Renault F1 Team Speeds Ply Lay-Up by 62 Percent with FiberSIM®
VISTAGY software for design and manufacture of composite components helps company create chassis and front wing of the R25 racecar
WALTHAM, Mass., USA, February 15, 2005 — VISTAGY, Inc., the leading developer of computer-aided-design (CAD) integrated software for the design and manufacture of composite parts, today announced productivity gains and timesaving that Renault F1 Team Limited made using FiberSIM® software to develop the R25 racecar. Renault F1 Team officially unveiled the R25 to an international audience earlier this month in Monte Carlo, Monaco. VISTAGY is an official supplier to the team.
“Speed and control are as important for our engineering team as they are for the car and driver,” says Bob Bell, technical director for Renault F1 Team. “When VISTAGY began their relationship with the team, they promised impressive reductions in product development times for our composite parts, and they delivered on their promises.”
The sophisticated composite chassis and front wing of the R25 racecar provide high strength at a minimum weight, but their complex surfaces make manufacturing difficult. The Renault F1 Team engineers entered the existing composite ply information in FiberSIM and ran producibility simulations. The software also allowed them to export data to laser projection machines that guide manual ply lay-up. The documented results were a 30-percent reduction in the time required to create flat pattern templates and a 62-percent increase in the rate of ply lay-up. FiberSIM software also promoted more-reliable part quality.
A case study describing the successful use of FiberSIM at Renault F1 Team is available for download at http://www.vistagy.com/products/fibersim-composite-environments-success-stories.aspx. Images and benchmark results accompany the case study. More information about the R25 racecar is available at www.renaultf1.com.
About FiberSIM®
FiberSIM® is a suite of software that turns major CAD systems into advanced tools for designing and manufacturing composite parts. The software enables engineers to create a complete digital product definition of a composite part within their 3D modeling environment. FiberSIM supports flexible design methodologies for a wide variety of materials and manufacturing processes and automatically generates design details all the way from complex ply and zone drop-offs to variable offset surfaces for mock-up and tooling. The software simulates how composite material deforms over complex curvature and generates manufacturing information including documentation, flat patterns, and data to drive downstream manufacturing equipment. FiberSIM also uses XML technology to share composites data with people and applications throughout the enterprise.
About VISTAGY, Inc.
VISTAGY, Inc. is a leading developer of engineering software that enhances commercial 3D CAD systems. VISTAGY’s specialized engineering environments enable engineers to capture and communicate complete digital product definitions within CAD, thereby increasing productivity, improving the communication of product information throughout the product’s lifecycle, and allowing better-informed decision making early in design. VISTAGY software is used throughout the world in the aerospace, automotive, marine, medical, sporting goods, and transportation interiors industries. The company also offers training and consulting services. For more information, contact VISTAGY in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, at +1.781.250.6868 or visit www.vistagy.com.
“VISTAGY. Empowering engineers.”™
