CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
9 March 2006
Implementation Investments
VISTAGY Renews Status as Official Supplier to World Champion Renault F1 Team; Team Engineers Purchase FiberSIM® Software to Explore Designs and Simulate Manufacture of Strong, Reliable Composite Parts for the Renault F1 Team Racecar
VISTAGY, Inc., the developer of engineering software that provides specialized design functionality to commercial CAD/PDM/PLM systems, announced that the company has renewed its status as an official supplier of specialized engineering software to the World Champion Renault F1 Team in Enstone, England. The Renault F1 Team used VISTAGY's FiberSIM® software to design and manufacture composite parts for its R26 racecar, which the team launched in Monaco in January of 2006.
"The composite parts on our racecars must be strong, reliable, and built to strict Federation Internationale de l'Automobile standards," says Bob Bell, technical director for Renault F1 Team. "But we also have a grueling production schedule to meet. There is no margin for error and we have no time for rework and up-front physical prototyping. We've been working with FiberSIM for more than three years, and it has helped our engineers increase our rate of composite ply lay-up on some parts by over 62 percent. The software is an essential tool for efficiently and successfully producing our composite components."
"It has been an honor to sponsor Renault F1 Team for the past three years and especially during its championship season last year," says Steven C. Luby, president and CEO of VISTAGY. "We look forward to continuing our relationship with Renault F1 Team and providing specialized software that makes their engineers more efficient as they make another drive toward the winner's circle."
Strong, lightweight composites are ideal materials for Formula One racecar parts such as the chassis, nosebox, and front and rear wings. The complex curves characteristic of these parts can present some challenges during manufacturing. FiberSIM enables Renault F1 Team engineers to simulate composite designs and select a manufacturing strategy that is best suited for their specific application. The software enables the team to generate flat patterns of plies for cutting machines, create documentation, and export data to laser projection machines that guide manual lay-up.
About Renault F1 Team
July 2002 marked the 25th anniversary of Renault's competition in modern, top-level motor sport. In 2005, Renault F1 Team won the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Formula One Drivers' and Constructors' World Championships. The Renault F1 Team is a wholly-owned division of Renault S.A. headquartered in Paris, France.
About FiberSIM®
FiberSIM® is a suite of software that turns commercial CAD systems into tools specialized for designing and manufacturing composite parts. The software enables engineers to create a complete digital product definition of a composite part within their 3D modeling environment. FiberSIM supports the entire product development process as well as flexible design methodologies for a wide variety of materials and manufacturing methods. The software simulates how composite material deforms over complex curvature and generates manufacturing information including documentation, flat patterns, and data to drive downstream manufacturing equipment. FiberSIM also uses XML technology to share composites data with people and applications throughout the enterprise.
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