JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #111 - March 2017 - Special JEC World - 59

JEC WORLD 2017
awards

JEC Innovation Awards Programme 2017
in partnership with

This year, submissions for the Innovation Awards programme were impressive, both
in quantity and diversity, and more importantly in quality. The choices that had to be
made to reward to best projects were only rendered more difficult by the large range
of projects presented this year.
Just as last year, a high number of submissions came from the automotive industry,
thus perfectly illustrating the current market trends. Process improvement was
also one of the most represented theme, highlighting the important of cycle time
reduction.
With 13 categories ranging from raw materials to process, to applications in various
fields such as Aeronautics, Automotive, Construction, Marine and Better Living, the
winning projects offer a complete overview of the composite value chain, and the
many future opportunities that are still to be taken in the field of composites.

SOFTWARE

Digimat additive manufacturing:
The first solution for 3D printing simulation
With the impressive growing rate of additive
manufacturing (AM) over the past years,
e-Xstream set-up a solution to help the AM
industry transitioning from prototyping to
actual manufacturing of composite parts.
This innovation combines different software
programs to offer solutions for materials development, process simulation and printed
part performance.
From the materials point of view, e-Xsrteam
will provide the tools (Digimat-MF and
Digimat-FE) to engineer advanced composite materials specifically for AM.

The Digimat platform will also be able to
simulate the printed part's performance as
a function of the material and the printing
process parameters such as tool or sintering
laser path. This unique tool being a major
step forward for the development and design
of composite parts by AM, bringing the performance and efficiency of 3D-printed parts
to the level required for the industry.
Digimat is the only software on the market
that will allow end-users and printer OEMs
to bring reliability to the printed parts,

Company: e-Xstream (Luxembourg)
Co-Winner: Solvay Engineering Plastics
(France), Solvay Speciality Polymers (France)
thanks to warpage prediction, evaluation
of many process parameters by simulation,
eliminating the cost of the trial & error previously needed to optimise these parameters.
Moreover, as the impact of printing direction
can be assessed, the numerical simulation
reduces the need for many mechanical tests
down to a few validations.

Regarding process simulation, Digimat-AM
is an innovative software program fully dedicated to modelling the Fused Deposition
Modelling (FDM) and Selective Laser
Sintering (SLS) printing processes for reinforced materials. The goal of Digimat-AM
is to be able to "print right the first time" by
optimising the manufacturing process quality (minimising the part deformation, for example) and by predicting the as-printed part
performance.

No111 March 2017

/ jec composites magazine

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #111 - March 2017 - Special JEC World
