Airbus To Expand Additive Manufacturing Programs With 3DEXPERIENCE Platform by Dassault Systèmes

Following a two-year comprehensive benchmarking process, Airbus Group will extends its use of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform by 3D design software company Dassault Systèmes to its additive manufacturing programs, covering the fields of design, simulation and production.

This way, Airbus will be able to optimise its conceptual designs, being able to virtually validate each phase of the additive manufacturing process in the area of tooling, prototyping and creating parts for test flights and for production use on commercial aircrafts. The aircraft manufacturer will be able to explore greater design and manufacturing possibilities to meet requirements for 3D printed tools and parts.

“Numerous projects across Airbus are accelerating the use of additive manufacturing to produce prototypes as well as production components potentially delivering lighter and less expensive parts that meet technological, performance, safety and cost standards,” said Robert Nardini, Senior Vice President Engineering Airframe, Airbus. “Airbus has long used Dassault Systèmes’ simulation applications to accelerate the structural analysis and virtual testing of aircraft and now we can define a new way of designing parts by leveraging simulation-based design to better answer aviation market needs.”

“Additive manufacturing creates new opportunities in many different areas such as remote fabrication for support and maintenance, rapid prototyping for realizing new concepts and experiences and, perhaps most importantly, developing designs that were heretofore impossible to fabricate,” said Dominique Florack, Senior Executive Vice President, Research & Development, Dassault Systèmes. “With this approach, Airbus Group will be able to take advantage of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s next generation automated design assistant for parts, whether they are 3D printed or not, thus accelerating a new wave of transformation in the aerospace industry. With the 3DEXPERIENCE platform we are delivering an end to end solution including all engineering parameters for the additive manufacturing of parts inclusive of material science, functional specification, generative design, 3D printing optimization, production and certification.”