What programs do you use to design/manufacture composites?

General Composites Discussions Engineering Talk
#1

As the title states what software packages do you frequently use?

I use Rhino3d to model, Solidwords for compatibility and sometimes Promal to calculate laminate properties. I like Rhino3d a lot because it allows for easy creation of freeform surfaces and shapes. It’s just easier for me to create surfaces in that than Solidworks. I do use Solidworks though to import my shapes since everyone else uses Solidworks for design in my club. For laminate properties though I try and calculate them by hand since I mostly do simple analysis.

I’ve actually been trying to learn Ansys in my free time but it’s a bit difficult since I’ve never taken a formal FEA course. Jumping straight into composites FEA is a bit difficult but I’ll continue hacking away at it.

#2

FiberSIM is great for designing the ply patterns if the tooling design is already in a digital format.
Also using FiberSIM for laser projection of ply positioning.

Solidworks is good for basic design of part shapes.

#3

Canyon,

What kind of manual calcs do you usually perform? Any links to anything of this sort on the web?

#4

Lamina and Laminate properties of flat composite plates. In the realm of composites it’s as simple as it gets. I don’t know if there’s a another website but I’m currently doing a full write up on the subject in one of the stickies above. Keep checking regularly for updates. As far as I know I’ll be one of the first to post a complete writeup on the web.

#5

I will definitely keep an eye out. Ive been in composites manufacturing for a while but have just recently been curious about the design aspect. Seems like most people either design or build but not both. I recently picked this book up but I need to brush up a little on my math.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Composite-Materials-Science-Engineering/dp/1560327014

#6

You’re correct.
In most low end applications very little design is needed. The parts themselves are cosmetic or weight saving and they don’t handle much load. In these cases there’s a lot of home manufacturers and small companies who churn out these parts, usually using vacuum bagging or infusion.

For high end applications like military and top end racing, like F1 and champ cars, the design work and modeling is done by engineers with computers and those plans are handed off to fabricators. These parts are typically made with advanced manufacturing like autoclave cures or RTM

Tell me how you like that book. I have another book by Evan J Barbero’s about how to run finite element analysis on composite materials. For some reason though my professor doesn’t seem to like him I dunno why. The book is pretty good though albeit a bit advanced

#7

Has anyone here used ABAQUS to run FEA models on composite structures?

#8

Digging up an old thread- anybody use anything other than fibersim? How about laminate tools? What software package does everyone use for their analysis and engineering work?

#9

I don’t think there are many engineers on this list.
I use Helius Composite to get the fundamentals, then I do my designs in Inventor.

#10

As far as I know, you would be the first to do a decent write up on this subject. I took a training course in laminate theory. Much of the math is beyond my abilities but, conceptually was very informative. Doing some initial laminate theory would be very useful with experience in composites. Though it seems like none of the engineers usually do this… when I ask it ends up they rely on the FEA analysis after the design rather than starting with some ideas of laminate equations. Maybe it’s just their experience and they believe an educated guess is as good a place to start with?

Well either way, I’m interested in reading what you have to say! :smiley:

#11

I would like to start using Solidworks, at least for FEM calculations, but I see that its use is just “a bit” complicate