VISTAGY’s SyncroFIT 2009 Reduces Time to Manage Airframe Fasteners

By DE Editors

VISTAGY, Inc. has announced the release of SyncroFIT 2009, which is designed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of assembly development by enabling commercial 3D CAD users to define and manage joints and interfaces between parts within complex assemblies.

The solution enables engineers to specify fasteners and holes, rapidly load catalog parts, and validate adherence to design rules when creating large aerostructures. SyncroFIT can be used individually or as part of the VISTAGY AeroSuite, a solution that enables aircraft manufacturers to manage the product development process.

Defining joints and interfaces presents common and costly bottlenecks in the airframe assembly design process and is a leading source of manufacturing errors, according to the company. For example, managing the nearly 2 million fasteners in an aircraft has traditionally been a manual process plagued by inaccurate fastener definitions and difficulty making design changes. Approximately 40 percent of design changes are due to errors in the authoring of the initial assembly interfaces, says VISTAGY. SyncroFIT works within the CAD system to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the design process and provide an early warning of potential issues in the manufacturing process.

VISTAGY has created functionality that enables the user to toggle between different visualization states. During the assembly design and fastener layout phase, simple point and vector representations of fasteners are sufficient to communicate key information quickly. At other times, clearance solids—such as cylindrical fastener representations or tool envelopes—are necessary to assess manufacturability by visualizing potential interferences that could occur during assembly. But if the task is to perform complete clash/interference detection, maintenance or installation studies, or if it is a required supplier deliverable to the OEM, it is necessary to load fasteners into the model so all the hardware can be seen, including nuts, washers, and nut plates. To do this, engineers need to visualize the assembly populated with solid model representations of the fastening hardware and have the ability to easily delete or select different fasteners and associated hardware to meet design specifications.

SyncroFIT automatically loads fasteners and hardware from the parts catalog into the 3D model. Customers have experienced up to an 80 percent reduction in time to define fasteners using this functionality alone,  according to the company.

For more information, visit VISTAGY.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.