ARTIST STUDIO: Full support for trapezoidal patches

Over the past year, ARTIST STUDIO releases have focused primarily on the Motion Artist module, providing full support for the new SAMBA Pro PV systems designed for pressure vessel dome reinforcements. However, we’ve never stopped advancing our design features. Behind the scenes, our team has been hard at work developing and rigorously testing major new features for the Patch Artist CAD module. Now, as 2024 is coming to a close, we’re excited to announce that ARTIST STUDIO finally offers full design support for trapezoidal patch shapes.

The benefits of trapezoidal patches

Cevotec previously introduced the distinction between the “classical” small-patch FPP and the large-patch FPP approaches.

Small-Patch FPP relies heavily on automated patch creation and overlap optimization algorithms, enabling designers to efficiently manage thousands of patches. This method is most economical when using rectangular patches, which are quick to cut and apply. From a structural perspective, this approach uses a smeared laminate model, where individual gaps and overlaps are neglected for efficiency.

Large-Patch FPP, on the other hand, applies fewer, larger patches of custom shapes while precisely tailoring gaps and overlaps. This approach is driven by the needs of large aerospace components (e.g., radomes, nacelles, fairings, etc.), where increased material throughput for optimal productivity and minimal patch overlap are critical. Trapezoidal patches of varying lengths excel at meeting these requirements.

Cevotec began R&D activities on laminates with trapezoidal patches back in 2021. With the latest Artist Studio release, this technology is now commercially available, empowering our customers to take full advantage of its benefits.

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Designing laminates with trapezoidal patches

First of all, “full support for trapezoidal patches“ means that users can now define the cutting angle at the front and the back of a patch type. But there’s of course more to it. In fact, we implemented a whole set of new features that support the design process.

Interactive Patch Adjustments

For every patch users can now interactively adjust not only the patch location and orientation but also the trapezoidal angles and overall patch length.

In addition to these features, we’ve also overhauled how patch shapes are defined and visualized internally within ARTIST STUDIO. This enables us to implement future changes affecting patches significantly faster. Some of the improvements that were already made available by this are:

• Layer and Stack Selection: Laminates can now be selected in the viewer at both the layer and stack levels.
• Enhanced Rendering: The mesh render mode now also visualizes the internal patch mesh.
• Faster Updates: Patch geometry updates are significantly faster.
• Diverse Patch Shapes: Each patch in a laminate can now have a unique shape.

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Full FEA support

To support FEA (Finite Element Analysis) of laminates with trapezoidal patches, we’ve completely reworked the mapping algorithm for selecting finite elements based on individual patch boundaries. This updated algorithm can handle patches of almost arbitrary shape (including trapezoids and beyond). As a side effect we were also able to bring the mapping quality of conventional rectangular patches to a whole new level. And the best thing: all our existing customers with access to the Artist Studio integrated FE export benefit from this improvement.

The new mapping system is now available to all ARTIST STUDIO users with integrated FEA export. For specific use cases, the previous algorithm remains an option, offering superior speed and comparable results for rectangular patches on flat surfaces.

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What’s next?

Our work doesn’t stop here. The Cevotec team is continuously improving design and production support for trapezoidal patches. Based on customer feedback, we have started to implement and test a completely new approach regarding the local and global analysis of overlaps that is tailored to large-patch FPP.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to add features. If you’d like to explore the potential of trapezoidal patches, reach out to our team for an introduction or to request a trial license for the latest version of ARTIST STUDIO.

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