Granta Enhances Composites Simulation Support

Granta Design is demonstrating its enhanced support for composites simulation at JEC World Show (Paris, March 14-16). The recently completed UK-DATACOMP collaborative project developed simulation-ready data from testing for crash simulation of composites in the automotive sector. This project has validated the use of Granta’s material information management technology for this complex application. It also generated a new set of test data and simulation models.

The objective of UK-DATACOMP was to facilitate the use of established simulation methodologies in composite product development. Project partners were industry and public organizations, including Altair, Axon Automotive, Cytec Industrial Materials, Granta Design, Imperial College, NCCEF and Sigmatex. Granta provided its GRANTA MI materials information management software system, enabling partners to:

• capture and share high-quality, pedigree-assured composites data, which could then be used to support derivation of simulation models as input for FEA analysis;
• manage these complex simulation models;
• prepare models for use with different solvers; and
• access the models quickly and easily from within simulation software.

The successful conclusion of the project provides a case study on the use of GRANTA MI to support composite simulation. Resulting experience and technology is being reused to support Granta customers with similar requirements, in automotive and other industries. One outcome from UK-DATACOMP was the generation of a new data set for 18 polymer-carbon composites systems, including fiber and matrix properties, accompanied by over 25 validated material cards for select systems.

At JEC World, Granta is demonstrating GRANTA MI Version 10 (released December 2016) – this latest version delivers a new workflow system and offers engineering enterprises control over how they collect and apply materials knowledge.

GRANTA MI is developed in collaboration with many leading enterprises worldwide that are using it to manage their corporate materials knowledge. These include members of the Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) such as Airbus Helicopters, Boeing, Honeywell, NASA and Rolls-Royce. The MDMC Composites Sub-Committee has been instrumental in helping Granta to fine-tune GRANTA MI data structures and tools for the needs of composite data management.

“Simulation plays a pivotal role in product development and I’m happy that we can now demonstrate an enhanced solution for composites test and simulation data management," says Najib Baig, product manager, materials innovation at Granta Design. "Our collaborative projects are helping us to be at the cutting edge of composites development and allowing us to keep enhancing our products.”

For more information, visit Granta.

Sources: Press materials received from the company.