Boeing is actively exploring technologies that can be used to recycle its carbon fiber composite aircraft, such as the Dreamliner, when they finish their service life. As a result, a greater supply of lower-cost recycled carbon fiber may soon enter the commercial pipeline from industrial scrap and applications that date back several years. Two companies are partnering with Boeing to develop carbon fiber from recycled sources. They are Adherent Technologies of Albuquerque, NM, and Milled Carbon in the United Kingdom, which already processes more than 500 metric tons of carbon fiber composites per year in a thermo/chemical process .
A new process for laser-welding large-scale, steel-aluminum foam sandwich structures for lightweighting ships, which eliminates intermetallic phase, has been demonstrated.
A major advance in repairing composite structures combining robots and lasers bodes well for commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350XWB, which contain composites in large proportions of their structures.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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