MSC.Software has announced that the Unitized Structures Group at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, popularly known as Virginia Tech, is using MSC.Software's simulation products to conduct its research under the NASA Subsonic Fixed Wing Hybrid Body Technologies NRA Contract.

The Unitized Structures Group at Virginia Tech, led by Rakesh K. Kapania, Mitchell Professor with the department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, has been involved in the development of frameworks for optimization of stiffened panels using curvilinear stiffeners and supersonic wings with curvilinear spars and ribs. A new framework, EBF3PanelOpt, is being developed using Patran for geometry modeling and mesh generation, and MD Nastran for finite element analysis.

This framework allows the user to optimize multi-sided panels with straight/curved edges having curvilinear, blade-type stiffeners under the action of uniform or non-uniform in-plane loads. Also, the United Structures Group is developing a tool called EBF3SSWingOpt, which uses the 'Translation' utility of Patran to generate curvilinear spars and ribs. This framework adds the optimal number of curvilinear spars and ribs in a wing based upon the bounds of translation parameters given by the user.

"We are delighted that MSC.Software, under the PACE program initiated by Dr. Jan Helge Bohn, has provided 100 licenses to Virginia Tech," says Rakesh K. Kapania. "This has greatly enhanced our capability to design unitized structures using advanced computational modeling and analysis. Without MSC's support, we simply could not have made this much progress in our work."

"MSC's advanced modeling and analysis tools and the outstanding research team at Virginia Tech is a perfect match," said David Yuen, senior vice president of Americas Sales at MSC.Software. "As we move forward, the MSC team will continue to put significant focus in providing ongoing support to university and research programs. We look forward to seeing the progress unfold in new areas of product design innovation and development."