Cenit Develops Software Tool For Automated Bionic Design

The research project "Bionic Aircraft", funded by the European Commission as part of the "Horizon 2020" program, started in September 2016 with the aim of reducing the emissions of the aviation industry and making them more controllable: ten international consortium partners from various industries as well as research and Development - including the IT specialist Cenit - jointly develop technologies and concepts to enable an environmentally friendly overall life cycle in aircraft manufacturing using additive manufacturing.

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Additive manufacturing in all phases of the aircraft life cycle

One way to overcome these challenges is to introduce additive manufacturing in all phases of an aircraft life cycle: This manufacturing process enables the construction of ultralight structures, the flexible production of highly complex components, resource-efficient supply chains, optimized concepts for repair and spare parts production, as well as recycling and disposal. In addition, additive processes allow great weight savings for components and a significant reduction in material waste during production.

Software toolset for automated bionic design

In order to achieve the goals of the research project, nine work packages were defined, which deal with aspects such as design, production, material development, quality assurance, repair and disposal of additively manufactured components. Together with its partners Airbus, Laser Zentrum Nord GmbH (LZN) and the Institute for Laser and System Technology (iLAS) at the TU Hamburg-Harburg, Cenit is working on the goal of significantly simplifying product development for bionic lightweight structures by means of a simplified design methodology to reach.

Supplementing the topic of getting fit for lightweight construction solutions

The 2nd User Meeting for Lightweight Construction at the Construction Practice Academy will take place on May 30 and 31, 2017 in Würzburg. It is aimed at product developers and designers in machine, plant, equipment and vehicle construction, whose task is to reduce the weight of components so that energy and material can be saved or costs can be reduced.

While the basics of material, constructive and production engineering lightweight construction were taught at the 1st user meeting for lightweight construction, this year the event deepens the topics of material selection, topology optimization, additive manufacturing and composite materials.

Lectures provide information about the latest developments and show best practice examples. There are also practice forums and an exhibition. www.anwendertreff- Leichtbau.de

Objective: to simplify the construction process

Cenit thus addresses one of the main potentials and challenges associated with additive manufacturing: completely new types of parts that cannot be manufactured using conventional manufacturing methods.

"One of the main reasons why additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, has so far been little widespread in aircraft construction is the complex design process, which is currently not automated and must be carried out using a number of different software packages. Special software is also required for the data preparation of the 3D printing machines. The designer must therefore switch between different tools during the design process. This makes the process time-consuming and therefore expensive,”explains Michael Schwartz, manager for innovative aerospace solutions at Cenit.

3D CAD tool set should integrate all 3D printing steps

“The focus of Cenit's work is to achieve a significant simplification of the design process by integrating all 3D printing design and data preparation steps into a single toolset for automated bionic design. In this way, we are helping to establish a consistent digital process chain,”continues Schwartz.

If you consider the individual components of the range of tasks intended for Cenit, Airbus, LZN and iLAS, the formulation of design guidelines for additive manufacturing, the development of a 3D CAD tool set for Catia for bionic design and the 3D printing data preparation including bionically optimized Structures, the essential framework for a variety of other subtasks.

Additive manufacturing as an enabler for the aviation of the future

Michael Schwartz explains the importance of the project for Cenit as a company and the aviation industry in general: “3D printing technologies and bionic structures are an important enabler for the creation of competitive and environmentally friendly aircraft in the future. We are proud to be able to make a contribution to this ambitious and future-oriented project. "He also rated the expected results of the project as exciting and groundbreaking:" We aim, among other things, to significantly reduce the time for the overall development of optimized 3D printed parts and a significant weight saving potential for aircraft, which leads to significantly reduced CO2 emissions over the entire period of use,”says Schwartz.A large number of further results are expected at the end of the three-year term of the "Bionic Aircraft" project. (mz)

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