Addcomposites Oy (Espoo, Finland), the provider of the compact automated fiber placement (AFP) system, AFP-XS, announces today that access to its AFP simulation software - AddPath - is available for everyone to use. The open-access platform aims to support the development of composites digitalization for students, researchers, academia, and SMEs alike.
"Unleash the creativity of the composites community"
Opening access to AFP programming and simulation software will enable students and academia to learn about the nuances of AFP during their courses, while researchers and SMEs can explore different path planning strategies for design optimization. The cloud-based license will allow anyone to create programs and perform simulations for AFP on their personal or work computers, enabling digital composites additive manufacturing from home or the office.
"Since the soft launch at JEC World 2022, there has been a constant influx of users who are trying to simulate composites production for their parts. We believe that open access to such a software tool will unleash the creativity of the composites community and provide vast knowledge to SMEs about digital composites manufacturing" said Pravin Luthada, CEO of Addcomposites.
AddPath has been an important asset since the beginning of Addcomposites, as it is a key pillar in achieving our mission of enabling widespread composites automation. Since then, it has been extensively used to program and control 20+ AFP systems and has supported 50+ researchers worldwide.
"Details and input have been collected over 20+ AFP systems worldwide and incorporated into a comfortable user interface"
To support our early adopters, Addcomposites has developed and published extensive resources, such as: the AFP-XS, robots from various manufacturers, sample projects, sample geometries, tutorials, and much more. The resources library is continuously expanding based on inputs from the composites community and adding further capabilities to support specific use cases. This year alone, AddPath has been implemented at 10+ institutes helping to simulate aerostructures, automotive components, and pressure tanks.
"AddPath was developed alongside the fastest growing AFP system, and has been tested extensively for different planning methods and controls based upon the wide range of materials and heater types used in AFP - from the industry proven lasers and IR lamps, to the researcher preferred humm3, to the smaller hot air and hot gas heaters - each technology having different properties and heating profiles. It combines detailed knowledge from these processes tested over 20+ AFP tools with a comfortable user interface that will let anyone in the composites community simulate and produce parts" - James Kuligoski, Application Engineer at Addcomposites.
Through the AddPath platform, Addcomposites aims to provide AFP simulation capabilities to 1000 users by mid-2023. The growth in accessibility to digital composites manufacturing will enable innovation in part design, improved performance, and reduced material consumption. Get open access to AddPath.