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Schiebel Group

FLY HIGH WITH OPTIMIZATION

OPTIMIZING CAMCOPTER® S-100 DESIGN AT SCHIEBEL WITH ALTAIR SOLUTIONS

About the Customer

Schiebel Group is an Austrian company specializing in the development, production, and integration of state-of-the-art unmanned systems. The company is best known for its CAMCOPTER® S-100 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which has been used by military and civilian customers worldwide. Schiebel's product portfolio also includes ground-based systems, as well as complementary technology such as payloads and mission management systems. 

Their Challenge

As an unmanned aerial system which is active throughout Europe and operates with wide variety of payloads for different missions, the S-100 has to cover distances of up to 160 km while flying for more than 8 hours. This requires a reliable, robust vehicle architecture and fuel supply. In addition to functionality requirements and to offer its demanding customers best-in-class vehicles, Schiebel wants its S-100 to be as light as possible to increase the vehicle’s potential flight time.

Along with high performance targets, Schiebel also has to ensuret its products are
compliant with several national regulations. Because of this, the company has already worked
with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) who recently created a light UAS
operator certificate (LUC), which includes guidelines on safe operation, control systems
reliability, and a permit to fly. With this certification as their goal, Schiebel needed hardware and software to enable the company to achieve a certifiable system that meets most of the requirements in various countries. To meet these demanding development goals and allow Schiebel to take the S-100 of today into the future, the company needed a multidisciplinary design approach.

Our Solution

To ensure the lightest structure while increasing stiffness and strength at the same time, Schiebel used Altair solutions in combination with 3D printing. The engineers performed a whole range of simulations, especially to optimize the design of additively manufactured engine parts. Using Altair’s topology optimization structural design tool, OptiStruct, Schiebel reduced the weight significantly while maintaining a high stiffness level and therefore achieved a robust design. After that, the system was evaluated by laminar and turbulent flow simulation as well as conjugate heat transfer simulation using Altair CFD™. Contacts, Nonlinear Finite Elements (NLFE) and complex dynamic systems were then modeled with Altair® MotionView® and Altair® MotionSolve®.

Schiebel also took advantage of their access to APA solutions and applied tools such as
Amphyon to simulate the AM process, including pre-deforming the parts to achieve
the required accuracy. Amphyon was also applied for a thermal stress simulation, allowing
the engineers to identify thermal hotspots and simulate the strength of the support structure.

Manufactured PartsAmphyonOptiStruct Optimization

Fig 1:  Final Use parts (left), Amphyon simulation (middle), OptiStruct Optimization (right)

Results

Thanks to the Altair solutions, Schiebel was able to develop and manufacture engine parts
with an optimized, exceptional product design, providing its customers with a structurally sound, lightweight air vehicle. The combined use of additive manufacturing and simulation driven design also reduced the component weight by up to 50% while increasing stiffness and strength by also 50%. Another major benefit of this simulation approach is the reduction in printing costs, as Amphyon’s simulations identify issues that might arise during printing before they occur, thus avoiding additional print jobs due to manufacturing defects.

 

Case Study Results-1

“Altair solutions helped us create a topologically optimized engine part for our CAMCOPTER® S-100 and an efficient design that meets all demands. Using simulation enabled us to leverage the full potential of additive manufacturing and allowed us to accelerate our time to market.

Thanks to Altair’s technology expertise and support, we are able to realize significant time and cost savings and offer our customers exceptional cost-benefit ratio,”

Dominik Kohl, Head of Additive Manufacturing at Schiebel.