Cloud-based design for the manufacture and simulation of high-performance composite structures.

Formtech Composites specialises in the design, engineering and manufacture of lightweight composite structures and components, using carbon, glass, aramid, and other high-performance fibres. The industrial use of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) is being driven by the increasing use of composites to reduce weight in the automotive industry, where cost and performance are major factors. With world-wide tooling budgets running into hundreds of millions of Euros, simulating processes and manufacturing times are central to delivering high-quality products at an affordable price. To make high‐performance CFRP economically viable for large‐scale production, it is essential to reduce overall development and production costs. 

The objective of this experiment was to develop a CAE chain which could reduce the overall development and production costs through the implementation of the associated development loops. KIT, the domain expert, working with Fraunhofer SCAI, has developed a prototype simulation platform which allows the user to plan manufacturing processes and predict the final structural performance of a material. An integrated workflow to optimise the design of CFRP components has been developed, which uses the prototype from KIT and Fraunhofer SCAI. It is accessible through a web‐based interface and runs on a Cloud-based-HPC system at Gompute, which can easily satisfy the necessary compute requirements.