In addition to RTM CATIA Composites links to a variety of downstream applications such as:

• Nesting
• Laser Projection
• Fiber Placement
• Tape Laying

Manufacturing Fiber Placement

Another downstream process I would like to highlight is the Fiber Deposit Process; the Producibility feature is a key requirement for capturing the fiber deposit context inside the design environment, supporting various strategies according to the Shopfloor technology,

In order to create Composites parts quicker and facilitate downstream fiber deposit, productive Design features are provided to take appropriate manufacturing constraints into account, completed by dedicated Fiber Simulation Capabilities.

Conclusion

• Composite materials are ideal for producing wind turbine blades because of their strength, weight and ability to provide precise mechanical properties
• The traditional manual, sequential and trial and error based composites design process makes it difficult to take full advantage composites tremendous performance capabilities dues to long manufacturing cycles and inexact manufacturing processes
• Best practices originally developed for the aerospace rotorcraft industry can be applied to the wind turbine blades to enable a complete set of process oriented solutions to d, a and m composite blades on a single virtual platform.
• Saves time and $ by managing all aspects from preliminary to detailed design in a single virtual environment
• Design can be optimized for shop floor output
• Bidirectional links to powerful analysis tools reduce time required to meet design specifications while minimizing weight and cost
• Links are provided for digital design information to drive cutting, laser projection and AFP/ATL machines