Virtual Engineering Centre - Examples of Virtual Prototyping and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

The requirement for the use of Virtual Engineering, encompassing the construction of Virtual Prototypes using Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation, for the development of future aerospace platforms and systems is discussed. Some of the activities at the Virtual Engineering Centre, a University of Liverpool initiative, are described and a number of case studies involving a range of applications of Virtual Engineering illustrated. 1.0 INTRODUCTION The North West region of England has a high concentration of aerospace businesses serving both civil and military customers across the world and, despite the recent economic downturn, the long-term business prospects for the aerospace sector are very encouraging and offer these businesses excellent opportunities for growth [1]. However, aerospace product development is an increasingly more complex and globalised activity involving a world-wide supply chain. If the challenging performance goals for all new aircraft platforms and the engineering systems on which they are built are to be met then it is imperative that developers adopt effective system engineering processes to create the innovative solutions expected. INCOSE [2] consider Systems Engineering to be “an interdisciplinary process to ensure that the customer and stakeholder's needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system's entire life cycle” and their systems engineering process SIMILAR involves seven tasks: State the problem, Investigate alternatives, Model the system, Integrate, Launch the system, Assess performance, and Re-evaluate. Modelling is a fundamental aspect of systems engineering. Models are required for both the product and the process because systems engineering is responsible for both the product and the process that produces it. Virtual Engineering (VE) is concerned with integrated product and process modelling, where product models embody the design data, developed through process models. The product models being used by developers are increasingly more complex and demand the integration of mechanical, electrical and software systems into a single, holistic product modelling system linked to requirements and performance data. A product model embedded within a synthetic environment of the relevant life cycle phase is described as a Virtual Prototype (VP), as shown in Figure 1. The elements of the VP are derived from Hubka‘s Theory of Technical Systems [3] and include the engineering system (TS), the active environment (En) and the human operator (Hu). All three elements interact with each other and influence the effectiveness of the transformational process that is being represented. As a consequence, VPs can be used to evaluate the functionality and behaviour of an engineering system in its context of use and determine how the requirements are being satisfied. VIRTUAL ENGINEERING CENTRE PAPER NBR1 2 RTO-MP-AVT-173173 NATO UNCLASSIFIED NATO UNCLASSIFIED The real advantage is that the VP can serve as the basis for, not only demonstrating compliance with requirements, but also optimising the design and developing and validating the requirements themselves. Research cited by INCOSE indicates that effective use of virtual/systems engineering can save 10-20% of project budgets[4]. Figure1: Principal elements of a Virtual Prototype Figure 2. Virtual Engineering Integrating Requirement Capture with Design and Virtual Prototyping through all Elements of the Product Life Cycle VPs can be regarded as powerful development tools. However, to ensure that customers and stakeholder needs are satisfied throughout the product‘s life cycle requires, many such VPs need to be developed in order to meet the multitude of requirements that define the functionality and operational capability of the engineering system across the product life cycle. Virtual Engineering (VE) is the creation and exercise of VPs at the front-end of the life cycle, shown in Figure 2, which will continue to serve purpose and support decision making throughout the life cycle. VIRTUAL ENGINEERING CENTRE RTO-MP-AVT-173 PAPER NBR13 UNCLASSIFIED NATO UNCLASSIFIED This paper describes the Virtual Engineering Centre at the University of Liverpool which has been set up as a centre of excellence in Virtual Engineering. A number of case studies demonstrating the application of Virtual Engineering, in no particular order, are described. 2.0 VIRTUAL ENGINEERING CENTRE The Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) is a University of Liverpool initiative in partnership with the Science and Technology Facilities Council Daresbury Laboratory, Northwest Aerospace Alliance, BAE Systems, Morson Projects and Airbus UK. The main objective of the VEC is to create a centre of excellence in Virtual Engineering that will significantly improve the overall business performance of the aerospace sector in the North West region of England and so is partially funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and the European Regional Development Fund. The VEC will provide integrated product/process model and virtual prototyping capabilities and facilities for the benefit of industrial organisations of all sizes throughout the supply chain to design and evaluate rapidly new products, production facilities or services in virtual form. The VEC will provide a VE research focus through the creation of multidisciplinary teams working collaboratively and concurrently across industry and academia. This multidisciplinary approach will push the boundaries of existing capabilities resulting in high fidelity simulation for scenarios not currently possible. The VEC will help fill the shortfall in graduate engineers with a working knowledge and capability in VE and use real-world product and process model data to create demonstrations and case studies that demonstrate the business benefits of VE to the aerospace supply chain. To help achieve these aims, the VEC has access to a high concentration of aerospace businesses, some of UK‘s most capable research teams in academia and, through the STFC Daresbury Laboratory, computational power at a level able to tackle the massive complexities of VE required for new aerospace systems. The activities within the VEC are structured in a framework of five technical work packages (WP), a skills development work package (WP6), and a business development/knowledge exchange work package (WP7) as shown in Figure 3: a) WP 1 – Lifecycle VE integration. b) WP 2 – VE for manufacturing and assembly. c) WP 3 – VE for development and certification. d) WP 4 – VE for operations and support. e) WP 5 – Verification and validation of VE processes and practises. f) WP 6 – VE for Life. g) WP 7 – VE for Business. The technical work packages (WP2, WP3 and WP4) will develop state of art VE practice for use in the relevant phases of the product life cycle (Figure 2), whilst WP1 will establish an integrated product and process modelling framework to support VE practice at all levels of skills and competencies throughout the product life cycle. WP5 will develop a framework for verification and validation (V&V) of VE and VPs, drawing from Research Council funded activities at the University of Liverpool. Technical Work Packages WP2, WP3, and WP4 will develop VPs to demonstrate product and process modelling capabilities. They will each have the following VE objectives relating to their distinct phase of the product life cycle: VIRTUAL ENGINEERING CENTRE PAPER NBR1 4 RTO-MP-AVT-173173 NATO UNCLASSIFIED NATO UNCLASSIFIED Figure 3. Work Package Delivery Structure Schematic 1. Create a database for an existing baseline design case, including legacy requirements set. 2. Create a baseline product model. 3. Develop a process model for populating the product model. 4. Develop requirements for a ̳new‘ design providing an upgraded capability beyond the baseline. 5. Use the process model to populate product models with new data to examine candidate solutions to meet new requirements and iterate to explore trade-offs in requirements matching. 6. Create a virtual prototype using the product model and associated synthetic environments 7. Conduct demonstrations to a ̳virtual‘ customer. 8. Set up VE exercises that serve as client demonstrations and educational tools. 3.0 COMPOSITES CURING MODELLING Autoclave processing is one of the oldest composites processing technologies. In this process, plies or prepregs or tapes (fibres that are pre-impregnated with the resin) are stacked on the surface of the tool. They are then subjected to high pressure and temperature to allow the stacks to become a single coherent structure by forcing out air pockets and excess resin. The process is carried out in an autoclave, which is a large pressure vessel with an integral heating element. One can think of an autoclave as an oven that can be pressurized. Not unlike a pressure vessel, it is usually constructed as a cylindrical tube with a door at one end. Its main function is to provide the heat and pressure necessary to consolidate and cure composite structures. The main objective of this project is the early prediction of composite part deformations during autoclave manufacturing. These deformations will help us to modify autoclave-tool design to minimize it within specified tolerances (customer requirements). Numerical autoclave simulation will reduce the cost of the iterative manufacturing process to find the optimized autoclave-tool design. Three software packages will be used during this project: CATIA is used to model the part and tool designs, ABAQUS is used to perform the Autoclave simulation applying finite element technique, and Fortran 11 is used for programming user-subroutines that model special material properties. WP 2 VE for Manufacturing and Assembly WP 6 VE for Life WP 5 Verification and Validation of VE WP 4 VE for Operations and Support V EC R eq u ir em en ts P ro je ct O u tc o m es WP1 Lifecycle integration WP 3 VE for D