Newly developed selective self-adhesive silicone rubbers can be co-molded with nylons, polycarbonates, and PBT-type polyesters, creating new design opportunities in medical devices and cars. “These materials can eliminate assembly operations for needle-less IV valves,” comments Eric Bishop of Shin-Etsu Silicones. The new materials’ combinations are also replacing gum rubber in automotive applications. Bishop spoke at Molding 2008 in San Francisco. The materials are called selective because they don’t adhere to steel.
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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