How do engineers test their prototypes and ideas from CAD drawings?
Question:
Please let me know your ideas and mention any software you might have heard of that is used in the (mechanical/electrical/auto) engineering industry - from laying out oil hoses for a piston to creating a rotating crank for that piston. Integration of circuits and electronics with this mechanical simulation would be ideal as well. I would like to design the "under the hood" portion of the car with this software (designing the body would be nice too).
I suppose you would be able to design something like a toaster, shaver, iron or a lawn mower as well.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated!!
There is no software out there that can simulate everything. Simulation software is available for parts of your requirements.
You can get flow simulators to test the oil lines, you can get mechanical simulation to test for movement. There are electronic simulations but none that i have seen that also work with mechanical hardware.
No matter what all this software is in the thousands to tens of thousands Cheapest simulation software i know of is cosmos. They use with solidworks. I believe you can get a student version for around 300.
There are rarely industry standards, so to speak, ...in the same way that Autodesk AutoCAD isn't the end-all, be-all of CAD. As I understand it, the general opinion of AutoCAD is that it's good at what it does ...but for 3D (for example), you're better off with something, ..anything.. else. Between school and internships, my guess is that the flagship 3D CAD software include Autodesk Inventor, Pro-Engineer, Catia, Solidworks, Solid Edge, and ...eh... ...I-Deas?
Different companies use different programs for various reasons ...some just boil down to cost.
Within most of these, lots of things are standardized ..such as basic parts. You can often find that you get blocks of standard bolts, springs, screws, brackets, etc, etc... these are generally to ISO specifications, and dimensions are known and assumed in tight tolerance. To that end, certain 3D programs consider physical properties, such as the geometric properties used and the material type selected (grades of steel, aluminum, neoprene, brass, what have you)
Then, as I understand it, programs like Pro-E and I-Deas (and probably Catia) use finite-element modeling (wherein the geometry is broken up into point-coordinates) ..calculates all kinds of materials properties, takes edge effects into account, and can therefore apply load application ... can test the effects of certain load applications and see where the part is most likely to be under the most stress.
As you can surely understand, this can be very complicated, so likely the ability for this kind of analysis is quite limited. It's much simpler for programs that might analyse a truss, for example, where it's basically limited to 2D calculations, and beam theory and such can be more systematically applied. Additionally, there are manufacturing concerns wherein we know a part isn't uniform, ..whether it's weaker or stronger than it ought to be because of how it's made.
For example, you could make something with a mould (costly in creating the mould, but relatively uniform in output thereafter, and theoretically less cost in labour afterward), or it can be welded together at joints. Then we have to apply structural analysis at the weld joints, ..have to consider the type of weld, have to determine whether the weld has been performed correctly.
In general, this is the world of "CAD/CAM/CAE" ...computer aided design, ...manufacturing, ...engineering. It's more work to start with, but it's often used to determine if a project is feasible, as creating even scale models and prototypes can cost lots and lots, only to find out that it was ultimately a waste.
I know you can get short trials of many things when you get instruction books (Solid Works, especially) ..it wouldn't be a bad idea to give those a try. Solid Edge is especially fun, as you can create separate parts, and piece them together into an assembly file... then, when done properly, apply physics to the assembly. I had a project once to model a grandfather clock - by the end, it was complete with gravity and harmonic motion for the pendulum (had to do a good bit of math for it =p...)
This is the field I'm most interested in; glad you are too. Hope this was helpful!
I use Pro-engineer and, to a much smaller extent, SolidWorks. Both packages can be used to create every part of an automobile.
They also have ways of checking moving parts for interference. So, if you model your oil hose and other parts you could see how they interact. You can't import drawings from other software and do analysis you will need the solid models.
If you desire knowing what kind of forces are found on the moving parts during operation there are software packages that can create this data. I've used them but you usually must create simplified models of the assembly inside the software. It's been a while since I've used these packages so Pro-e and SW may have this ability, you need to check their websites.
Circuit boards can be modeled in Pro-e and exported to board layout software like Mentor for the placing of the traces. Once the circuit layouts are done you can import the information from Mentor back into Pro-e and all of the electronic components will be visible.
I believe both Pro-e and SW are available to you for about $5000, again check the websites.
hi
there are some programs used as vertual reality where u can build ur model and use as if its real
matlab is a great program it do all the calculations but u must be very good programmer and proffesional in using matlab it self
but the is a program its name is pro engineer it pretty much like autocad but little bit more complicated it performs the movement of the model if any alot of things
good luck
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