This episode of Designing the Future is brought to you by Dassault Systèmes.

Product lifecycle management was once considered the business of sales, marketing and accounting professionals, but the planned lifecycle of a product is vital to designers and engineering professionals too. All successful products are designed from the end user back to the designer, and correct management of the product lifecycle function lets engineering teams make sensible decisions about everything from product durability to the design of production tooling. 

Modern PLM tools give designers and engineers a unique advantage: the ability to think, model and simulate PLM implications in product designs, before design lockdown or production commitment. The goal is to deliver all three of the objectives of all great design: better quality, lower costs and faster time-to-market. And today, there is an additional complication: sustainability. 

Stéphane Declée, CEO of ENOVIA at Dassault Systèmes joined engineering.com’s Jim Anderton to discuss how integrated PLM systems address this complex environment.

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Learn more about how ENOVIA empowers PLM. 

The post Better, integrated PLM for industry appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode of Designing the Future is brought to you by Dassault Systèmes.

Computer-aided design is dominated by a handful of major industry software houses, and most engineers around the world today are trained to use one or more of the major packages. The brand and version of design software packages used by engineering firms are determined by several factors: capability, cost, pre-existing familiarity with that vendor’s systems, available training resources and significantly, confidence built out of a history of using a specific product. 

But what happens when a competitor develops a package which offers clear benefits over a company’s existing tech? Switching platforms used to be unthinkable, but that’s not the case today. Should you switch? How would you switch?

Jim Anderton spoke with a 3D engineering veteran Brad Williamson, Expert Industry Process Consultant with Dassault Systèmes about this important issue.

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Download the accompanying guide: What to consider when switching CAD programs.

The post Can Your Business Switch CAD Platforms? appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode of Designing the Future is brought to you by Dassault Systèmes.

In the move to decarbonized transportation, the most difficult sector to move to alternate energy is aviation. The amount of chemical potential energy stored in a unit volume of hydrocarbon fuel is enormous, and his high energy density is an essential component in the design of modern aircraft that deliver range and payload requirements that keep air travel efficient and affordable. 

But this may be changing, with a new generation of electric technologies. Batteries are heavy, but the addition of fuel cells promises to claw back much of the weight advantages of hydrocarbon fuels without the carbon footprint. 

Jim Anderton spoke with Jacques Alexis Verrecchia, Head of Product at Beyond Aero about some exciting developments in fuel cell powered aviation.

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Learn more about the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud; and learn more about the french startup Beyond Aero. 

The post Hydrogen fuel cells power clean, fast business aircraft appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode of The Engineering Roundtable is brought to you by Hawk Ridge Systems.

Manufacturing today is about more than just making things. Whether it’s aspirin or aircraft carriers, Band-Aids or bridges, all manufactured goods are imbued with data. That data represents a high-value information stream that runs parallel to the entire production process, from raw materials receiving to performance monitoring in the customer’s hands. Turning that information into actionable insight is the key to productive and profitable manufacturing, and in industries where products are safety critical, and are highly regulated, like medical devices, there is more at stake than just money.

Joining engineering.com on this episode of  The Engineering Roundtable are four experts to discuss how advanced data management enhances innovation and safety in the medical device industry:

Panelists:

George Burns, Technical Account Manager, Hawk Ridge Systems
Kimberly Subrahmanyan, Vice President of Program Management, gener8
Andrew Banchieri, Senior Mechanical Engineer and PDM Administrator, gener8
Chris Cortez, Principal Engineer, gener8

Moderator:

Jim Anderton, Multimedia Content Director, engineering.com

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Learn more about how Hawk Ridge Systems can partner to propel medical device companies forward.

The post Medical device design and production: using data to advance the state of the art appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode of The Engineering Roundtable is brought to you by PTC. 

In industry, the world is more complex than it used to be. Customers are more demanding. Margins are tighter. Regulations are stricter. And importantly, time-to-market must be shorter. And for the many companies that operate global operations, with the global customer base, a major additional factor is the need to integrate design, development, production sales and service teams who may be literally half a world away. It’s a very serious management challenge, but there are proven, cost-effective solutions.

Joining engineering.com on The Engineering Roundtable to discuss how digitalization improves efficiency are:
• Jeffrey Zemsky, VP Product Management – Windchill Digital Thread, PTC
• Sarah Gawlik, Senior Manager, QMS Global Governance and Management Control, Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies

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Want to learn more about Revolutionizing Patient Safety?  Check out our MedTech panel discussion on Quality Management, where participants address dispersed teams, disconnected systems, and changing regulatory environments.

The post For this med tech company, digitalization is key appeared first on Engineering.com.

Gun barrels need to be precise, accurate and reliable, which makes it a challenge to manufacture them in a way that meets the industry’s exacting standards. Electrochemical machining (ECM) is a potential solution for manufacturers to meet—and perhaps exceed—the needs of this growing market.

The global gun barrels market is projected to be worth USD $9.3 billion by 2027—a significant jump from the $6.14 billion it was valued at in 2019—with a compound annual growth rate of 6.15 per cent. Much of this growth will be fueled by increased demand from defense forces and law enforcement agencies to modernize and enhance their capabilities in response to a rise in global unrest, threats of terrorism and cross-border conflicts.

The EMAG PI, an entry-level ECM modular machine platform for rifling. (Image: EMAG.)

Making A Bullet Spin

Rifling a gun barrel involves etching grooves inside the barrel to make the bullet spin as it is fired. If a bullet does not spin as it flies, it must keep its body exactly in line with its flight path in order to fly straight and fast; if it goes even slightly out of line, it will tumble end over end. If the bullet is spinning, however, forces such as angular momentum keep it flying along its intended path—behaving not as a stationary oblong object, but rather as a spinning top. As a result, the bullet can travel faster, farther and with much greater accuracy than a bullet that does not spin.

Rifling Methods

Currently there are four common ways to rifle the gun barrel: button rifling, single point cut rifling, broach rifling and hammer forging.

EMAG demonstrates its PI 800 ECM platform.

Button rifling is a cold forming process that deploys a carbide tool—the “button”—with grooves in a specific shape and twist rate to swage rifling in the barrel. The grooves are cut in a single pass where the button is moved at a controlled rate through the bore of the barrel blank (the gun barrel before it is grooved). The benefits of this method are that it hardens the surface layer of the barrel, making it more durable, and since no metal is cut there are no chip control issues. However, the process induces stress in the bore of the barrel and requires an additional stress relief operation, increasing cost and time. Button rifling is a closely controlled method, making it easier to repeat with modern equipment in a mass production setting.

Single point cut rifling, or hook rifling, uses a carbide “hook” to cut a single groove in the barrel at a time. It requires multiple passes; the tool cuts a groove, indexes and then cuts the next groove. This method doesn’t place additional stresses on the metal the way a cold forming process does, and manufacturers can exercise precise control over the groove depth per pass. However, cut rifling can be time-consuming and is the most difficult method to achieve repeatability. Cut rifling requires a skilled tradesperson to operate the machine instead of enabling the machine to control the process; in fact, it often requires a custom-built machine with custom tooling provided by the barrel manufacturer.

Broach rifling uses a long tool with multiple teeth that extract small amounts of material out of each groove. The broach is fed down the barrel while rotating, with each progressive tooth making the cut a little bit deeper. The process is similar to single point cut rifling but only requires one pass and can be performed on the same kinds of machines used in button rifling. Like cut rifling, this method does not put additional stress on the material—and can be nearly as fast as button rifling. However, this method requires a different tool for every twist rate, and the tool design prohibits progressive twist; the tools are relatively fragile, adding to the cost and potentially disrupting production if they should fail. In addition, the surface finish is not as smooth as with other methods, and chip control could be an issue. As with cut rifling, a dedicated machine and tool set are required for the process.

The cold hammer forging process pushes an oversized metal tube over a hardened mandrel that has the negative of the grooves ground into its profile. The tube is fed and forged in small sections, resulting in a finished barrel blank with the desired twist and caliber. This method enables increased barrel durability. It also reduces the number of finishing steps required, shortening production time and manufacturing costs. And while it requires a significant initial investment in dedicated machinery and tooling, once the process is set up it is easily repeatable for increased manufacturing.

Electrochemical Machining

A recent development promises to significantly change the way rifle barrels are machined: electrochemical machining (ECM).

As it is a contactless procedure with no heat input, the process is not subject to any of the disadvantages experienced with traditional machining methods, such as tool wear, mechanical stresses, micro-fissures caused by heat transfer or the need for subsequent deburring operations.

The process can be used to polish and rifle the barrels at the same time, as well as to include chamber flutes.

“With this new state to the art of production, operational steps are reduced,” says Manuel Steinhauer, technical sales manager at the EMAG Group. “The workpiece only needs to be clamped once, which reduces the chances for out of tolerance parts. Because of how the process is designed, the outer diameter profile can be finished while the ECM is polishing and rifling the inside of the barrel.”

ECM is used to machine products with the anodic dissolution of metal through the process of electrolysis—including the machining of barrel grooves. An ECM tool is connected as the cathode to a DC voltage source. The workpiece functions as the anode. The two components are exposed to an electric charge within a liquid electrolyte solution that targets specific areas of the workpiece.

The PI ECR machine. (Image: EMAG.)

With ECM it is possible to create grooves, contours and other shapes with high precision—but without any contact and without either thermal or mechanical stress. Any material that is removed is precipitated from the electrolyte solution in the form of metal hydroxide.

ECM can be an ideal technology for machining rifle barrels. The narrow and elongated tool cathode can generate the internal geometry of the barrel with high precision. ECM is also safe throughout the process and enables easy cathode exchange and fast component loading.

Steinhauer says one of the biggest advantages is that no stress relief is needed—no stress is applied to the part during production. If parameter changes require a choked barrel, the machine can adjust to produce the required interior dimensions and still produce a consistent and smooth barrel. Hard materials like 416R or stellite (a special Cobalt-chrome alloy) have the same federate as 4140 or 4150 while achieving surface finishes below Ra 4 µ in.”

Unlike button and breach methods, ECM does not create mechanical stresses on the material. It can produce smoother results than broach rifling, and it is faster and requires lower initial investment than the hammering process.

Companies such as EMAG offer a line of specialized ECM machines. In fact, the company uses a special machine solution designed to produce highly precise geometries on short and long barrels alike. A wide variety of geometries and grooves are possible, including standard as well as polygonal and progressive rifling.

“With ECM you will reduce your cost per piece, have more stable production with higher quality and be very flexible in production. The best thing is your barrels will have better accuracy,” says Manuel Steinhauer.

In a highly competitive market, finding a manufacturing method that maximizes efficiency while reducing stresses and tool wear can have a significant difference on a company’s bottom line. Adopting ECM technologies could be a real game changer for gun barrel manufacturers looking to carve out their niche in the market.

To learn more, visit EMAG.

The post Using Electrochemical Machining for Gun Barrel Manufacturing appeared first on Engineering.com.

(Image: NVIDIA.)

Just as an athlete trains for a game or an actor rehearses for a performance, surgeons prepare themselves ahead of an operation.

Atlas Meditech is letting brain surgeons experience a new level of realism in their pre-surgery preparation by adopting tools — including the MONAI medical imaging framework and NVIDIA Omniverse 3D development platform — to build artificial intelligence (AI)-powered decision support and high-fidelity surgery rehearsal platforms.

Its mission: improving surgical outcomes and patient safety.

“The Atlas provides a collection of multimedia tools for brain surgeons, allowing them to mentally rehearse an operation the night before a real surgery,” explains Dr. Aaron Cohen-Gadol, founder of Atlas Meditech and its nonprofit counterpart, Neurosurgical Atlas. “With accelerated computing and digital twins, we want to transform this mental rehearsal into a highly realistic rehearsal in simulation.”

Neurosurgical Atlas currently offers case studies, surgical videos and 3D models of the brain to more than a million online users. Dr. Cohen-Gadol, also a professor of neurological surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, estimates that more than 90 percent of brain surgery training programs in the U.S. — as well as tens of thousands of neurosurgeons in other countries — use the Atlas as a key resource during residency.

Atlas Meditech’s Pathfinder software integrates AI algorithms that can suggest safe surgical pathways for experts to navigate through the brain to reach a lesion.

With NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for connecting and building custom 3D pipelines and metaverse applications, the team aims to create custom virtual representations of individual patients’ brains for surgery rehearsals.

Custom 3D Models of Human Brains

A key benefit of Atlas Meditech’s advanced simulations — either onscreen or in immersive virtual reality (VR)— is the ability to customize the simulations, so that surgeons can practice on a virtual brain that matches the patient’s in size, shape and lesion position.

“Every patient’s anatomy is a little different,” says Dr. Cohen-Gadol. “What we can do now with physics and advanced graphics is create a patient-specific model of the brain and work with it to see and virtually operate on a tumor. The accuracy of the physical properties helps to recreate the experience we have in the real world during an operation.”

To create digital twins of patients’ brains, the Atlas Pathfinder tool has adopted MONAI Label, a tool for radiologists that automatically annotates MRI and CT scans to segment normal structures and tumors.

“MONAI Label is the gateway to any healthcare project because it provides us with the opportunity to segment critical structures and protect them,” explains Dr. Cohen-Gadol. “For the Atlas, we’re training MONAI Label to act as the eyes of the surgeon, highlighting what is a normal vessel and what is a tumor in an individual patient’s scan.”

(Image: NVIDIA.)

With a segmented view of a patient’s brain, Atlas Pathfinder can adjust its 3D brain model to morph to the patient’s specific anatomy, capturing how the tumor deforms the normal structure of their brain tissue.

Based on the visualization — which radiologists and surgeons can modify to improve the precision — Atlas Pathfinder will suggest the safest surgical approaches to access and remove a tumor without harming other parts of the brain. Each approach links out to the Atlas website, which includes a written tutorial of the operative plan.

“AI-powered decision support can make a big difference in navigating a highly complex 3D structure where every millimeter is critical,” Dr. Cohen-Gadol says.

Realistic Rehearsal Environments for Practicing Surgeons 

Atlas Meditech is using NVIDIA Omniverse to develop a virtual operating room that gives surgeons a realistic environment in which to rehearse their upcoming procedures. They can even modify how the patient and equipment are positioned in the simulation.

Using a VR headset, surgeons will be able to work within this virtual environment, going step by step through the procedure and receiving feedback on how closely they are adhering to the target pathway to reach the tumor. AI algorithms can be used to predict how brain tissue would shift as a surgeon uses medical instruments during the operation, and apply that estimated shift to the simulated brain.

(Image: NVIDIA.)

“The power to enable surgeons to enter a virtual, 3D space, cut a piece of the skull and rehearse the operation with a simulated brain that has very similar physical properties to the patient would be tremendous,” says Dr. Cohen-Gadol.

To improve simulations of the brain’s physical properties, the team adopted NVIDIA PhysX, an advanced real-time physics simulation engine that is part of NVIDIA Omniverse. This enabled them to experiment with adding haptic feedback to the virtual environment, mimicking the feeling of working with brain tissue.

Envisioning AI, Robotics in the Future of Surgery Training

Dr. Cohen-Gadol believes that, in the coming years, AI models will be able to enhance surgery further by providing additional insights during a procedure. Examples include warning surgeons about critical brain structures that are adjacent to the area they’re working in, tracking medical instruments during surgery and providing guides to next steps in the surgery.

Atlas Meditech plans to explore the NVIDIA Holoscan platform for streaming AI applications to power these real-time, intraoperative insights. Applying AI analysis to a surgeon’s actions during a procedure can provide the surgeon with useful feedback to improve their technique.

In addition to being used for surgeons to rehearse operations, Dr. Cohen-Gadol says that digital twins of the brain and of the operating room could help train intelligent medical instruments, such as microscope robots using Isaac Sim, a robotics simulation application developed on Omniverse.

View Dr. Cohen-Gadol’s presentation at NVIDIA GTC.

The post Digital Twins are the Future of Brain Surgery appeared first on Engineering.com.

(Image: NVIDIA.)

A research team is aiming to shake up the status quo for earthquake models.

Researchers from the Universities of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz, and the Technical University of Munich recently released a paper describing a new model that adds deep learning to earthquake forecasting.

Dubbed RECAST, the model can use larger datasets and offers greater flexibility than the current model standard, ETAS, which has improved only incrementally since its development in 1988, according to the researchers.

The paper’s authors — Kelian Dascher-Cousineau, Oleksandr Shchur, Emily Brodsky and Stephan Günnemann — trained the model on NVIDIA GPU workstations.

“There’s a whole field of research that explores how to improve ETAS,” says Dacher-Cousineau, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. “It’s an immensely useful model that has been used a lot, but it’s been frustratingly hard to improve on it.”

AI Drives Seismology Ahead 

The promise of RECAST is that its model flexibility, self-learning capability and its ability to scale will enable it to interpret larger datasets and make better predictions during earthquake sequences.

Model advances with improved forecasts could help agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey offer better information to those who need it. Firefighters and other first responders entering damaged buildings, for example, could benefit from more reliable forecasts for aftershocks.

“There’s a ton of room for improvement within the forecasting side of things,” says Dacher-Cousineau. “And for a variety of reasons, our community hasn’t really dived into the machine learning side of things, partly because of being conservative and partly because these are really impactful decisions.”

RECAST Model Moves the Needle

While past work on aftershock predictions has relied on statistical models, those don’t scale to handle the larger datasets becoming available from an explosion of newly enhanced data gathering capabilities, according to the researchers.

The RECAST model architecture builds on developments in neural temporal point processes, which are probabilistic generative models for continuous time event sequences. In a nutshell, the model has an encoder-decoder neural network architecture used for predicting the timing of a future event based on a history of past events.

Dacher-Cousineau said that releasing and benchmarking the model in the paper demonstrates that it can quickly learn to do what ETAS can do, while also having the vast potential to do more.

“Our model is a generative model that, just like a natural language processing model, you can generate paragraphs and paragraphs of words, and you can sample it and make synthetic catalogs,” says Dacher-Cousineau. “Part of the paper is there to convince old-school seismologists that this is a model that’s doing the right thing — we’re not overfitting.”

Boosting Earthquake Data With Enhanced Catalogs 

Earthquake catalogs—records of earthquake data—can be small for particular geographies. That’s because, to this day, many come from seismic analysts who interpret the raw data that comes from seismometers. But this, too, is an area where AI researchers are building models to autonomously interpret these P waves, as well as other signals in the data, in real time.

Meanwhile, enhanced data is helping to fill the void. With the labeled data in earthquake catalogs, machine learning engineers are revisiting the sources of raw data and building enhanced catalogs to get 10x to 100x the number of earthquakes for training data and categories.

“So, it’s not necessarily that we put out more instruments to gather data but rather that we enhance the datasets,” explains Dacher-Cousineau.

Applying Larger Datasets to Other Settings

With these larger datasets, the researchers are starting to see improvements from RECAST over the standard ETAS model.

To advance the state of the art in earthquake forecasting, Dascher-Cousineau is working with a team of undergraduates at UC Berkeley to train earthquake catalogs on multiple regions for better predictions.

“I have the natural language processing analogies in mind, where it seems very plausible that earthquake sequences in Japan are useful to inform earthquakes in California,” he says. “And you can see that going in the right direction.”

Learn more about synthetic data generation with NVIDIA Omniverse Replicator.

The post Deep Learning Model Improves Earthquake Forecasting appeared first on Engineering.com.

In the world of aviation, where giants like Boeing and Airbus dominate the market, there exists a niche industry dedicated to preserving the past. John Roper, a passionate aviator, has built a thriving business called Restored Aircraft in Leavenworth, Kansas, to do just that. Roper is working to accurately restore parts and even entire airplanes, allowing collectors and pilots to experience the classics of the past.

Restored Aircraft refurbishes and rebuilds classic aircraft, sometimes from the ground up. (Image: Restored Aircraft.)

A Labor of Love

Restored Aircraft is not your typical aviation business. It’s a labor of love for Roper and those that share his deep appreciation for legacy aviation.

“My love of restoring aircraft started as a young kid building snap-together models when I was in kindergarten. When I was eleven, I started building and flying radio-controlled aircraft – I always liked adding the details that made them look as realistic as possible. I would use eyeglass screws in the instrument panel to make them more realistic.” That love of the aircraft itself and his passion for detail laid the groundwork for his background in engineering and the eventual founding of Restored Aircraft in 2018, where his fascination with vintage aircraft led him to embark on a mission to restore these magnificent machines to their former glory.

“I started this business to get into what I love the most, which was restoring old airplanes. The, the industry has changed so much over the years, and because there is a lack of support for those trying to do these restorations, I’ve been trying to find new technologies and trying to figure out how to bring some of these technologies to the guys that are restoring airplanes. So not only do I restore old airplanes, but we’re doing individual parts, and making jigs, and using more modern tools to create parts for people,” he explained.

However, the restoration business isn’t just about breathing new life into old airplanes, it’s about keeping history alive, celebrating the craftsmanship of a bygone era and ensuring that future generations can experience the magic of flight as it was in the past. Restored Aircraft isn’t just a business; it’s a bridge between generations, connecting those who dream of soaring through the skies in classic aircraft.

Roper is passing along his passion for old aircraft by teaching kids to do reverse engineering and contribute to his restoration processes. For reasons of protecting their IP, major aerospace companies don’t provide access to modeling information, etc., so he uses the restorations to help teach high school students about CAD and drawing in the real world.

Using Solid Edge, Restored Aircraft rebuilds vintage planes digitally. (Image: Restored Aircraft.)

A Unique Approach

What sets Restored Aircraft apart is its approach to restoration. Roper’s vision extends beyond the act of restoring old airplanes, embracing modern technologies and methodologies to make the process more efficient and accessible. He’s not just preserving history, he’s evolving it.

“Everything starts as a one-off. Right now, I’ve got two Boeing Steerman in work and the first one that came in was actually not a full restoration. It’s a bunch of modifications that we’re doing for an airshow customer, so he wants the airplane highly modified,” Roper says. “With the engineering and everything that went into that, we were able to use that insight and we’re pulling it forward into the next Steerman that we’re doing, which is a historically accurate restoration. That’s why it’s always a challenge when we decide to accept the next model of airplane; to see what’s there, what we need and how deep we want to get into it on the first one.”

The process always starts off with a basic set of engineering principles, redrawing the ribs and some of the basic components, like the fuselage, that every airplane needs. Then they turn to specific elements that may need updating and making the plane flyable.

Roper’s passion isn’t just limited to restoring entire aircraft; he and his team also manufacture individual parts, design custom jigs and leverage modern tools and technologies to create components that would have been challenging to replicate in the past. This holistic approach not only preserves the aircraft but ensures they can continue to fly safely and meet modern regulatory standards.

(Image: Restored Aircraft.)

Targeting the True Enthusiast

Restored Aircraft’s primary clientele consists of aviation purists who seek to rebuild the aircraft as close to the original design as possible. These individuals aren’t merely looking for a functional airplane, they’re looking to recreate all the aesthetics of the original craft—a plane that can turn heads at airshows and evoke a sense of nostalgia.

Moreover, this dedication to excellence enables Roper to further research, engineering and tool development, allowing him to assist other enthusiasts. Whether it’s providing drawings, manufacturing parts or offering consultation, Restored Aircraft’s reach extends beyond their core clientele to benefit the broader aviation enthusiast community.

Some of the planes that Roper works on are able to fly in, while some are what Roper called “barn finds.”

“Sometimes, it’s a pile of sticks that’s been sitting in a barn for 30 years and we’ve got to start from scratch. So, there’s always that process to figure out exactly what the customer has and what it is going to take to figure out how far we want to carry it,” he explains.

From Scanning to Solid Edge: Modernizing Restoration

A pivotal aspect of Restored Aircraft’s unique approach is its integration of modern technology, notably CAD from Solid Edge. This software plays a vital role in bringing these vintage aircraft back to life while incorporating modern upgrades and safety features.

When looking at a model in Solid Edge, Roper explains, “I could use the model of that wooden rib to machine out a rib jig. Then, that gives me the tool that I need to start building up a bunch of parts and replace some or all of the ribs on a plane we’re working on.”

Roper has used CAD to model out jigs for ribs and other components so they can be reliably produced over and over. (Image: Restored Aircraft.)

Three-dimensional scanning is a crucial part of this process. Using 3D scanning technology, Roper and his team capture intricate details of the aircraft components that have undergone years of wear and tear. This scanned data serves as the foundation for creating new, precise models, ensuring that every replacement part is a match to the original.

Using 3D scanning, Roper and his team create CAD models of parts and components to rebuild the planes digitally. (Image: Restored Aircraft.)

“We don’t really have good drawings for every little contour and there’s a lot of compound contours on these parts. We don’t have access to the original tooling, either. So, we 3D scan and instead of trying to fabricate something out on the shop floor, we can actually design in such a way that we’re doing all of our repairs digitally. Then I have my final part that I can send off to the machine shop and have that CNC machined out of aluminum or 3D printed for test fitting.”

Through Roper’s CAD workflow and 3D scanning, Solid Edge helps Restored Aircraft optimize the restoration process. They can design and manufacture jigs, recreate wooden ribs for wings and even simulate the impact of various forces on their designs. This digital approach not only expedites the restoration process but also enhances safety and ensures compliance with modern aviation standards.

Through 3D scanning and Solid Edge, the Restored Aircraft team can recreate missing parts or bring components up to current safety standards. (Image: Restored Aircraft.)

Bringing vintage aircraft up to contemporary standards for flight is particularly important for clients who wish to use their vintage planes for airshows or other events. For example, Roper can incorporate glass cockpit instruments, modern avionics and electrical systems into these classic aircraft.

“One of the issues that we’re running into is the same as the automotive industry… we can restore it to exactly what it was in 1937, but you won’t be legal to fly. So, we need to figure out how to do that mod where we’re using a more current injection system or more reliable ignition system, putting in the fancy glass panel instruments, things like that. And figuring out ways to hide them a little bit better, so that you can preserve the original feel of the airplane while being legal to fly into Oshkosh,” Roper says.

This transformation isn’t just about meeting regulatory standards; it’s about preserving the aircraft’s original charm. Using Solid Edge combined with existing models and scanned assets, Restored Aircraft works to seamlessly integrate modern upgrades into vintage designs, creating a harmonious blend of traditional aesthetics and modern technology.

“We’re using Solid Edge for a lot of the structure, but we’re just starting to use it to get more into avionics, upgrades and even wire and harness design,” Roper explains.

Preserving the Legacy

In a rapidly changing world, where vintage aircraft become increasingly rare with each passing year, John Roper and Restored Aircraft are on a mission to preserve the legacy of aviation. Their work ensures that future generations can experience the thrill of flying in these iconic machines and appreciate the craftsmanship and history behind them.

The story of Restored Aircraft isn’t just about restoring airplanes, it’s a testament to the power of passion, technology and dedication. Roper and his team are writing a new chapter in aviation history that brings the nostalgia of the past into the contemporary age. As long as there are vintage aircraft in need of a second chance, whether they are flying rust buckets or a pile of sticks in an old barn, Restored Aircraft seems to be ready to restore them to their former glory.

John Roper, a passionate aviator, has built a thriving business to accurately restoring parts and even entire airplanes, allowing collectors and pilots to experience the classics of the past. (Image: Restored Aircraft.)

Educating Young Aviators

When Roper is not actively restoring vintage aircraft, he is busy teaching others how to do so. Roper’s is happy to share his knowledge with the youth. You will find Roper and his team at EAA’s AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin each summer and at the Aerospace Center for Excellence SUN ‘n FUN Expo in Lakeland, Florida every spring, events that provide hands-on education to tens of thousands of kids each year.

“How do you get kids energized about technology? Make them part of the process,” says Roper. “We had these kids use Solid Edge to re-design a piece of an airplane rib and put that part into the 3D model of the whole structure. Then, we 3D printed it as a small chip so the kids could take it home. It serves as a reminder that they designed a real part of a real aircraft and takes out the mystery and intimidation of technology.”

About EAA

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is an international organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the spirit of aviation. It brings together aviation enthusiasts, including those interested in building and flying homebuilt and experimental aircraft. EAA is known for hosting renowned aviation events like EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, advocating for favorable aviation policies, providing educational resources and fostering a sense of community among aviation enthusiasts and pilots. EAA plays a significant role in supporting aviation and encouraging individuals to explore and engage in various aspects of flight.

Siemens Digital Industries Software and EAA have joined forces to promote youth engagement and education in the aviation industry through the EAA AeroEducate initiative. Siemens Digital Industries Software serves as the official technology partner for EAA’s aviation and aerospace education. The collaboration aims to provide young people with an interactive and educational experience that sparks their interest and enthusiasm for aviation. Part of the collaboration is also free access to 3D CAD software tools and training for EAA members.

For more information on Siemens Digital Industries Software and EAA, visit EAA.org.

To learn more about Solid Edge, visit Siemens.

The post Using Modern Engineering to Make Vintage Aircraft Fly appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode of The Engineering Roundtable is brought to you by Dassault Systèmes.

Few developments in aviation have been as difficult to achieve as emissions-free flight. Combining green propulsion with vertical takeoff and landing, along with fixed wing speed and range used to be impossible, but Ascendance Flight Technologies has developed an electric aircraft that and not only fills all three performance requirements, but can do so as a commercially viable proposition. It’s a significant achievement, made possible by new generation of advanced design tools that incorporate high-level simulation, the Virtual Twin and cloud connectivity.

Joining engineering.com at the Engineering Roundtable to discuss these new state-of-the-art technologies are:

Panelists:

Benoît Ferran, Co-Founder and CTO, Ascendance Flight Technologies:

Entrepreneur and aeronautical engineer, Benoît Ferran work on the development of more sustainable aeronautical technologies. A graduate from ISAE-SUPAERO, he has 12 years of experience in electric and hybrid aviation where he took part in 2 of the very first all electric aircraft in the world in a Brazilian SME and at Airbus working on the E-FAN program. Benoît then co-founded Ascendance Flight Technologies in 2018 with 3 other former members of the E-FAN team to develop ATEA: a VTOL hybrid aircraft as a more sustainable alternative to helicopters as well as STERNA, its hybrid propulsion chain, that will be offered to other aircraft manufacturers to support the decarbonisation of the entire aviation industry. 

Roberto Licata, Aerospace & Defense Industry Solution Experience Director, Dassault Systèmes:

Roberto has over a decade of experience at Dassault and specializes in model-based systems engineering, design and simulation and since 2018, is responsible for the New Space, urban air mobility and startup innovation companies moving into these sectors.

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