How we learn about composites and light structures design has changed drastically be it due to Covid-19, zoom classes, or open-access software, This article focuses on the transition and elaborates on the new way of learning called e-training. Let's dive into it!
COVID-19 acceleration
Since the start of the pandemic, colleges have to shut down and students are forced to study from home. This has forced the teaching curriculum to be updated on the go and do what is possible from home. Online teaching has now come to a point where we start to feel comfortable. Online teaching has already been educating in the third-world countries way before the pandemic, due to the high accessibility and low cost of distribution.
Composites classes to Composites e-learning
Education with composites has not been much different than conventional metal design and production. it has required understanding the material and process landscape with stiffness matric calculations. In the recent curriculums, most institutes added the design and analysis with FEA programs and a few also added some manufacturing processes simulation. The e-learning with composites has now seemed to be shifting online with the composites e-learning courses, such as
Paid classes / tutorials
Free classes/tutorials
Why e-training
Despite the vast amount of courses being helpful in gaining fundamental knowledge, they are unable to provide real-life hands-on problem-solving skills. As a team composites engineer, at Addcomposites, we perform a lot of work on our computers, as more and more composites manufacturing is going digital and Automated fiber placement, Kitting solutions and continuous fiber 3D printing processes are taking over the conventional process in real industries.
Not the reality of the industrial world
Lack of end-to-end practicals for part design/production/business case modeling
A lot of nonessential knowledge from legacy courses/teaching styles is added
Composites e-training
It is a framework to learn and work with digital composites design, manufacturing, testing, and business modeling framework that enables solving of real-life problems. The key steps are
Scope
Design to make
Tooling design
Production planning
Evaluation and changes
Virtual testing
Business case
Let's try to understand how the e-training goes
Pre-requisite: Access to open FEA software and AddPath.
1. Scope
This step is usually carried out in a project scope document, where all the key factors about the product requirements, test qualification, parts to be produced, manufacturing-cost/part criteria, etc are provided. We are going to take an example part to walk through the steps of the process.
Case: Need to design a turbine blade optimized for lightweight. A lightweight design produced at a large scale usually relies on continuous fiber-reinforced parts and other lattice design principles to optimize the weight.