JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #96 - April 2015 - 12

The importance of integrating simulation
tools in the manufacturing process

interview

Byron Pipes
John Leighton Bray Distinguished
Professor of Engineering
Purdue University

Byron Pipes holds the title of John Leighton Bray Distinguished
Professor of Engineering at Purdue University, Indiana. He will be
presenting the latest improvements from the cdmHUB in the Automotive conference session during JEC Americas in Houston next June.

must be developed and integrated into the
manufacturing development process.

JEC Composites Magazine: How do composite
simulation tools factor into an industry such
as the automotive one?

JCM: What is Purdue University and its
composite-dedicated departments' expertise
in this field?

Scott Tolson : Automotive manufac-

S.T. : Purdue University is a partner in
the Institute for Advanced Composites
Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) of
the Department of Energy. IACMI is led
by the University of Tennessee with Oak
Ridge National Laboratory as one of the
nation's National Network of Manufacturing
Institutes. In 2013, Purdue founded the
Composites Design and Manufacturing
HUB (cdmHUB), a collaborative web
interface platform designed to provide a
platform for evaluation of composite available simulation tools. The platform will also
educate users in the use of simulation tools
needed to:
- Advance composite materials design and
manufacturing simulation best practices,
- Certify product performance,
- Simulate manufacturing processes, and

turing is a partnership between OEMs and
their supply chains. Sharing specialised
design and manufacturing software with the
supply chain in order to simulate complex
composite structures manufacturing will
significantly shorten the development
lifecycle and decrease the development cost
for OEM's, while allowing more time for
innovation by all.
The composites simulation tool suite can be
used as the platform for the certification of
composite performance as well. Here again
composites simulation tools can provide an
economic alternative to exhaustive studies
of process and performance variability, but
to do so simulation tools for prediction of
manufacturing and performance variability

12 jec composites magazine / No96 April 2015

- Accelerate the development of the composite simulation talent-base cdmHUB's
robust browser-based platform shares
data and simulation tool developments in
real-time while allowing continuous direct
interaction with the composites community
in a secure environment.
The Purdue composites programs will be
housed in the new Indiana Manufacturing
Institute in the Purdue Research Park.
JCM: What are your main goals during this
speech in Houston in June?

S.T. : The goals are to work with industry,
academia and government to put composites simulation tools in the hands of
engineers, who will design future products
that require the performance characteristics
composite materials offer. To do so will
require a comprehensive set of simulation
tools that connect composites from their
birth in manufacturing to their lifetime
prediction and the education of a new
generation of engineers with composites
expertise. n
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JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #96 - April 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #96 - April 2015
