuring part durability and addressing demanding manufacturing and delivery timeframes.
FiberSIM, powered by VISTAGY's unique EnCapta® technology, helps engineers in the aerospace, automotive, marine and consumer goods industries streamline many of the tedious, time-consuming and complex tasks for designing and manufacturing composite products. The software is integrated into commercial 3D CAD software systems and provides the only flexible, open, production-proven engineering environment specifically designed to comprehensively support all major composite manufacturing methodologies. Key new features in the latest version accelerate the preliminary design phase to help customers get to final part quicker. They also enable engineers to more efficiently capture digital model-based product definitions and communicate them downstream to ensure faster and more accurate manufacture of final composite parts. And for the first time, FiberSIM supports the 64-bit technology platform for maximizing speed and performance while reducing memory constraints when designing large, complex parts or assemblies. FiberSIM helps manufacturers reduce the costs, cycle times and risks associated with all phases of composites product design.
"Because of intense competition, our industry-leading customers are setting more ambitious product delivery goals than ever before, and are really challenging their engineers and suppliers to reduce cycle times and achieve accurate final parts more rapidly," said Bob Flory, vice president of product development at VISTAGY, Inc. "By establishing a model-based process with FiberSIM, engineers will utilize the software's powerful new capabilities to more efficiently and easily create conceptual designs that are the basis for composite products while streamlining the manufacturing phase to meet delivery deadlines and specification requirements."
FiberSIM's new features for preliminary design include:
o Zone-based solid generation for easily and quickly defining zones and shapes to check for space allocation and interferences early in the design process;
o Preliminary zone-based weight calculation to help engineers reduce part weight and assess whether final part will meet weight requirements;
o Composite Stacking tool which provides an integrated laminate stacking and sequencing capability for automatically establishing the order of plies and generating symmetric and balanced laminates to increase designer efficiency;
o Preliminary Design Interface capability which imports or exports material specification data between FiberSIM and Microsoft Excel for automatically sharing and reporting design information.
The software offers new manufacturing engineering capabilities such as:
o Spring back for Manufacturing Laminate feature which allows users to account for the impact of thermal deformation that can cause a part to "spring back" when removed from the manufacturing tool. This capability accurately maps the engineering boundaries of a laminate skin and transfers them onto the "sprung" skin tool surface, providing full associativity between the engineering part and the manufacturing sprung part to ensure all changes made in the design dataset automatically propagate to the manufacturing dataset;
o Enhancements in 2D laminate creation that provide users with additional options for transferring composite data from 3D to 2D, taking into account specific composite development processes, such as tape laying, to ensure final parts are created accurately;
o Increased support of all commercial fiber placement and tape laying interfaces to improve compatibility with customers' existing design and manufacturing environments.
To learn more about the complete line of FiberSIM products, please visit VISTAGY online at www.vistagy.com.
About VISTAGY, Inc.
VISTAGY, Inc. develops engineering software that provides specialized functionality to significantly improve the value of commercial 3D CAD systems. VISTAGY's specialized engineering environments enable engineers to capture and communicate complete digital product definitions within CAD, thereby increasing productivity, improving the communication of product information throughout the product lifecycle, and allowing better-informed decision-making early in design. VISTAGY software is used throughout the world in the aerospace, automotive, marine, medical, sporting goods, and transportation interiors industries. The company also offers training and consulting services. For more information, contact VISTAGY in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, at +1.781.250.6868 or visit www.vistagy.com.
