## Composite: An interesting material

However, composite is also interesting for mass production because it is light, durable and extremely strong, and can therefore make a substantial contribution to, among other things, reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles (lighter is less fuel / energy) and improving the lifespan of products (less waste and maintenance).

## A complicated production process

Making composite products is also complicated however. There is a lot of freedom of choice in the materials and how a composite laminate can be built. Moreover, automation also requires a lot of machine settings that determine the right quality of the product. This is complex and as a result, the adoption of composite is slow. In order to accelerate it, Airborne and VIKTOR have built an online portal. The portal allows you to quickly and efficiently design products, without requiring in-depth knowledge of composite.

## Personalized design for customers

Now, customers can design their laminate online themselves in the On-Demand Manufacturing Portal created on the VIKTOR platform. Here customers can configure their own product. Among other things, they can determine the dimensions, the type of material, the number of layers and the orientation. Based on the design, the price and other relevant data are automatically calculated. This allows the customer to search for what suits them and whether their design meets the requirements. If the customer is satisfied with the design, they can order it online right away. The design is converted into a production file and immediately forwarded to a production robot in the Airborne factory.

<iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/394149267" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

> “By means of the On-Demand Manufacturing Portal we can let our customers order composite laminates fully automatically online. This allows the customer to independently design a high-quality laminate, including multiple design iterations, saving time for everyone.” - Sarah de Smet, projectmanager at Airborne

![airborne portal.png](/uploads/airborne_portal_ff69a32821.png)

## The role of the VIKTOR application

VIKTOR determines the cheapest way to make the product. The application takes production times and material loss into account. The instructions for the production robots are automatically generated and sent to the different robots, which can then directly make the product.

### Want to know more? Try it yourself!

On the [Airborne](https://www.airborne.com/automation-solutions-advanced-composites/on-demand-manufacturing-portal/) website you can read more about the portal and find the url to register and make your own laminate. Give it a try!

Manufacturing

Engineering & Design

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Airborne's On-Demand Manufacturing Portal makes it possible for customers to order (personalized) composite laminates 100% online


Automation and digitalization of Airborne's product processes

## Get the white paper

**INDEX**

1. Construction companies and digital transformation
2. Technology trends for a different approach
3. Technology trends in the construction industry
4. A new technology trend for the construction industry
5. Low code for the construction industry
6. The VIKTOR platform
7. What does it cost?
8. How to start
9. What's next?

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What are the current trends in digital transformation and how do they affect the engineering and construction industry? 

This white paper is for every engineer, manager, director, or anyone else that wants to learn more about (new) technology trends that help boost digital transformation in engineering and construction, such as BIM, parametric or generative design, and low-code and no-code. 

Discover how web applications can help you find the best solution fast, get the best insights, capture knowledge into assets, and make work more joyful! 






Learn about trends in digital transformation and how they affect the engineering and construction industry.

Download the White Paper and get INSPIRED

This white paper is for every engineer, manager, director, or anyone else that wants to learn more about (new) technology trends that help boost digital transformation in engineering and construction, such as BIM, parametric or generative design, and low-code and no-code. 

Digital Transformation: Engineering and Construction Industry

## Airborne: Affordable and easy-to-use composits

By employing the full benefits of automation and digitalisation, Airborne aims to make composites affordable and easy to use. This year, the company launched the world’s first online portal that enables users to custom design and order composites parts, which are then produced through automated manufacturing. By using the portal, anyone can become a composites expert, even if you do not have in-depth knowledge of composites.

## A difficult material 

Suppose you have a great idea for a composite product. Ordinarily, it would take many steps to develop this idea into a design and eventually create an end product. It would also require in-depth knowledge of composites, considering you will have to ensure the composite has the required performance.

For many engineers, composite design is far from intuitive because these materials behave differently from more conventional materials like plastics of metals. Sol help is needed with the design and manufacturing of the part. A highly-skilled engineer would have to interpret the designs, provide feedback and advice, calculate a quotation, interact with the customer to optimise performance versus cost and delivery time, program the robot, set up security protocols and so forth. In the end, a lot of time would have passed before you would have received your laminates.

## The first online composit store

These issues will be solved by the On-demand Manufacturing Portal: a web-based tool that allows anyone to design composite parts and receive direct feedback on performance and price. With this feedback, a user can optimise the design for the specific use case.

### Fully-automated and customer-based design, ordering and production

When the user is satisfied with the outcomes, the product can be ordered and delivered to his doorstep. The portal is not only suitable for single products, but it can also be used for ordering series of products.

### More is coming...

The current application is for thermo-set laminates manufactured in prepreg material using Airborne’s Automated Laminating Cell (ALC) technology, more processes will be added in the future, also for dry fibre and thermo-plastic composite materials. The robotised ALC system combines three functionalities in one system: 1) creating the laminate by automated tape laying; 2) cutting the laminate into the required shapes; and 3) offloading these shapes with pick & place to the next production step, for example hot forming or placement into a tool. The pick & place system can also be used for placing local patches on a laminate. The three end effectors can be changed within one minute, making this system versatile and fast.

## Why Airborne?

### A fully-automated digital portal
How is Airborne’s On-demand Manufacturing Portal different from other digital portals?

Conventional digital portals that are available for other technologies – such as CNC milling, injection moulding or metal sheet bending – calculate prices automatically or semi-automatically.

After receiving the quote (which can take one or two days), the manufacturing can start, but will in many cases be delayed by human work preparation. In the Airborne portal, everything is fully automated. Not only are price and performance instantly calculated, but the Automated Laminating Cell is programmed on the fly. This is an important requirement, since the shape and layup of the part can have a large impact on the production time for laying the tape and cutting the laminate. To ensure that production time and scrap and product prices are accurately calculated, the path planning for the robot is integrated in the portal. Incorporating all the changes made by the user, a new programme for the ALC is created in the background and the price is recalculated.

### Smooth and quick order production

This implies that when the order is placed, the full production file for the ALC is ready with all the robot movements and complete machine and process settings necessary to smoothly produce the order. The file is sent to the ALC and production can start immediately, without any human intervention.

Airborne gave live demonstrations of this new technology during the JEC World 2019 show in France and the Composites 4.0 event in the UK. During these demonstrations, a product was designed, ordered and sent to the ALC system in the Airborne factory in The Netherlands, where production immediately ran the order.

To demonstrate connectivity and control, a digital twin visualisation of the ALC in operation was running in Paris and Coventry, fed by live data from The Netherlands.

![article online store composit laminates.png](/uploads/article_online_store_composit_laminates_a380726886.png)

2020 / JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE

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The first online store for the design, ordering and automated manufacturing of composite laminates!

The first online store for smooth and automated composit manufacturing

## No replacement, but renovation!

The developed system makes it possible to place a new pipe in the old pipe without excavating the street. Thanks to the coupling supplied by CODURE, the system can be directly connected to the rest of the network. Each coupling is specifically designed and made for the project. With the help of VIKTOR, an application has been developed that, in addition to the dimensions and structural calculations, also generates the code to control the CNC machines and keeps track of the quality control.

## Easy coupling with CODURE

Anande Bergman, Chief Technology Officer at CODURE, explains: “CODURE has developed a patented coupling specifically to repair pressure lines using Cured-in-Place-Pipes (CIPP).” CIPP is a method to repair existing underground pipes without having to excavate the whole street: a new pipe within the old pipe. A fiberglass sleeve is placed and cured within the old pipe that has a coupling at each end. The coupling has a special inner surface that ensures adhesion to the sleeve during curing, so the sleeve and coupling form a whole. Thanks to the coupling piece, the CIPP sleeves can easily be connected to the rest of the network.

## Different coupling designs

Unfortunately, existing pipelines are not the same everywhere and the required couplings are often unique. We are talking about old pipes with varying sizes that do not correspond to the current standards. The pressure on the pipe also differs per situation. As a result, every project is slightly different and a new coupling must be designed every time. Bergman: “It is a time-consuming task to design a coupling piece every time in a traditional way. Due to the complexity of the product, we always have to do this, even to just create a simple quotation. ”

## An automated application to the rescue 

That is why an application has been created together with VIKTOR to be able to perform those calculations automatically. “Before using VIKTOR, one of our engineers had to do a strength calculation for each coupling design. We did this with FEM, because thick-walled glass fiber products are complex to calculate. That took a few hours per design”, says Bergman. With the help of the application, a complete design can now be made quickly and easily. This not only saves time, but also money. “Even small orders are now commercially attractive.”


![codure.PNG](https://cms.viktor.ai/uploads/codure_1cb13314b4.PNG)



## The possibilities of centralized and automated data

“The application can do much more,” says Bergman. Quotes, drawings and data sheets with all relevant information can be generated for each coupling design. This is not done via manual calculations or individual Excel models, but rather all data is collected and generated centrally and automatically in the application. Due to the central storage of the designs, no previous versions are lost. Bergman: “It is important that we can quickly compare multiple options, so that we can always discuss with the customer and offer the best solution. So it’s also great that we can easily view older designs and track why certain changes were made to the project and by whom. ”

> “With the help of the application, a complete design can now be made quickly and easily. This not only saves time, but also money. ” - Anande Bergman CTO of CODURE

## From design to product

CODURE not only makes the designs, but is also responsible for the production of the couplings and their quality control. CODURE has developed special CNC machines for production to be able to make the coupling pieces. The final design is converted in the application into a G-code with which these machines can be controlled. Bergman explains: “Now we no longer have to translate a geometry into the instructions for the machine, now we can produce the desired coupling with the click of a button.” Production is thus greatly simplified and accelerated, and the probability of errors is much smaller.

## Quality control

After the production of a coupling, quality checks must be done. Due to its use in drinking water pipes, CODURE must adhere to strict regulations. Quality control is also supported in this application. Amongst other things, the following information is tracked per coupling piece: which materials have been used, who has worked on it, whether all sizes are correct and whether all quality requirements have been met. “Everything is stored in a well-organised way and it is easy to trace what happened to that specific coupling piece,” says Bergman.

## Advantages of the application

The entire process, from initial design and quotation to actual production and quality control, is thus centralised in one application. This not only saves CODURE a lot of time in designing, calculating, entering and updating everything that is involved in making a coupling piece; but it also ensures that processes are simplified and the risk of errors is reduced. By automating the entire process, CODURE is left with time that they can now use to improve and optimize the product.

Bergman: “It is simple. Anyone can use the application. All the knowledge behind the design, which was previously only in the hands of the specialists, has now been made accessible to the entire organisation. ” So in addition to the centralisation of data and time savings, CODURE can store and always use their knowledge.

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Replacement or renovation of deteriorated pipes is required to provide clean drinking water. CODURE and their partners have now developed a new system that allows for simple renovation!

CODURE: Automated design and production of FRP flanges

## Enable customers to create their own design

Pieter Bakker, the Global Manager of Xbloc at DMC, says: “By using the VIKTOR platform we have been able to capture these tools in a  web application with which the customer can [parametrically design](https://www.viktor.ai/blog/46/parametric-design-cloud-engineering-construction) the basis of the breakwater himself. This immediately gives the customers a better insight into what is possible, and we can make an optimal design faster”.

To design the layout of the Xblocs they already had a script within DMC to get started with. “The script worked well, but the problem was that we couldn’t turn it into a dxf file,” explains Bakker. “Because of this we could only use it internally and not web-based, for the customer. “A web application has now been created from a Python script.” tells Bakker. The moment the customer requests a drawing via the application on the website, the scripts generate a design based on the parameters of the client and sends this back to the website as a pdf-file. “In this way we link our scripts to the VIKTOR platform and make it visible to the customer”.

The advantage of the application is that the customer can now test different parameters and basic designs himself, before an official request is made. Bakker, “This not only saves a lot of time for us, but also gives the customer an immediate insight into what would and would not be possible.

## Reduce errors

In addition, the [parametric design application](https://www.viktor.ai/parametric-design-software) ensures that the number of errors is reduced. Bakker, “Internally, when determining the optimal design, errors were not always visible in the calculation. But because of the added visualization, errors can be identified and subsequently removed before the design is sent to the customer”.

All in all, the web application ensures that the knowledge that was previously known only to DMC is now also available to the customer and easily accessible. The customer can now first try out a number of parameters before they come up with a specific request. Bakker, “The application gives the customer a lot of insight and made it easier for us to create the optimal design.”


Maritime & Offshore

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Delta Marine Consultants enabled customer to design their own breakwater protection using Xbloc 

Parametric tool for automatic and optimal breakwater design

1. What is parametric design, and how is it evolving
2. Collaborative parametric design: working together for better results
3. How to make tools available to others
4. Active collaboration on parametric design tools
5. Parametric design in a billion-euro project
6. What collaborative parametric design means for you



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Parametric design is a design approach that uses flexible models that can be adjusted and solved quickly. The goal is to see the effect of specific choices on your design by just changing the input variables. 

The benefits are:

- **Flexibility:** Parametric design allows you to react quickly to changes at a low cost. Always generate the best solution for your project no matter the time pressure.

- **Better decisions:** Automatically calculate thousands of different solutions, get deep insight, and mitigate risks. Make better decisions and provide more added value to clients.

- **Digital Assets:** Create models and data that are reusable in new projects. Improve them over time, building up digital capital

This white paper is for engineers, architects, project leaders, and innovation and business managers. You will learn how collaborative parametric design in the cloud helps organizations get better results with real study cases such as a billion-euro infrastructure project.
 
Additionally, we talk about how you can transform Python, Dynamo and Grasshopper scripts into user-friendly web apps and significantly impact your organization performance. 

Learn how collaborative parametric design models allow you to work together for better solutions.

Download the white paper and get INSPIRED

This white paper is for engineers, project leaders, and innovation and business managers that want to learn more about what collaborative parametric design can mean for them. Discover more about this new way of working in which stakeholders collaborate to find the best solution for a project.

The Future of Parametric Design is COLLABORATION

Customer cases

Parametric tool for automatic and optimal breakwater design

Automation and digitalization of Airborne's product processes

The first online store for smooth and automated composit manufacturing

CODURE: Automated design and production of FRP flanges

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