Isogeometric technologies to enhance design and production integration

SINTEF, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia, hosted the kick-off meeting of the TERRIFIC collaborative R&D project in Oslo from October 12th to 14th. The TERRIFIC project, a 3 year European project, is devoted to a significant improvement of computational tools for the design, analysis, optimization, manufacturing and long-term storage of products with functional free-form surfaces (http://www.terrific-project.eu).

TERRIFIC uses an isogeometric approach in selected application areas. The industrial partners in the research program range from SMEs to global players. In all these areas, the functionality depends on the shape of the product surfaces, and even small variations in the manufactured shape may have significant impact on the performance. Computer Aided Design and numerical simulation algorithms are vital technologies in modern product development, yet they are today far from being seamlessly integrated. Their interoperability is severely disturbed by inconsistencies in the mathematical approaches used.

The concept of "The Isogeometric Model" combines the shape representation accuracy of CAD with the topological qualities of FEA, providing an accurate and watertight model for product shape representation. The TERRIFIC project will provide key tangible evidence for the adoption of "The Isogeometric Model" in industrial contexts through validated real-life test cases and investigation of other relevant questions essential for the practical use of the concept. As "The Isogeometric Model" is not coherent with respect to current approaches, TERRIFIC will address the following related issues:

• The Isogeometric Model for geometry-based simulation and design optimization, for the example of dip painting of car bodies and frames
• Isogeometric Analysis for improved accuracy in simulation, with examples in railway technology and for typical aircraft parts
• The Isogeometric Model and computer-aided machining
• Life-cycle aspects of The Isogeometric Model and relations to standards
• From the CAD-model to The Isogeometric Model, and vice versa

TERRIFIC is a 3-year project which will also contribute to the creation of an isogeometric toolkit (based on software from INRIA, SINTEF, UNIKL and JOTNE) in order to:

• Provide unified tools for other activities in the project
• Coordinate shared software between activities in the project
• Provide a fully documented isogeometric toolkit version for future use by the project partners
• Build a free software isogeometric toolkit (GNU GPL) version to be generally released after the TERRIFIC project terminates

The project also aims at significant improvement of the interoperability of computational tools for the design, analysis and optimization of functional products.

The partners in the project together with the coordinator SINTEF (Norway) are the following industrial partners: Alenia (Italy), ECS (Austria), Jotne (Norway), Missler Software/TopSolid (France), Siemens (Germany), and Academic partners, INRIA (France), Johannes Kepler Universität Linz (Austria), Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (Germany), Università di Pavia Italy (Italy).

Acknowledgement:

TERRIFIC is part of the EU "Factories of the Future" initiative which is a € 1.2 billion public private partnership in which the European Commission and industry will jointly support the development of new enabling technologies for EU manufacturing which have cross-sectoral benefits and contribute to greener production. Achieving continued growth and sustainability depends on a long-term shift from cost-based competitive advantage to an approach based on high value added. In addition, the TERRIFIC project is connected to the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) program.

For further information please visit:

ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/factories-of-the-future_en.html

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