Building-up virtual prototyping capabilities to free aircraft development from physical mock-ups

If you work in the aerospace sector, you’re most likely familiar with the latest reports published by analysts, which all converge on the same industry trends: sustainable aviation, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), hydrogen planes, electric aircraft, urban mobility, eVTOLs, etc. The message is clear: it’s time for a green push, and this, throughout the complete supply chain. But how can aerospace OEMs and their suppliers achieve this ambitious goal as they are still trying to recover from the pandemic crisis?

What you may not realize is the key role digitalization plays in achieving sustainability goals… Its role is so critical that to keep leading the industry, and to keep leading the change, our customer Rolls-Royce vowed to become a “Digital First” company.

As I oversee the development of the aerospace business for ESI Group, I know how far predictive numerical simulation has come – from our solvers being used by a handful of simulation engineers working in R&D to delivering true enterprise solutions used by engineering teams at every step of the product development lifecycle and beyond; from design to engineering, manufacturing engineering and even maintenance engineering.

Often, what simulation can achieve seems invisible. Its contribution is absorbed, and melts into product development achievements: greater part quality meeting tolerances, faster turnaround for foundries and composite parts manufacturers, lower scrap rates, manufacturability despite new geometries, desired vibro-acoustic performance, virtually pre-certified products, fewer physical try-outs and prototypes, more efficient assembly steps, increased productivity and output, reduced maintenance costs, decreased industrial risks for operators… and the list goes on. It’s 2022 and it’s time for leading aerospace companies and their supply chain to realize the prime importance, the vital contribution of simulation to stay competitive and to develop the sustainable innovations that the world is waiting for.

This month, I wrote an article for SAE Aerospace Defense & Technology magazine (June 2022 issue) to give evidence, to encourage, and to inspire more aerospace manufacturers by sharing real-life achievements of digitalization, straight from our customers. Here’s my “Reader’s Digest” for you, enriched with some video footage to help you make even more sense of the diverse applications and the immediate value from a user perspective:

7. Dassault Aviation and Thales teamed up with us to sustain the development of “Aircraft Twins” as part of the Man-Machine-Teaming innovation program funded by the French Defense Department (DGA).

Digitalization has progressed significantly across the aerospace value chain in the past few years. This month, McKinsey published a piece of research entitled “Building products in the digital age: It’s hard to ‘get smart’”, which stated that “getting smart – investing in innovation and R&D – is going to be the key differentiator for the market over the next three to five years [and that] digital manufacturing is seen as an area with the greatest opportunity ”. The pandemic operated as a catalyst, boosting new ways of working. If COVID affected air travel in an unprecedented way, on the other hand, it has offered aerospace companies the chance to somehow “reset” their culture and behavior and have been given the opportunity to start fresh on many product development and manufacturing topics as true “Digital Natives”. It’s as if the industry took a step back only to emerge more victorious.

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