COMPUTER-GRAPHICS IN THE DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE OF COMPOSITE LAMINATE COMPONENTS

Today's composite materials enable designers to conceive innovative designs with desired response characteristics. However, the process of converting the optimization output obtained from the structural analysis of complex composite components into a reliable manufacturable product has remained a laborious and painstaking task. This has lead to large cycle times resulting in reduced cost effectiveness. For reducing the manual effort and for better visualisation of the process a software system, AUTOLAY, has been developed. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the effective utilization of computer graphics for different aspects of design and manufacture of aircraft composite components using the AUTOLAY system.