NUREMBERG, Germany, 12 Feb. 2014. Airbus officials and engineers sought a computer-aided engineering (CAE) tool to aid in structural analysis of the Airbus A350-900 aircraft, part of the popular Airbus A350 XWB family.
Software from LMS, a Siemens business, has played a major role in the A350-900 structural analysis process, resulting in the software’s expanded use in other Airbus projects, reveals a company spokesperson.
Airbus created a common stress analysis environment based on LMS Samtech Caesam, one of Siemens’ computer-aided engineering (CAE) software solutions. For the A350-900 structural development and certification, LMS Caesam provided the foundation for deploying Airbus harmonized methods to more than 2,000 stress engineers at more than 50 worldwide suppliers. LMS Caesam provides a single framework that integrates all Airbus processes, methods, tools and data libraries, replacing over 400 tools, officials say.
The A350-900 is the first Airbus aircraft developed using the company’s Improved Structural Analysis through Multidisciplinary Integration (ISAMI) common environment, based on the LMS Caesam framework, which is part of the LMS Samtech suite of simulation solutions. The ISAMI environment ensures consistency in the A350 structural analysis and certification process.
The LMS Caesam framework has helped Airbus tackle its three main challenges on structure analysis: harmonization, automation, and deployment. It manages and automates engineering processes for safety-margin calculation, giving a time-cost benefit over the full design cycle. The framework allows the integration of harmonized sizing processes and tools, capitalizing on company know-how. LMS Caesam also is tailored to help aerospace manufacturers manage structural analysis work streams that result from the growing global supply chain.
As a result of the LMS Caesam platform’s success with ISAMI, its use has been extended to perform detailed structural sizing and certification for the A350-1000 and the A320neo. Airbus, together with Siemens’ LMS business segment, also has developed a new tool to help estimate aircraft weight early in the development process.
Pre-sizing of Structures for Trade-Offs (PRESTO), also based on LMS Caesam, is used by Airbus for preliminary aircraft sizing. The use of PRESTO on the A350-1000 has shown a significant time saving over the previous method, officials add.
