Success Story

Overcoming the Challenges of Composite Design through Simulation

Composite materials have been used in the aerospace industry for many years due to their lightweight and high performance characteristics, but the issue of product weight is not limited to aircraft. Key Highlights Industry Automotive Challenge Composite material modeling for a innovative new vehicle platform Altair Solution Extensive use of simulation technology to understand the behavior of the material under crash loads Benefits Accurate simulation of composites Lighter, fuel efficient vehicles Automotive manufacturers are increasingly viewing the material as a method of minimizing mass and maximizing fuel economy.

UK based automotive design company, Gordon Murray Design (GMD) believes that composite materials can play a much larger role in the manufacture of vehicles and to prove its case, the company has developed 'iStream', an efficient process for manufacturing low and high volume cars from lightweight mixed materials. The iStream process seeks to reduce

The material is not without its design challenges. Composite ply layer stacking order and fiber direction creates a huge number of design variables to take into account when simulating complex events such as crash. Furthermore, the inherent high cost of the material can lead many to see composites as the reserve of high-end sports vehicles.

all costs associated with developing a vehicle, from factory development and assembly to tooling design and end of life. Whereas the traditional approach to vehicle manufacturing sees stamped steels used for the body structure, GMD's innovative iStream manufacturing process uses lightweight composite panels bonded to a tubular metallic frame.

Keywords: Vehicle Development, Composite Materials

Working directly with the Altair ProductDesign team and how they integrate and interact with Altairs software division and all the other components of the organization has been invaluable to us."
Simon Maher, Senior Stress & Materials Engineer, Gordon Murray Design

iStream is being developed as an intellectual property for GMD which it intends to license out to companies wishing to diversify into the car market. However, in order to make iStream successful, GMD must prove that a vehicle which relies on composite panels for much of its structural integrity can meet strict performance targets. To do this, GMD has developed a number of demonstrator vehicles including the T.25 and T.27 that utilize the iStream philosophy.

material and how it can be accurately modeled to prove its suitability as a structural component. GMD is an established user of Altair's HyperWorks suite of simulation technologies. When the company was looking for an external partner with simulation expertise, Altair ProductDesign, was the natural choice. Altair is able to link its software development business with its engineering services, allowing Altair ProductDesign to apply experiences gained during projects to directly influence the functionality and accuracy of the software suite. This was a key decision factor for GMD who saw the

interaction between the two businesses as a crucial differentiating factor over other product development companies.

Streamlined Model Build

Altair ProductDesign was asked to improve the virtual modeling of the composite materials used in iStream to achieve correlation with physical test results. The first task was to build accurate material models for the iStream sandwich panels. The panels are

Altair ProductDesign was asked to improve the virtual modeling of the composite materials to achieve correlation with physical test results

Selecting an Experienced Simulation Development Partner

GMD is a small, focused and highly talented company with a huge amount of vehicle engineering pedigree and experience. The iStream project requires a deep understanding of the behavior of composite

considerably lighter than metal alternatives while maintaining strength and stiffness as well as being inexpensive to maintain and avoid many corrosion issues.

The T.25 Demonstrator Vehicle Showing the iStream Frame

T.27 Utilizes iSteam to Create a Lightweight Electric Drive Vehicle

About Gordon Murray Design Gordon Murray Design was established in 2007 in the UK to develop an innovative and disruptive automotive manufacturing technology trademarked iStream, the design and prototyping of the T.25 City Car was central to the validation and development of iStream. Comparing Virtual Crash Model with Physical Test of the iStream based T.32 Nose Cone

To effectively model the structure requires detailed modeling of the glass fiber laminates, soft core and the structural adhesive used to bond the panels to the frame. GMD tasked Altair ProductDesign with creating a highly tuneable CAE model of an iStream chassis in order to appraise the load paths in frontal and side dynamic impacts. Using Altair's HyperWorks suite, Altair ProductDesign suggested a finite element modeling method which utilized 1D beam and shell elements for different parts of the vehicle structure with much of the model creation work conducted by Altair's offshore capability to speed

Accelerating the analysis process enables GMD to rapidly investigate more design variations and achieve the optimal design configuration in a shorter timescale.

loading conditions including crash. The virtual testing process is performed with an understanding of the physical test requirements to ensure that results can be effectively correlated without the need to repeat tests unnecessarily.

Defining Material Behavior

Understanding the behavior of the composite materials is a crucial step in the development cycle as the level of knowledge within the automotive industry is not as mature as with metallics. Once a level of confidence in the material behavior

Conclusion: Developing Innovative Vehicles with Added Confidence

As the analysis and correlation to physical test stages of the project become finalized, Altair ProductDesign will continue to work with GMD and develop the iStream structure to improve crash performance. The use of advanced materials require innovative methods of design and validation to ensure that they perform at the highest levels without compromise to safety. The combination of simulation expertise from Altair ProductDesign and the vehicle development and composite expertise of GMD has been a highly effective partnership that will help to prove the value of the innovative iStream process.

Altair ProductDesign will continue to work closely with GMD and develop the

iStream structure to improve at a component level is achieved, the material crash performance
simulation will move beyond discrete components and onto a system characterization level. Here, sub and full systems are analyzed, allowing the engineers to view the interaction of each part on the surrounding components during loading. Altair ProductDesign and GMD will carry out a range of virtual simulation tests using HyperWorks' RADIOSS solver to define the material's behavior under various

up this time consuming phase. This method allowed the analysis stage to directly inform the design stage through the creation of representative virtual models of the composite material developed much earlier than in a standard development process. Design direction could be quickly explored, manipulated and assessed but without creating compute intensive analyses.

Find out more about Gordon Murray Design: www.gordonmurraydesign.com Find out more about Altair ProductDesign: www.altairproductdesign.com

About Altair
Altair empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held with more than 1,300 employees, Altair has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. With a 25-year-plus track record for innovative product design and development, advanced engineering software and grid computing technologies, Altair has more than 3,500 corporate clients representing the automotive, aerospace, government and defense, and consumer products verticals. Altair also has a growing client presence in the life sciences, financial services and energy markets.

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at www.altairproductdesign.com
Altair ProductDesign is a global, multi-disciplinary product development consultancy of more than 700 designers, engineers, scientists, and creative thinkers. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Altair Engineering Inc., this organization is best known for its market leadership in combining its engineering expertise with computer aided engineering (CAE) technology to deliver innovation and automate processes. Altair ProductDesign firmly advocates a user-centered, team-based design approach, and utilizes proprietary simulation and optimization technologies (such as Altair HyperWorks) to help clients bring innovative, profitable products to market on a tighter, more efficient time-scale. www.altairproductdesign.com

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