Production Implementation of CATIA V5 and ENOVIA LCA at a 7E7 Tier 1 Partner
Kevin Loomis, Boeing

Responding to the overwhelming airline preference for a super-efficient airplane, Boeing Commercial Airplanes has focused its new airplane product development efforts on the Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner. The 7E7 will be the first all new commercial aircraft from Boeing in over 10 years. A team made up of top domestic and international aerospace companies will partner to develop the airplane, led by the Boeing team in Everett, Washington.

The 7E7 base airplane and stretch airplane will carry 200-250 passengers in tri-class configurations on routes between 7,800 and 8,300 nautical miles respectively. A third 7E7 family member, the shorter-range 7E7 will accommodate nearly 300 passengers in a two-class configuration and be optimized for routes of 3,500 nautical miles.

In addition to bringing big-jet ranges to mid-size airplanes, the 7E7 will provide airlines with unmatched fuel efficiency, and will also be extremely quiet. The airplane will use 20 percent less fuel for comparable missions than any other wide body airplane. It will also travel at speeds similar to today’s fastest wide bodies, Mach 0.85. Customers will enjoy forty- to sixty-percent more cargo revenue capacity.

Boeing has announced that the majority of the primary structure – including the fuselage and wing – on the 7E7 will be made of composite materials. The composites materials will give the passengers a tangible reason to prefer the 7E7, as the corrosion-proof material will allow a higher humidity in the interior environment. The new materials will also allow larger windows and a more inviting cabin.

The key to this exceptional performance is a suite of new technologies being developed by Boeing and its international technology development team.

Another improvement in efficiency will come in the way the airplane is designed and built. New technologies and processes are in development to help Boeing and its supplier partners achieve unprecedented levels of performance at every phase of the program. This article will give an overview of some of these new technologies, centered on the CATIA V5 suite of tools from Dassault Systemes, and describe some of the challenges involved.

On past programs, Boeing has managed 100’s of suppliers. The 7E7 program will work with about 20 Tier 1 partners, and those partners will be responsible for coordinating design and/or build with their sub-tier partners. These partners will define and build end items, not “Build-to-(a Boeing) Print”. Boeing will manage the build configuration only during the 3-day final assembly period.

Partners are helping to co-develop the processes to be used in the CATIA V5 tool suite. Representatives of the various partners are on-site in Everett, but eventually the vast majority of the partners’ work will be performed at their home site, making the collaboration component of the tools critical.

Boeing-Wichita, Vought, and Alenia are sharing the majority of the design and manufacture work on the fuselage and horizontal stabilizer. The Japanese Heavy’s (KHI, MHI, and FHI) are working the wing, wing box, and a section of the fuselage near the wing. Various other Boeing divisions are working the vertical fin and control surfaces. Other global partners include BF Goodrich, Honeywell, Hamilton Sundstrand, and others working avionics, landing gears, and other systems. All of these Tier 1 partners are using tools and processes as defined by the Life Cycle Product Teams. In the realm of structural design partners, the common design tool is CATIA V5, and the common PLM tool is ENOVIA LCA. This lets each of the Tier 1 partners build on proven internal and external best practices. As contracts are announced, work packages assigned, and the competition phase winds down, partners are encouraged to share best practices freely. Standardizing on a common set of tools, maximizes the value of the tool development, enables better global partner collaboration, and provides seamless data flow without manual intervention.

Some of the key technology application areas include the use of Master Datum File (MDFs), Generic Product Models (GPMs), KBE Generative Geometry Applications, and Model Based Definition (3D only) for Composites.

Master Datum Files can be thought of as a skeletal file containing wire frame geometry (primarily points, lines, and planes). This basic geometry is used to locate key geometric features. MDFs may be arranged hierarchically. For example, the program might define such things as the strut interface location with the wing, and the engine centerlines in a top level MDF. The Tier 1 Partner(s) responsible for the strut and nacelle could have an MDF for each of those end-items linked to the master MDF. In addition, driving key geometric features from an MDF helps prevent problems like circular references (Part C is driven by Part B, which is driven by Part A, which inadvertently has a link to Part C).

Generic Product Models (GPMs - also known as Design Concepts) are reusable parametric models with embedded design rules. Cost savings result from design reuse and improved commonality. The greatest cost savings are associated with those parts where a large part family exists. In some cases, where a smaller part family may exist, but the members of the family are evolving rapidly, a significant cost savings may also be realized. The generic model’s functionality and usage are documented in a user’s guide showing parameter usages and directions of growth. The relation and parametric design capabilities built into CATIA V5 makes the GPMs possible. Since GPMs are typically developed by personnel who are somewhat specialized, or are at least highly experienced CATIA V5 users, steps are taken to make them more end-user friendly, including making use of User Features and PowerCopies.

For even greater user productivity, KBE application software captures design rules and automates repetitive tasks. Cost reductions may result from reduced labor and flow time. CATIA V5 has a built in macroing capability which aids in developing Visual Basic applications. The Wichita site has developed KBE applications to automate design tasks, such as the GPM Replicator application, which places stringer geometry automatically on a fuselage loft. KBE applications can also help the entire design/analysis process by linking part geometry to stress analysis programs. One example of this is to extracts section cut data for transfer to the Section Analysis tool.

In addition to improvements in the tools being used to design the 7E7, significant changes are being made in the overall design process. One of the most significant changes is the elimination of 2D drawings. This has been fairly widely done in military programs for metallic parts. Key functions, such as FT&A, which allows tolerance and annotations to be applied directly to the 3D part, and low end viewers, such as DMU make this more practical than in the past. However, composite parts present their own challenges in a 3D only world. On the 777 program, it was not unusual for a composite inner wall on a nacelle to take over a dozen drawing sheets to define the engineering intent. Because relational design was crude or nonexistent with CATIA V4, the individual section cuts, the layer map, the ply table, and the geometric elements themselves all had to be manually managed and kept in synch. With CATIA V5’s built in relational design capabilities, it is very easy to develop a model based definition format that can be viewed by manufacturing in a low end viewer. With the easy of custom programming in V5, and using neutral data formats like XML, data may be converted from a pure native V5 format to a “view only” format, or even to a format which may be analyzed using 3rd party applications.

For more detail on the opportunities and challenges of Tier 1 partners on the 7E7 program, see Production Implementation of CATIA V5 and ENOVIA LCA at a 7E7 Tier 1 Partner in the Spring 2004 COE proceedings.

About the author
Kevin Loomis is currently working to implement new tools and processes (including the CATIA V5, ENOVIA LCA, and DELMIA suite) for the Wichita Division 7E7 program. Kevin joined Boeing in June of 1986. He began his career as a design engineer working in the Master Dimensions and Lofting group. He has worked on multiple programs including Air Force One, 777, 737-NG, 747-X, and Sonic Cruiser. He has also worked in manufacturing support and CATIA KBE programming. Kevin holds a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla and a master of science in engineering management science from Wichita State University.