TECHNOLOGY and CONCEPTS – a LOGICAL SOLUTION
Todays Educational Institutions have also started implementing the practise of providing the budding engineers and scientists with a proper technological solutions through both conventional and modern techniques.
This has been effectively implemented once the budding engineer joins hands with an organisation,where he/she is exposed to the extremes of technology.But,still the process is not complete. As the very basic functional aspect for a product to be brought out as a end product with all the functions merely depends on the initial conceptual levels.
Well ! the implementation of the right process like CAD/CAM/CAE would help the engineers concept to be brought out into a real end product with all the functions.A very important measure to be taken while planning to adopt a virtual prototyping or product design is to ensure and have the right personality with a proper balance with the theory and practice.A failure in either the theoretical or the practical aspect would spin the solution to a non – terminating issue.
When to start thinking about virtual prototyping or product design ?
When the complexity of a product or a process rules an engineers brain,with confusions and leaving behind a trail of error and dis satifaction,this would be the right place from where you could blend your theoretical results with your practical solutions with as many iterations as possible till the satisfaction builds.Finally once a real feel of the product comes in an engineers mind,a CAE or finite element analysis is performed by awarding the suitable load,materials and other boundary conditions to virtual check the stability of the product.
What would be the best CAD package in the industry in order to adopt product design ?
This is rather based on an individuals skills and the ability to cope,as far as todays industries are concerned,softwares like
Pro/Engineer,CATIA ( Computer Aided Three Dimensional Integrated Applications),Solidworks,SolidEdge,Unigraphics,Rhino etc…but it all depends on the individual ability that a software holds.
How is the efficiency of a CAD /CAM/CAE software calibrated?
The efficiency of a software depends on the ease of functionality and accessibility,certain softwares are domain specific depending upon the flexibility and time of completion.In todays fast moving world of competetions,one priciple always rules that is ” FIRST COME FIRST SERVE “ softwares like, CATIA,Rhino are used extensively by the Aerospace,Automotive and the product design industries,as for the high end code generations that could be flexible in terms of Advanced 3 dimensional surface and solid modeling.Where as softwares like Pro/Engineer,Solid works,Unigraphics are all prefered extensively by the tool and die,mould design ,injection moulding and many other plastic processing and product design industries.
CAE or finite element Analysis softwares are efficient depending upon the least erroneous reports,and the speed of solver capabilities,for instance these softwares are generally classified into General Purpose FEA packages & Specific purpose FEA.softwares like Ansys,Msc Nastran/Patran,NE/Nastran/modeler/FEMAP,Hypermesh are all considered as general purpose FEA pre-post processors/solver.on the other hand,ABAQUS& MSC Marc are softwares designed for most the day today Non-Linear industrial applications.Few others like MSC/Pam crash,LS-Dyna,MSC Fatigue are all specific purpose and well used for crash analysis and Fatigue-creep-life cycle analysis.
Result Interpretations:
This is a very important task where many of the product designers or engineers fail or lack confidence,
for instance:
Investing finance for building a house is not the important activity but, to check the same built at specific durations monitoring it constantly with the right person with an extensive,Structural,Asthetics,Lighting and Interior design knowledge would be an important part to ensure the complete VALUE ( satisfaction) by investing money for the expected FUNCTION (shelter)
similarly,mere using the virtual product design concept alone wont solve all the problems faced by the engineer,but ensuring the results through proper validations and checks with the right methodology.
generally the end results would be approximate with an average deviation of 2- 3 % with respect to the software used or implemented for the specific task.As Fnite element Method itself is an approximation using high end engineering mathematics and mechanics.Hence a controversy in general over this reduced or exceeded value is avoided.
