Airbus and ESI Group are collaborating in virtual manufacturing using a software program for resin transfer moulding developed from a technique used for the simulation of injection moulding.

Airbus and ESI Group announced their first collaboration in the field of virtual manufacturing. Based upon Airbus' specifications, ESI Group of France has developed PAM-RTM (Resin Transfer Moulding) for CATIA V5, a software program used for the simulation of manufacturing composite components formed by injection moulding. Airbus, the international aerospace group, in its new advanced aircraft programmes, is utilizing composite materials on a large scale.

The use of modern materials and processes is a way to reduce weight, which is the main objective in aeronautics.

However, making thicker, larger and more elaborate composite parts generates new technological challenges.

With these new materials and processes, it is no longer possible to rely on traditional methodologies only in order to design and manufacture these components.

Due to the size of the parts, the traditional trial-and-error approach of tooling manufacturing would lead to unacceptable tooling cost as well as long development lead times and expensive material waste.

Simulation-based design is seen as a way to address these challenges in an economical manner.

The Resin Transfer Moulding process (or RTM) has been used for more than 10 years by EADS, the major shareholder of Airbus, for simulating the injection of parts with resin fibrous reinforcements.

In the last few years, the Centre Commun de Recherches of EADS (EADS CCR), based in Suresnes (near Paris, in France), and ESI Group have collaborated to adapt the capabilities of PAM-RTM to the emerging needs of new aircraft programmes.

PAM-RTM can be used to design and develop new tooling and processes for composite materials.

It checks the mould design and the process parameters in order to make sure that the parts are injected correctly the first time round.

PAM-RTM for CATIA V5 is the result of the first implementation of PAM-RTM capabilities in CATIA V5 in the course of a two-year joint project with Airbus - CATIA V5 being a simulation application for composite parts manufactured using liquid composite moulding processes.

The software takes full benefit of the seamless integration of simulation algorithms within CATIA V5 performed on the native geometry.

This fully integrated application dramatically reduces the simulation cycle time, allowing direct associativity between mould design and simulation results.

It also allows the user to perform injection analysis directly on the CAD model, which ensures a consistent geometric dataflow within an iterative continuous improvement process, resulting in significant time and cost savings.

In the past, such analysis could only be done in an external simulation environment, forcing the user to export the geometric data and leave the CAD environment.

Since the simulation process has now been fully integrated, using CAA V5 architecture and components, PAM-RTM for CATIA V5 presents a common user interface to the designer.

Key advantages are the absence of loss of information due to geometry conversion and transfer, as well as the dynamic communication between design and simulation results.

'The PAM-RTM for PLM version we developed for Airbus is the starting point of ESI Group's collaboration with Airbus to bring virtual manufacturing within the PLM.

Our objective is to support Airbus current, increased use of composite materials through the delivery of physics-based simulation tools, available within the Airbus PLM working environment,' said Vincent Chaillou, president Product Operations and chief operating officer at ESI Group.

Gilles Debril, Airbus Concurrent Engineering/Composite Project manager, added: 'With this application, Airbus is introducing the numerical simulation of manufacturing liquid composite moulding processes.

It is seen as a major breakthrough that will help us to remain at the cutting edge of the technology in the composite material field.' * About ESI Group - ESI Group is a pioneer and world-leading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials.

ESI Group has developed an entire suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to simulate a product's behaviour realistically during testing, to fine-tune the manufacturing processes in accordance with the desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment's impact on product usage.

ESI Group's products, which have a proven track record in manufacturing and have been combined in multi-trade value chains, represent a unique collaborative, virtual engineering solution, known as the Virtual Try-Out Space (VTOS), enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous manner.

By drastically reducing costs and development lead times, VTOS solutions offer major competitive advantages and make it possible to eliminate gradually the need for physical prototypes.

This integrated protocol allows all the company's solutions to work with each other and with applications developed by independent software vendors.

By significantly reducing costs and development lead times and enabling product/process synergies, VTOS solutions progressively eliminate the need for physical prototypes during product development, thus offering major competitive advantages.