Supporting Our Clients with On-Demand Engineering and CAD Skills

Background

A race car team approached KTM Solutions for assistance developing aerodynamic surfaces on one of their cars. KTM understands complex surfacing techniques, and our engineers are proficient in several CAD programs, including CATIA—a great tool for complex surface development. When it comes to aerodynamics, surface continuity and smoothness are key to developing good models. Minor imperfections in the model, invisible to the naked eye, can have a significant impact on final manufactured parts and molds. Improper use of CAD tools or flawed modeling processes will yield poor surface quality. It is thus vital that all component designers work to a common high-quality surface model.

The Problem

Each designer on the race car team was using his or her own process to complete their part of the overall surface. Since there was no standardized method for completing the surfaces, discrepancies arose between adjacent surfaces. To meet the team’s aerodynamic design standards, the surfaces needed to fit seamlessly together to create a single, uniform surface. A shared method for creating these surfaces would add homogeneity, efficiency, and structure to the surface design process, eliminating smoothness issues and discontinuities between different surface edges. Success would require a robust process, quality management, and a configuration control system.

The Solution

KTM has extensive experience with advanced surfacing and modeling projects, so we had no trouble providing assistance to the design team. We used our experience in the automotive and aerospace industries to audit and repair incomplete and incongruent surfaces. We also developed a process and quality control system to meet the team’s aerodynamic and component development requirements. By introducing CATIA modeling controls, we worked to ensure efficient surface modeling. While KTM is still consulted when special issues arise, the process has been very successful and the client design team has incorporated KTM’s solutions into their own operation.

About

KTM is a team of professional engineers that partners with manufacturing companies to overcome challenges and deliver the custom design solution and the expertise you need for your project.