FEA.RU | CompMechLab - Hi-Tech News

Using its SLM tool to automate and manage huge data sources, SIMULIA accelerates the qualification process for its Abaqus FEA crash test dummy models from weeks to days.

Physical crash dummies may have dozens of sensors and other sophisticated mechanical parts, but their digital brethren can be just as complicated. With more than 100,000 elements and dozens of validation tests to manage, companies delivering the complex FEA simulation models that lie at the heart of the virtual crash test dummies are starting to leverage a new type of software platform to facilitate the process.

QinetiQ’s Zephyr solar powered unmanned aircraft soars to new world records

QinetiQ today (14:40 UK time on Friday 16 July) announced that Zephyr, the leading solar powered high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) Unmanned Air System (UAS) has been flying for the past week, smashing a number of long-standing world records.

Currently flying high above the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, Zephyr has already passed the seven day / 168 hour mark and the clock is still running. This DOUBLES the unofficial world record for longest duration unmanned flight of 82 hours, 37 minutes set in 2008 and already held by Zephyr, and is well in excess of the current official world record of 30 hours 24 minutes set by Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A Global Hawk on 22 March 2001.

SpaceClaim Showcases Multi-Touch for 3D Engineering Design

SpaceClaim, provider of the world’s fastest and most innovative 3D Direct Modeling solutions, today announced the company will enable engineers and industrial designers to leverage Windows Touch to create and edit precise solid models. SpaceClaim marked the news by releasing a highly entertaining and instructive video that demonstrates how multi-touch with SpaceClaim 3D Direct Modeling solutions will impact design and engineering.

The 5th edition of the Green500 List

The 5th edition of the Green500 List is announced. As the list continues to grow and accumulate valuable data on the energy efficiency of supercomputers, trends in green supercomputing can be more readily tracked. Below are a few highlights from this edition of the list.

Going for the Record with Dassault Systemes and Lenovo

A team of North American engineers attempts to break the land speed record with help from many sponsors.

GE Aviation Moving To Apply Ceramic Matrix Composites to the Heart of Future Engines

It is no simple feat introducing durable, lightweight composite components into the “hot section” of a flying jet engine. But GE Aviation is achieving this elusive, technical milestone.

The GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team’s F136 development engine for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) contains third-stage, low-pressure turbine vanes made by GE from ceramic matrix composites (CMC). This could lead to the first commercial use of CMCs in a jet engine’s hot section (combustor and turbine areas) when a F136-powered JSF begins flight testing in 2010.

Airbus to certify airbags in A320

Airbus has been granted special certification conditions from the US FAA to allow the airframer to certify inflatable airbags in the passenger restraint systems on A320 family aircraft.
The company on 2 September asked the regulator to amend its A320 type certificate to allow the installation of AmSafe Aviation inflatable restraints for head injury protection (HIP) on passenger seats on the A319, A320 and A321.

Toyota Develops Worlds 1st Rear-seat Center Airbag

Toyota Motor Corporation announces it has developed a Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) rear-seat center airbag - the first in the world - to help reduce the severity of secondary injuries incurred by rear-seat passengers in a side-on collision.

Nanostitching Could Strengthen Airplane Skins

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) engineers are using carbon nanotubes only billionths of a meter thick to stitch together aerospace materials in work that could make airplane skins and other products some 10 times stronger at a nominal increase in cost.

Virgin Galactic and SSTL Developing New Sat Launch Technology

Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and Sir Richard Branson's space travel venture Virgin Galactic want to build a device that can be launched from an aircraft and carry satellites hundreds of miles above the earth's surface. The concept would be similar to the US Pegasus system, which uses a regular aeroplane to launch a rocket into orbit.

Virtual Crash Test Dummies: A Data Management Test