This paper on "Fully Automatic Analysis in an Industrial Environment" was presented at the International Conference on Quality Assurance and Standards in Finite Element Analysis - 22-25 May 1989, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Introduction to Paper

Rolls-Royce is in the highly competitive international aero-engine market. Senior management have identified that a reduction in the product definition elapsed time would lead to an improvement in competitiveness and have launched a Computer Aided Engineering and Manufacturing (CAEM) project to achieve this. The objective of CAEM is to halve the time between commitment to an engine and entry into service.
This paper describes one small part of the CAEM project - the introduction of a two-dimensional automatic finite element analysis facility. This is designed to contribute to the CAEM project objective by reducing the elapsed time to perform a high quality finite element analysis of the circumferentially averaged response of main engine rotor systems. This then allows these analyses to be performed earlier in a design's evolution and on more variants and thus increases confidence in the design prior to commitment to manufacture.