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Thread: Recommendations for Composite FEA Software

  1. #1
    Hi Everyone,
    I was just wondering what kind of Composite FEA software other teams use to perform their analyses. I've been assigned the task of designing and constructing my teams 5th CFRP monocoque for the 2014 season. In the past my team has planned for composite FEA on our chassis but due to time and availability of software we have never actually done any. I am aware that this is a very difficult task to pursue but I already have a very good background knowledge in composite manufacturing from my experience from helping build 4 previous monocoques and many many other composite parts. I've also completed all relevant composite and solid mechanic courses. If Anyone has any software recommendations based on their own personal experience keeping in mind relative user friendliness (relative being the key word), and sponsorship availability please let me know it would be very much appreciated.

  2. #2
    What software do you usually use at your school for structural FEA?

    Here we have Ansys so I do composites with the ACP module. It is pretty easy to learn (following a simple pdf tutorial) and with Ansys 13+ it is completely integrated with Workbench. The graphic module makes it easy to see and position the ply orientations and most of the failure criterias are integrated. If you have ever done composite FEA under Ansys APDL with FiberSIM i'd say it is about a 100times more productive! (And I had good correlations between simulation and experimentation).

    On the other hand, if you don't have much prior experience with any specific program, Altair offers free license for FSAE teams and seems to be an industry standard for composites. It's also have integrated optimization codes. Though I can't say about the user-friendliness since I have never worked with it.
    :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::
    2007-2012 - Suspension, chassis, and stuff (mostly stuff)
    Université de Sherbrooke

  3. #3
    My school uses Solidworks for modelling and simulation. I've done quite a bit of FEA using Solidworks but it is very limited in it's abilities so I would like to use a program like Ansys. Are you aware as to whether or not they do sponsorship deals with FSAE teams? Even if I could get my hands on one licence it would be a major help.

  4. #4
    We also use ANSYS ACP (Version 14) for our composites. So far it worked pretty well, they are always quiet lightweight for their torsional stiffness

    We get support from the Swiss retailer of ANSYS, so I hope you can get help too. Just give them a call, at least for us, they have been very friendly and we are invited to a "User-Meeting" every year where we can show our new stuff (e.g. Fluid-Composites-Interaction with CFX and ACP).
    -------------------------------------------
    Alumnus
    AMZ Racing
    ETH Zürich

    2010-2011: Suspension
    2012: Aerodynamics
    2013: Technical Lead

    2014: FSA Engineering Design Judge

  5. #5
    Like Francis said, look into FiberSim. I'm reasonably sure they offer plugins for most CAD packages. They definitely do for CATIA so I wouldn't be surprised for Solidworks.
    I've been using NX's integrated laminate modeling tools to do some simpler class projects. It works well and can deal with complex geometry, does features like end-of-ply tapers and can even unwrap layups for printing.
    ----
    Paul Achard
    McGill Racing Team

  6. #6
    Personally, I'd be interested to know: Has anyone here ever done composites FEA with Pro Engineer or an associated plugin?
    ----
    Paul Achard
    McGill Racing Team

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