Carco Electronics is the world's major producer of missile flight motion simulators and inertial guidance test systems. They also produce target motion simulators, microwave boresight and boresight-error measuring systems. Four decades ago their design process was aided by producing plywood models. One of their more demanding current jobs is the design and manufacture of a 5-axis flight motion simulator that has been ordered by the Munitions Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base. The primary limitation of 3D CAD software is the difficulty in determining if moving parts of the flight motion simulator will collide throughout their range of motion.
Several parts move independently in close proximity under external computer control.
Moving the model parts in a traditional CAD program does not guarantee that these parts stay clear of one another. Bringing the CAD model into visualNastran enables much more detailed motion analysis. If a collision occurs, a sharp spike is observed on one of the force meters. By observing the parts position at collision, the engineers modify their design to avoid future collisions. Carco fully integrated visualNastran Desktop software made by MSC.Working Knowledge with their native CAD software to analyze kinematics and rigid body dynamics of the 5-axis simulator.