An Advanced Composite Engineering Environment automates many repetitive design, simulation, and manufacturing tasks peculiar to composites. The software includes Zone Based Design for defining laminate specifications and requirements. In practice, engineers often design composite parts by analyzing the part and breaking it down into regions or zones with the same structural properties. V5.0's tools for preliminary design let users specify how ply boundaries are to be dropped-off or staggered from one zone into another and generate variable offset surfaces. To minimize overall part weight, only the portion of a part that withstands the most stress can be designed thicker and stronger than other portions. The resulting surface created by the built-up plies varies in thickness. In previous versions of FiberSIM, the engineer needed to define each dart and splice in a ply manually, though there was some automation.
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