CaliToor builds knowledge-based engineering (KBE) and multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) software. Our flagship, CaliToor Sublimator, turns design rules into parametric products, runs the analyses, and follows every built part through its life as a digital twin.
Discover SublimatorResearch background
Sublimator follows the Design and Engineering Engine and Multi-Model Generator ideas of the KBE tradition (ICAD, ParaPy) on an open-source geometry kernel (OpenCASCADE). What used to take weeks of KBE programming is drafted in minutes with AI assistance, and every generated rule stays readable, editable and traceable.
Products are composed of high-level primitives (HLPs) with capability modules for geometry, mesh, mass, cost and structural idealisation. Each value records where it came from: user input, a physics rule or a heuristic.
An initiator sizes a concept from first principles and documented heuristics. Before any CAD exists, the model already has consistent dimensions, ply counts and mass.
Finite elements (CalculiX), frame and buckling analyses, aero-acoustics with acoustic liners, CFD (OpenFOAM), mass and cost. Each analysis lives on the product tree and is rerun whenever the design changes.
Parameter studies and optimisation loops over the full chain of models, for example a composite layup sized for mass under strain, buckling, joint and deflection limits.
Describe a new part or product in plain language and Sublimator drafts the parametric model, its rules and its views. The engineer reviews and accepts every rule.
A product drives its manufacturing system: the part defines the factory, and the factory defines the machines that build it. One change ripples through the whole chain.
A part number describes a class of parts that share form, fit and function. A twin describes one serial number as it was built, with its own history. Sublimator creates a twin for each built item and keeps it current through inspections, repairs and service bulletins.
Each twin is identified by the manufacturer code, the part number at build and the serial number. Its as-designed and as-built configurations are both kept.
Inspection findings, dispositions, repairs and modifications are recorded as changes to the model's inputs. Re-analysis shows what each change does to the margins.
Every twin stores the software, solver and data versions it was made with, so any result can be traced and reproduced later.
A fleet portal shows the status of a fleet and links each aircraft to the twins of its parts. It demonstrates how an operator, a maintenance organisation (MRO) and the manufacturer (OEM) can share one view of the fleet. The portal is available on request.
CaliToor is the engineering software studio of Michel van Tooren. Since the early 2000s he has worked on knowledge-based engineering, design and engineering engines, multidisciplinary design optimisation and engineering workflow management. This work started at TU Delft and continued at the University of South Carolina, with industry partners in aerospace and composites manufacturing.
Sublimator brings that research together in one tool. It uses an open geometry kernel and open solvers, and adds AI assistance so engineers can capture their knowledge faster than ever.
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