CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
1 April 2008
Company News
ESI Group Announces Partnership in ITOOL
ESI Group announced its partnership in ITOOL.
Background:
Textile preforming of composites offers the potential of significant cost savings in comparison to prepreg tape layering. To enable engineers to make use of dry fiber textiles, reliable simulation tools and design principles are needed. In contrast to conventional, unidirectional reinforced composites, textile reinforcement results in 3d fiber architectures so that standard analysis procedures like 2d rules of mixture and laminate theory are no longer valid. It is also important to consider the manufacturing process since it has a strong influence on the textile properties.
Project objectives:
The technical approach of ITOOL is a simulation along the process line with a virtual manufacturing chain incorporating the preform manufacturing, draping and impregnation process followed by the external loading of the finished component. The scientific objective of ITOOL is to close the gap between missing knowledge and proved advantages of dry fiber textiles by development of an adequate integrated simulation tool for textile preforming technologies including braiding, advanced engineering textiles, weaving and stitching. Reliable simulation tools and design methods provide the enabling prerequisites for an increased use of these materials in Aerospace (and other) industries. By achieving the above-mentioned objectives, ITOOL provides the basis of a standard for the design, analysis and testing of textile preformed composites in Europe.
Description of the Work:
As there are already stand-alone solutions for several parts of the simulation in use, the approach of ITOOL is mainly the linking and integration of these tools to ensure a fluid interaction and data interchange. This approach enables a flexible and adaptable solution, which may be extended by the user to include alternative technologies. The materials used in the project, especially the ones that will be used for a set of validation examples, are characterized. The relevant data is stored in a database structure allowing the user to access the properties they need. The mechanical behavior is analyzed on three different approximation levels called 3M (micro / meso / macro) mechanics:
• on the microscale the different constituents are always modeled separately,
• on the mesoscale fiber and matrix properties are homogenized locally,
• on macro level the micro or mesoscale models are homogenized in a coarser way to lower the computational effort.
The processes used in production and handling of textile preforms are evaluated and appropriate models are developed to predict their influence on the properties of the preform materials. The draping and infiltration behavior of textile preforms is the focus of this subtask.
Static stress and failure models are developed to predict macroscopic structural deformation, stress and failure of textile-reinforced structures. Global analysis methods, which compute structural behavior under external loads, are provided. The developed tools regard static stress, quasi-static failure, crash and dynamic impact computations.
The proof for this integration concept is performed for different application fields of textile-preformed composites in Aerospace: typical stiffened skin sections, integral joining technologies and braided stiffeners. The evaluation also includes the interface and the related flow of data as the quality of results in comparison with tests.
In parallel to the development of the integrated simulation tool the second aspect of the project is to build up physical understanding of textile preformed composites behavior to increase their usage. Therefore design rules for the use of dry fiber textiles are extracted and made easily available for the design engineer in a guideline.
Expected Results:
To fulfill the objectives within a limited time (and cost) scale an open flexible interface for fluent data exchange and communication is created by linking the different existing stand-alone tools.
The main value is gained for the user of textile composites. ITOOL tries to provide a standard for testing, modeling and simulation, and by this reply to the market demands. Further impact of the enhanced simulation capabilities is a distinct reduction of at least 20% in necessary testing effort as well as a lead time reduction of more than 15%.
Title: Integrated Tool for Simulation of Textile Composites
Acronym: ITOOL
Contract Nr.: 516146
Total Cost: 3754097 €
EU Contribution: 2619913 €
Starting Date: 01/03/2005
Duration: 36 months
Web-site: http://www.itool.eu
Coordinator: EADS Deutschland GmbH
Corporate Research Center Germany
SC/IRT/LG-CT
81663 München
Contact: Mr. Peter Middendorf
Tel: +49 (0) 89 607 26595
Fax: +49 (0) 89 607 23067
E-mail: Peter.Middendorf@eads.net
Partners (name, acronym, country)
EADS Germany EADS-G D
Alenia Aeronautica S.p.A. ALA IT
Cranfield University CRAN GB
Dassault Aviation DAS F
German Aerospace Center DLR D
EADS Corporate Research Center France CCR F
ESI Group ESI F
University of Stuttgart IFB D
University of Aachen ITA D
University of Leuven KUL B
INSA University Lyon LAMCOS F
SISPRA SISPRA E
University of Zaragoza ZARA E
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