New AI Platform Allows Users to Design and Analyze Composite Materials, Structures
AnalySwift collaborates with Purdue to develop CompositesAI for its software products
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A new artificial intelligence platform has been launched to help users more quickly develop composite materials and structures without requiring in-depth technical jargon or knowledge.
AnalySwift LLC, a composite simulation software provider, has partnered with Purdue University researchers to create CompositesAI. CEO Allan Wood said it helps users more quickly create and analyze composite products designed with other AnalySwift software solutions.
Designers and engineers can use the free platform at CompositesAI.com.
Initial Focus: Air Mobility Industry
Wood said AnalySwift offers software for the burgeoning air mobility industry to design composite rotor blades and propellers, components common to these vehicles. As air mobility companies mature, he said, they encounter difficulty in modeling complex multimaterial, multilayer rotor blades.
“They need blades with very specific shapes and performance characteristics such as inertial, elastic and strength properties,” he said. “While air mobility engineers may have strong knowledge of composite materials and structures, blades often require specialized experience, which meant outsourcing this key component or hiring blade engineers. CompositesAI, paired with AnalySwift’s blade modeling software, VABS, helps overcome this challenge.”
As an example, an engineer could describe a helicopter or air mobility blade in natural language through the platform.
“CompositesAI translates that language into the specialized input files needed to design the blade with VABS,” Wood said. “This helps engineers more quickly develop products without requiring detailed technical knowledge related to using AnalySwift’s tools — VABS and SwiftComp.”
Developing CompositesAI
AnalySwift partnered with Wenbin Yu on the CompositesAI project. Yu is the Milton Clauser Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue’s College of Engineering and AnalySwift’s chief technology officer.
“AI is rapidly transforming many aspects of our life and will play a major role in advancing composites’ design and manufacturing,” he said. “We are working to stay on the leading edge of these developments by launching CompositesAI, aimed at consolidating and delivering composites expert knowledge using AI.”
The CompositesAI project focused on four objectives:
- Train CompositesAI to be an AI-powered tech support system for AnalySwift products.
- Develop a feedback mechanism so users can provide questions and answers to further improve the performance of CompositesAI.
- Develop an AI-human interactive platform so AnalySwift engineers can collaborate with CompositesAI to answer customers and automatically collect answers to further improve CompositesAI.
- Develop application programming interfaces so input files can be easily generated and companion software can be invoked for AnalySwift products.
Yu said CompositesAI is initially focused on rotor blades for air mobility, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, drones and wind turbines, but its uses will expand.
“It will soon be able to handle other composite structures such as plates, shells, panels and other 3D structures utilized by engineers in designing the next generation of aerospace, defense, energy, medical and sporting goods applications,” he said. “Once fully developed, CompositesAI will be capable of handling all aspects of composites with the precision of validated engineering software and authority of world-leading experts.”
AnalySwift has partnered with Indiana-based Applied Research Institute, an economic development organization whose innovation voucher program provided matching funding to further the objectives of the partnership with Purdue.
AnalySwift licenses some of its innovations through the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization.
About AnalySwift
AnalySwift LLC is a provider of composite simulation software, which enables an unprecedented combination of efficiency and accuracy, including multiphysics structural and micromechanics modeling. Drawing on cutting-edge university technology, AnalySwift’s powerful solutions save orders of magnitude in computing time without a loss of accuracy so users can consider more design options and arrive at the best solution more quickly. The technologies deliver the accuracy of detailed 3D finite element analysis at the efficiency of simple engineering models. SwiftComp was developed at Purdue University and licensed from the Purdue Research Foundation. Contact AnalySwift at info@analyswift.com.
About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization
The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university’s academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2024, the office reported 145 deals finalized with 224 technologies signed, 466 invention disclosures received, and 290 U.S. and international patents received. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for more information.
About Purdue University
Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.
Media contact: Steve Martin, sgmartin@prf.org