Ryerson Hyperloop Team Accelerate Design Using AIA NAS 3D Digital Standards built by CADENAS

The Ryerson University International Hyperloop Team announces a digital engineering solution sponsorship with the Aerospace Industries Association and CADENAS PARTsolutions, LLC (USA). The Ryerson Team is utilizing native CATIA 3D CAD models of the AIA National Aerospace Standards (NAS), built by digital parts management firm CADENAS. Using these certified components in the design process, the team was able to successfully reduce their engineering time and focus more of their efforts on the core design of their award-winning deployable wheel system.

In January 2016, Ryerson’s Hyperloop deployable wheel system won the team the “Subsystem Innovation Award” at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition at Texas A&M University. The team is now getting ready for the final phase of the competition this August in California.

The Hyperloop is a theoretical system of tubes recently proposed by Elon Musk, who is also known for his involvement with Tesla Motors and Space X. The tubes will be sealed and air extracted to create vacuum. The “pods” which will be propelled and suspended by either MAGLEV (magnetic levitation) or by air bearing levitation, enabling travel at more than 700 miles per hour, due to the lack of atmosphere and air resistance. Early analysis has suggested that a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco could be completed in 35 minutes, as opposed to 6 hours by car.

Hyperloop technology has been explicitly open-sourced by Musk and SpaceX, and others have been encouraged to take the ideas and further develop them. Several companies have been formed, and dozens of interdisciplinary student-led teams are working to advance the technology.

Rob Zesch, President & COO of CADENAS PARTsolutions, LLC, describes the digital 3D standards as a tool which is adding design accuracy as well as efficiency. “With Hyperloop revolutionizing the future of travel, safety and reliability will be paramount, which is why they are using genuine AIA NAS standards. Utilizing the certified digital standard models helps ensure the correct part will be specified in the manufactured product, guaranteeing safety and reliability, while also expediting the design process. That’s a win-win for any design team.”

Space X / Hyperloop announced their student design competition on June 15, 2015, and published the official rules the following August. The Ryerson University Hyperloop Team, facing a steep deadline, began to investigate where they could reduce engineering time by eliminating non-value-added tasks. Their decision was to digitally source CAD data of key standard components, rather than designing and drawing these components from scratch.

Grame Klim, Team Leader of Ryerson’s International Hyperloop Team is managing the design project as well as the necessary engineering tools. “By leveraging these AIA NAS digital standards, we were able to significantly accelerate the pace of our design process, focusing on the key design components, rather than re-creating standards which already exist. This enabled our team to create a design which competed very well against much larger teams.”

While competing amongst the 120 universities in the Hyperloop / SpaceX design competition, Ryerson’s International Hyperloop Team made use of native CATIA 3D CAD models of AIA National Aerospace Standard (NAS) components through a sponsorship from AIA and CADENAS PARTsolutions, LLC.

Chris Carnahan, Director of Standardization at the Aerospace Industries Association was key to the Ryerson Team sponsorship. “AIA is proud to sponsor the Ryerson Hyperloop team by providing them access to our library of authorized digital 3D NAS parts. Engineers using AIA’s 3D NAS parts library will save time and ensure accuracy and efficiency in the design process.”