Chalk a big one up for metals in the ongoing battle with engineering plastics for applications that reduce weight of cars. Novelis Inc, an Indian-owned spin-off from Alcan, will supply aluminum sheet for the hood of the 2008 Buick Enclave. Novelis describes itself as the world’s leading supplier of high performance aluminum sheet for use in automotive applications. The Enclave is a beautifully designed vehicle that was first shown at the Detroit Auto Show in 2006. It’s a cousin to GMC’s Acadia crossover vehicle, which also features an aluminum hood made with Novelis sheet. Both vehicles are built on GM’s all-new Lambda unibody architecture. Aluminum sheet for the Enclave and the Acadia is supplied from Novelis plants in Oswego, NY, and Kingston, Ontario
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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