Proper method of modeling composite fuselage

Altair Forum User

Note: I've reposted a portion of my other post here because it was pointed out to me that this is the more appropriate section.

 

In CATIA, I have surfaces to define an aircraft's fuselage's outer-mold-line (basically, its shape). I also have a couple other surfaces that define the location of bulkheads. I model this by first making the fuselage surface then by making bulkheads that are restricted in size by the fuselage such that changes to the fuselage are reflected by changes in bulkhead shape automatically. I have, however, neglected to include joints because I can't just make the joint of the bulkhead intersect with the fuselage and I certainly can't just offset the joint from the fuselage either because I need the bulkhead surface to be touching the fuselage surface to define its shape.

 

So, now I have to begin preliminary design and I plan to use Hyperworks to handle the composites design. That now leads me to several questions.

1) Can I import the fuselage and bulkhead CATProduct file with all the surfaces and use those surfaces to define the shape that a composite layup has to conform to? In other words, can I use a Catia surface to define the outer shape that the composite layup must conform to? For example, to produce the fuselage, I would produce a mold which has the same shape as defined by the Catia surface. I would then hand layup composites into that mold to form the fuselage. I want to do this sort of thing in Hypermesh to model and analyze a composite fuselage while maintaining the desired shape.

 

Remember, it uses entirely surfaces and no solids at this point because I just don't know the thicknesses of the fuselage and bulkhead. The thicknesses could vary depending on if I go for ol' composite hand layups or if I decide to use a sandwich structure.

Rahul Rajan_21763

Hi,

Which version of Hyperworks you are using?For commercial version one should have seperate catia reader license.

You can save file in other format & import it in Hypermesh.

 

Regards

Rahul R