CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
14 March 2007
Implementation Investments
CENER Selects VISTAGY's FiberSIM® Software for Developing Next-generation Composite Wind Turbine Blades
VISTAGY, Inc . announced that international renewable energy leader CENER is using VISTAGY's FiberSIM® software to engineer innovative wind turbine blades made of composite materials. VISTAGY is helping CENER meet the increasing global demand for wind energy solutions by providing 3D CAD-integrated specialized software that streamlines the company's conceptual and detailed design processes to more efficiently develop next-generation composite blades for use on turbines that produce wind-driven energy.
According to the industry analyst firm Composite Market Reports, North American demand for composite blade structures could increase nearly seventeen percent by the end of this year with a total market value of approximately $1.1 billion. In Europe, composite blade structure demand should increase by ten percent or more in 2007. In light of this expected growth, CENER has combined its design and analysis experience with VISTAGY's composites expertise to develop highly-engineered blades that maximize wind capture and energy transfer.
With FiberSIM, CENER plans to improve early cost and weight estimates by producing conceptual solid models that can be analyzed very early in the design phase. As a result, engineers will ensure final specifications are met prior to the detailed design and manufacturing stages in order to reduce development cycles. In addition, CENER engineers will capture complete, detailed 3D definitions of composite blades and automatically generate documentation to help manufacturing teams create the blades more rapidly, efficiently and accurately.
"CENER evaluated a number of design software solutions, and based on our extensive research, FiberSIM is actually the best software tool for accurately designing complex composite products," said Mikel Lasa, manager for the Design & Analysis Wind Department at CENER. "Because FiberSIM is completely integrated into our commercial 3D CAD system and the software support team has extensive experience improving its customers' composites engineering processes, we feel that the VISTAGY solution provides not only the most comprehensive set of tools for detailed composites part development within our familiar engineering environment, but it also promises to deliver a productive working relationship."
To learn more about CENER, visit the corporate Web site at http://www.cener.com/ .
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