New EURO-5 exhaust gas standards, which will take effect in 2008, will push several automotive plastics applications toward high-end materials. “Alternative fuels, concentrated blow-by gases in mechanical separators as well as ammonia solution used for treating exhaust gases have a highly aggressive effect on seals and molded pars,” comments Klaus Bender, DuPont’s automotive market development manager. DuPont is developing HTN polyphthalamide (PPA) grades for specific applications that will meet the tougher requirements. Also under development are extrudable nylon 66 grades with improved thermal performance.
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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