A350_XWB

Engineers at Airbus have used MACROS software, developed by DATADVANCE, to carry out structural analysis of composite stiffened panels on A350 XWB aircraft.

Using the methodology based on surrogate modelling in MACROS, the engineers conducted structural analysis in Airbus’ improved structural analysis through multidisciplinary integration (ISAMI) environment. The results were stored on the PRESTO database.

The company claimed that the use of the solution helped it complete the analysis in few hours.

MACROS software is a process integration, design optimisation and intellectual data analysis application.

The ISAMI and PRESTO are based on Siemens PLM Software’s LMS Caesam framework, which is part of the LMS Samtech suite of simulation solutions.

LMS Samtech Caesam framework brings together more than 400 Airbus engineering software tools, which help the aircraft manufacturer standardise structural analysis and simplify airworthiness certification.

"These surrogate models were used instead of a database to perform thin composite plates strength analysis and full sizing process."

DATADVANCE claimed that the use of MACROS software enabled Airbus to complete the structural analysis process in a few hours.

DATADVANCE chief technology officer Sergey Morozov said: "DATADVANCE is delighted to elaborate and see Airbus successfully implementing our MACROS-based methodology, which consists in building approximations, also called surrogate models, of the huge Airbus’ PRESTO database of the mechanical strength criteria (reserve factors) values, used as constraints in structure optimization problem.

"These surrogate models were used instead of a database to perform thin composite plates strength analysis and full sizing process.

"The full size of all surrogate models built in MACROS is ten times smaller than the size of the database, and they are constructed in several seconds each, which allows to approximate the whole database in a very short time."

Airbus structure optimisation expert Stéphane Grihon said: "By performing the optimisation using the automatically constructed accurate surrogate models as constraints, Airbus engineers manage to perform structural trade-off studies faster and more efficiently and to find more opportunities in the design of the future aircraft."


Image: The structural analysis of composite stiffened panels on A350 XWB aircraft was performed using DATADVANCE’s MACROS software. Photo: courtesy of DOUMENJOU Alexandre – MasterFilms.

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