CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
27 January 2009
Implementation Investments
Team North American Eagle Selects Geomagic
Geomagic software has been selected by Team North American Eagle in its quest to set a new land speed record by reaching 800 mph. Project engineers will use Geomagic Studio software to digitally recreate the 56-foot-long Eagle vehicle for engineering analysis studies to obtain true performance characteristics.
“Geomagic is clearly the leader in digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP), and its software will give us the fastest path from scanning to surface models,” says Keith Zanghi, director of operations for North American Eagle. “The accurate surface models generated by Geomagic Studio will be critical for simulating the factors that will affect us during test runs.”
North American Eagle has used a FARO Technologies Photon Laser scanner to capture the Eagle vehicle as a point cloud model containing 30 million points. Geomagic Studio will be used to speed, automate and simplify the workflow of transforming the scan data into a surfaced model. That model will be used to perform computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite-element analysis (FEA) studies on the as-built vehicle.
Aside from the world-record challenge, Zanghi expects the North American Eagle project to yield valuable research insights in several important areas, including:
• the effect of shock waves on aerodynamics;
• new nanolaminate metal technology that will be used for ballistic shielding by the U.S. military;
• integrated fuel devices that remove hydrocarbons from the air;
• performance of bio-diesel and bio-fuels;
• new magnetic braking systems that generate 4,700 brake horsepower at 800 mph and never wear out;
• high-speed bearings and special lubrication for wheels that are safe up to 950 mph;
• development and testing of high-speed parachutes.
“We are proud to be a part of this team, not just because of the opportunity to set a new world record, but because of the enormous benefits that will come out of this project,” says Chuck Giarratana, Geomagic’s director of sales for the Americas. “This research will have tremendous impact in areas such as high-speed rail, aircraft landing systems, and vehicle deceleration and braking.”
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