Issue 1

Featured Articles

Important Note on FEM

What's New at EDE

Hot Tips

Snapshots from recent Projects

The most important set of rules in Product Development

Modern Design Engineering Tools
by Michelle Pillers, P.E.

Product design is an evolving process. The more iterations that can be performed during the product design cycle (concept, design, prototype, test, repeat), the better the results. Dr. McCoy’s comment from Star Trek-The Motion Picture, “Engineers just love to change things,” is true. Design engineers know that perfection is hard to achieve on the first go around.

In the past, this cycling through the different phases could take considerable time and resources. Fortunately, new tools are now available so that design engineers can go through the design process more quickly and efficiently than ever before. For instance, computer aided analysis tools (stress, thermal, fluid flow, dynamic and kinematic tools) are being integrated right into the computer aided design tools.

In the right hands, these tools provide virtual prototyping so quickly that it makes sense to ask “what if” questions on the fly! The result - better design.

In addition to a quarter century of hands-on design experience that we bring to the industry, Evolution Design Engineering (EDE) uses a number of powerful desktop computer modeling, rendering, and animation tools to speed up and validate designs. EDE and its highly motivated group of interdependent professionals continue to invest in state of the art equipment, to provide world-class design engineering solutions to R&D, manufacturing, and design firms.

Case in point > In addition to the classical industrial design and 3D CAD design work that we’ve offered in the past, Evolution Design Engineering can now offer Finite Element Modeling (FEM) and Analysis to our customers ...Virtual Prototyping!

Important note about FEM

Finite Element Modeling (FEM) is an extremely powerful tool used to validate and optimize part design through “virtual prototyping and testing” .

Because of advancements in computer technology, computer aided “black box” FE Modelers are becoming common place. It is important that the person doing the modeling and analysis understand the science behind FEM and FEA, the difference between linear and non-linear analysis, and how to do the necessary engineering backup calculations and tests “by hand” to ensure the results are valid. The fact that the user interface is easier to use than before, makes it that much easier to get invalid results and not realize it until it is too late. The old adage “garbage in = garbage out” has never been truer.

The benefits of using FEM are self-evident, and the cost of doing FEM is paid back in dividends. But be certain that all of your Finite Element Modeling is done and reviewed by bonified professional mechanical engineers before accepting the output as being true. It’s just too easy to make mistakes.

What’s New At EDE

SolidWorks97

EDE has acquired and installed SolidWorks, the premier solid modeling package of our time. It is the vision and mission of SolidWorks Corporation to put production solid modeling and design on every design engineer’s desktop. With the quality and cost effectiveness of the software so far, we believe they are going to do just that.

SolidWorks Corporation was started by Jon Hirschtick and Scott Harris in 1993, with Michael Payne following in 1994. Payne is one of the founders and former V.P. of Technology of PTC, the developers of Pro/Engineer. SolidWorks has continued to gain wide acceptance in the industry, is Win/95/NT compatible, reads and writes DWG and ACIS files, uses the same large assembly modeler algorithms as Pro/E, allows real-time shaded perspective modeling, produces photorealistic renderings, provides a plethora of best-in-class add-on applications, and has every other CAD company scrambling to catch up.

We are very proud of the work we provide our clients using this new weapon in our CAD arsenal, and we look forward to exchanging data directly with you as your firm embraces SolidWorks, too. Of course, we still use AutoCAD and Pro/Engineer as needed to provide a full range of CAD solutions for our clients.

Finite Element Modeling

EDE now has access to COSMOS/Works 2.0. The COSMOS/Works FFE modeler is integrated directly into SolidWorks97 and provides seamless design checking and analysis on the fly. Now, those “what if” questions can be answered in short order. We can provide you with - Linear static and buckling analysis - Steady-state and transient heat transfer analysis - Natural frequency determination (Modal) - IGES, ACIS, STEP, and PRT import - SRAC, ANSYS, and NASTRAN export

Printed Circuit Board Design

EDE has access to a first rate PC Board designer and a real wizard with PADS. As a result, EDE can now handle all your overflow PCB and component layout work. Give us a try.

Digital and Analog Circuit Design

We have also developed a relationship with a couple of top-notch electrical design engineers. Combined, they bring over 50 years of design experience to EDE. Focus is on embedded and digital signal processing for medical, laboratory, industrial, commercial, and military products.

New Website Address

Our new URL at www.edeinc.com is chock full of useful hyperlinks to sites of interest to people involved in technology product design and development If you haven’t been there recently, check it out!

On-line Video, and Whiteboard, Conferencing

EDE has made it easy for our team of experts and clients to communicate with each other in real time using email and on-line video conferencing. Internet conferencing saves time and provides a level of onscreen interaction never before experienced by the average design firm, or their clients.

Speak to your system administrator and ask him or her to download Microsoft NetMeeting 2.0 from our Internet site at www.edeinc.com, free of charge. Then get started with whiteboarding and application sharing (i.e., CAD, Spreadsheets) in real time, while we talk with you on the phone about your project. You won’t believe how easy it is. No special hardware is required except that you should have a fairly highspeed connection to the Internet, 28.8k or better. Even better, low cost K56Flex modems offer 56k data transfer over regular phone lines.

Hot Tips

SolidWorks97 - electronic paper trail

In order to maintain proper documentation, i.e., an electronic paper trail of previous revisions to parts, I have found the following procedure to work.

• 1 - Open the .prt file of the component to be revised and do a "save as" to your chosen new name, -01, -02 etc.
• 2 - Open the .drw file of the component to be revised and do the same.
• 3 - Now make your changes to the new .prt file and they will be reflected in the .drw parametrically.
• 4 - If this component belongs to an assembly, open the .asm file, locate the revised .prt in the Feature Manager, click on "component properties", use the "browser" to locate the new .prt name and select it.
• 5 - Rebuild the assembly and save.

AutoCAD r14 - all new and really fast

Release 14 has been out for over a month now. The word on the streets is that unlike R13, R14 is very stable, is faster than R13 and R12DOS, uses less RAM, and allows for fast transparent panning and zooms in PaperSpace. It also has a new “AutoSnap” feature similar to Vellum’s. Upgrade pricing from R13 to R14 is around $500/seat. As a result, there is no reason to wait to upgrade. The increased speed, the fact that it reads and writes R12/R13 files, and numerous other benefits make the decision to upgrade easy.

Motion Control - fast, precise, low cost

During one of our more recent projects, EDE found an excellent linear actuator stepper drive that seems to outperform any other linear actuator in its class. Its from Eastern Air Drives. It can provide resolutions of 0.000625”/step at speeds up to 8000 pulses per second! This thing really screams and costs less than $100 per motor. Contact Denis Sullivan at D.A. Sullivan Company (800) 643-6240 for more information.

On another motion control note, new electronic processors that cost less and have more capabilities are changing motion control dramatically, expanding applications and fostering the move toward open architecture. For instance, “smart motors” are available that not only contain the motor, but include the encoder, PLC, and network manager built right into the back of the drive. Users can program these drives via a serial port to provide control of position, velocity, and acceleration. Could be cost effective in variable cooling systems. For more information, contact Animatics, Inc., Santa Clara, California.

Snapshots from recent EDE projects

The most important set of rules in Product Development

Product development comprises the design of a product, plus the development of the plans for manufacturing, distribution, the market approach, and sometimes even the whole facility. This demands a phase by phase approach with respect to the overall development process.

The success of a new product depends on the measure in which one succeeds in meeting the demands of users, market, production and profitability, which are often at odds with each other.

In product development there are always alternatives. To find the best one, at least some of the alternatives have to be (partially) worked out. It is very important that an ‘unfruitful’ alternative be noted and stopped as soon as possible. Furthermore, at the end of each phase, it is should be decided whether the product idea should be worked out further.

This method and short set of rules comprise the process known as “Concentric Development”. This set of rules is the most important in implementing successful product development.