New preprocessor available for VABS composite blade simulation software

AnalySwift, LLC (West Jordan, UT, US), a provider of high-fidelity modeling software for composites and other advanced materials, announced April 4 that a new preprocessor called PreVABS is now available to users of the VABS composite blade simulation software. The VABS software is an engineering code for simulation of composite slender structures, especially helicopter and wind turbine rotor blades.

Students in the Multiscale Structural Mechanics (MSM) group at Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN, US) developed the new PreVABS under the direction of Dr. Wenbin Yu, professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. PreVABS helps engineers in the early stages of simulation of composite slender structures, commonly called composite beams. It is designed to reduce the workload of preparing input files for VABS and to make the process automatic for design and optimization purposes.

PreVABS reportedly includes:

• Capability to create nose mass in an airfoil type cross section
• The post-processing function to visualize the recovered strains and stresses in Gmsh
• Capability to read stacking sequence code
• Design-oriented parametric input files to draw the cross section naturally
• Isolated material database file to enable reusability
• Global transformation capability to release the burden of calculating geometries by hand

“Cross sections with general and airfoil shapes can be created,” says Wenbin Yu, professor at Purdue University. “This replaces an earlier program, also called PreVABS, which had been discontinued and was no longer available. PreVABS is a completely new code, which has many improved capabilities. Unlike the previous program, PreVABS is now free and open source.”