CAD/SOFTWARE FEATURE


During the development of its A350 XWB wide body aircraft, Airbus selected Dassault


DESIGNING THE FUTURE OF FLIGHT


C


heaper, greener, more sustainable, less stressful, quieter and more fun. These are what people expect from air travel in 2050,


according to Airbus, which questioned 20,000 people as part of its ‘Future by Airbus’ program. The A350 XWB (eXtra-Wide Body) long-range jetliner from Airbus has therefore been designed with the customer experience in mind – from cabin ergonomics to the in-flight entertainment. In addition, it combines the latest advances in aerodynamic wing design with an intelligent airframe, and both the fuselage and wing structures are made of carbon-fibre – making up more than 50% of the entire jet. “The A350 XWB is the first plane to so


extensively use this lightweight material, which greatly contributes to its fuel efficiency,” explained Didier Evrard, executive vice president, head of A350 XWB program at Airbus. “Its advanced wing design makes the XWB a quieter and more aerodynamically efficient aircraft. Flying will be a whole new experience.” To achieve this goal, Airbus used Dassault Systèmes’ (3DS) 3DEXPERIENCE Platform to drive a global collaborative solution from 3D design to manufacturing engineering.


COLLABORATION On the A350 XWB program, up to 4000 people were connected daily to the platform, with 85% of them coming from the supply chain. Evrard commented: “When we started the program, we really needed to develop methods and tools which were radically different from the A380, not only to ensure that all engineers involved in development worked on the same design platform, but also to have them communicate in a single environment.” “For previous programs, each site had its own


digital mockup (DMU) and everyone worked separately,” said Antoine Scotto, head of the PLM program for the A350 XWB at Airbus from 2007 to 2011. This lack of communication, however, extended design time and introduced errors that drove up costs. “This time, we federated our development platforms under one umbrella – ENOVIA – and provided Airbus


employees and the extended enterprise with access to this unique data reference. With ENOVIA, synchronisation takes only a few minutes, against several days previously.” By re-engineering its development processes,


Airbus has facilitated collaboration at the design and development phase all the way to production. “The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform has helped unleash a collective exchange of ideas among program stakeholders, which contributed to designing a plane that improves everyone’s efficiency,” Scotto added.


MEETING THE CHALLENGES There were a number of challenges, including a very aggressive development schedule, and


Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE applications for design, simulation and


manufacturing on a single platform


they were corrected before physical installation.” Of further benefit, the digital mockup enabled Airbus to link manufacturing with the design office. Any changes made by the design office were communicated to manufacturing in real time, reducing tooling production time. “The quality of the design was so outstanding that manufacturing almost never requested any redesign work,” Evrard said. Engineers performed realistic nonlinear


analyses with SIMULIA to predict, very early in the design process, the strength and behaviour of the aircraft’s structure. “We created very large simulation models based on the CATIA design information and performed full-scale, nonlinear structural simulations,” Scotto explained. “With SIMULIA, we transitioned from an approximate, linear analysis approach to a more accurate, nonlinear analysis, which gives us a deeper understanding of how the structure really performs in every situation.” DELMIA was used from


manufacturing engineering to plant operations to secure program lead time, ensure the aircraft manufacturability, design and optimise industrial means from assembly station to elementary assembly operations, and support automation. For the Airbus A330, the final assembly line cycle took around four months. By starting


the need to ramp-up production quickly to satisfy delivery commitments. However, using 3DEXPERIENCE, the design quality and efficiency have considerably improved. CATIA was used to design the aircraft’s


structure, the installation systems, the tubing, the composites parts, and the electrical systems, completely in 3D. For example, Airbus reinvented the way they sized and installed the hydraulic and electrical systems. “With CATIA, we implemented a full 3D Master approach to design the electrical harness installation for the A350 XWB, which simplifies the process and improves overall design quality,” Scotto explained. Harmonising the end-to-end harness installation process reduced costs and lead time, and supported the A350 XWB industrial ramp-up. “Engineers have reduced the time needed to update an installation plan by 50%, and decreased the design change requests generated when creating manual 2D drawings by 25%. Everything was installed, fitted and verified digitally and, if there were any errors,


the cabin installation very early, the A350 XWB assembly process was shortened by 30%.


A STRATEGIC ENABLER Benefits of using a single DMU for the A350 does not stop with engineering and manufacturing but extends to downstream processes used in customer services. Using 3DVIA products, Airbus implemented a Structural Repair and Maintenance (SRM) system enabling access, query and navigation in the 3D DMU, to identify structural parts for allowable damage or repair. In addition, by using 3DVIA, parts can be identified more easily, and it has removed the manual work required to create the 2D illustrations and call-outs. The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform has become a


core part and a strategic enabler of Airbus industrial system on the A350 XWB program.


Dassault Systèmes’ www.3ds.com


FEBRUARY 2025 DESIGN SOLUTIONS 33


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56