Case Study: B/E Aerospace achieves lighter, safer seats and faster virtual certification with Altair HyperWorks

B/E Aerospace - Customer Case Study

B/E Aerospace, a leading cabin-interiors and commercial airline seat manufacturer, faced the dual challenge of cutting seat weight to lower airline fuel costs while meeting rigorous FAA safety and certification requirements. To address rising fuel prices and the market demand for lighter, safer seats, B/E Aerospace engaged Altair and its HyperWorks CAE tools to bring advanced simulation and virtual certification into the product development process.

Altair placed an on-site engineer and introduced HyperWorks tools (including HyperMesh, OptiStruct and MotionView) to perform topology optimization and crash simulations; using these tools B/E reduced the weight of a typical leg-and-spreader seat part by 32%. Altair’s virtual-certification approach also cut the need for multiple physical tests—lowering preliminary test costs by as much as 60%—shortened design cycles and improved first-time yield, prompting B/E to expand its CAE team to further scale these benefits.

B/E Aerospace

Yanbin Liu

Ph.D, Lead Structure and Certification Engineer