Posted on 1/5/2017
Design optimization software company joins a team of aerospace experts focused on reducing aircraft development and certification time and maintaining U.S. leadership in aviation manufacturing
Image caption: NASA’s Advanced Composites Consortium members will plug their analysis tools into the HyperSizer Stress Framework for rapid airframe analysis (above) and design optimization of robotic automated fiber placement (AFP) manufactured structures (below).
HAMPTON, Va. (January 5, 2017) – Collier Research Corporation has announced they have become a member of NASA’s Advanced Composites Consortium (ACC).
Collier, the only software company in the ACC, is among the newest members joining the original group formed in 2015—NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center, The Boeing Company, General Electric Company (GE), Lockheed Martin Corporation, United Technologies Corporation, and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) – ACC Integrator.
Also new to the ACC are Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, Orbital ATK, the University of South Carolina McNAIR Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research, and the Wichita State University National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR).
The ACC aims to bring better composite material analysis, design, and manufacturing into practice to help maintain American leadership in aviation manufacturing. The consortium was formed by NASA in support of the Advanced Composites Project, which is part of the Advanced Air Vehicles Program in the agency’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. The project’s goal is to reduce product development and certification timelines by 30 percent for composite aircraft.
“The push to take weight out of structures designed for flight is leading to a greater use of composites in the aerospace industry,” says Craig Collier, President of Collier Research. “As these advanced materials are more complex to certify than metals, the use of automated, integrated analysis and design-performance optimization is critical—from the earliest stages of development all the way through manufacturing—to ensure that composites are used most effectively and certified for flight most efficiently.”
Craig Collier has been appointed cooperative research team (CRT) leader of two ACC initiatives: rapid tools and design for manufacturing.
“Rapid tools are important because the bulk of aircraft design development and structural certification analysis revolves around them,” says Collier. “The design maturation process spans several years. Shortening this long portion of the schedule will have a huge impact on the aircraft production timeline.
“Design for manufacturing includes technologies such as robotic automated fiber placement (AFP) and curing processes during the analysis and optimization design phases. Merging these technologies early and iteratively will help engineers improve quality and consistency in laminate fabrication, resulting in fewer defects and streamlined certification.”
Collier Research’s HyperSizer was the first software to be commercialized out of NASA. It has been used on many projects for the U.S. Space Program (such as the Orion Crew Module) and by many aircraft manufacturers—including Spirit AeroSystems, which designed a fuselage for the Bell V-280 Valor defense helicopter prototype for the Department of Defense’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD) program.