Engineering Capability

Product Integrity

Life Support engineers work towards product integrity in an Integrated Product Development Team (IPDT) environment that utilizes expertise from all parts of the organization to design and develop new products. The product designs are comprehensively reviewed to blend the frequently conflicting requirements for performance, cost, manufacturability, reliability, maintainability, ease-of-use and testability. These designs are extremely important in providing our customers with the superior quality that they have come to expect from Cobham products.

Solid Modeling

During design and development, designers at Life Support create solid models of new products. These solid models automatically provide mass properties, readily support rapid prototyping, reduce tooling costs and support subsequent analysis.

 

The solid model database at Life Support is shared electronically throughout the organization to facilitate early identification and resolution of conflicting product requirements. The solid model itself is of great value over the life of the product, from conception through design release, product improvements, manufacturing and product support.

 

Analysis

Engineers use this solid modeling process for stress and vibration analysis as well as thermal analysis to facilitate early detection and resolution of problems. Results of this type of analyses help to optimize the tradeoffs of cost, weight, strength and manufacturability. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis is also utilized to further optimize product performance.

 

The design of electronic circuit boards is also accomplished electronically. Electronic transfer of the design database file to circuit board suppliers provides rapid availability of finished boards. This greatly enhances the development process.