Development of an Integrated Computer Aided Design Tool for Microirrigation Systems

Planning, design and management of microirrigation systems require extensive numerical calculations. The introduction of computers in these processes removes much of the complications in calculation and results in more accurate analysis. Not many of the available software can be used to deal with an overall irrigation system implementation. Usually, separate software are used for irrigation planning and irrigation systems design. Consequently, this increases the investment cost for using the software in irrigation schemes. Hence, an integrated approach for both planning and system design is required. In this study, an integrated computer aided design for microirrigation systems was developed. The program was written in Visual Basic (version 6.0) and it runs in Windows environment. A user-friendly interface is provided to give more flexibility to the user. This program uses menu bar and toolbar which takes the user to all data entry and results dialogs. Additionally, it is designed in such a way that extensive use of tables tables and graphics will be provided. This program also provides a help file that can be used as a guide for selecting the appropriate data during data entry processes. The developed program has the ability to estimate crop water requirements and design of microirrigation system pipelines. The computation of reference crop evapotranspiration from the available climatic data can be done for daily and monthly time steps, using F AO Penman-Monteith method. Crop water requirement during the whole crop growing season can be calculated. Using these data, the program estimates irrigation requirement taking into consideration the available rainfall. All the inputted data and the obtained results can be displayed in tabular or graphical forms. The program is also capable of performing analysis of either lateral or submain unit. All the emitter flows along a lateral or in a submain unit can be determined. Additionally, maximum and minimum emitter flows and their locations can also be determined. Finally, emitter flow variation and pressure variation along a lateral or in a submain unit are computed. In this stage, tables and graphics are also provided. The overall laterals' layout and emitter flows profile can be displayed in the screen. The developed program can be considered as a tool for preliminary design of micro irrigation systems. It is recommended to extend it to more powerful software by including the design of all irrigation system

Integrated computer aided design simulation and manufacture

Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) have been investigated and developed since twenty years as standalone systems. A large number of very powerful but independent packages have been developed for Computer Aided Design,Aanlysis and Manufacture. However, in most cases these packages have poor facility for communicating with other packages. Recently attempts have been made to develop integrated CAD/CAM systems and many software companies are actively engaged in this field of engineering. In the present work an integrated system for Computer Aided Design, Analysis and Manufacture has been developed incorporating AutoCAD Draughting package, Finite Element Analysis software and NC machining software. In this system, the draughting and NC machining software are resident m a PC and the Finite Element and Mesh Generation programs are resident m the mainframe computer. Appropriate softwares have also been developed for effective communication between different packages of this integrated system. The difficulties experienced in making the system work and the way these facilities were solved are described in this thesis with special reference to communication software

A framework for a computer aided design system for product oriented manufacturing systems

In this paper we present a framework and an associated support system for the design of Product Oriented Manufacturing Systems (POMS). This includes the characterization and description of the structure and components of the support system, including database, user interface and knowledge base. The framework components are integrated into an organized system called CADS_POMS (Computer Aided Design System for POMS)

Automatic feature extraction from conventional CAD model to support feature-based design approach for the sheet metal stamping industries

Despite the continuing improvement in computer aided design (CAD) systems and improvements in computer aided manufacturing (CAM), the process planning activity has still not been completely integrated into the CAD/CAM cycle. Particularly in sheet metal stamping industries human interpretation of CAD data is required to extract the geometry and technological information of a component. As a result most CAD systems are used as advanced drafting and drawing management tools by designers. Thus the responsibility for interpreting the design data required for extracting the manufacturing part features still resides with the process planner. Which has increase possibilities of entering errors with design data. A need, therefore, exists to develop expert system for automatic features extraction from a CAD database. An application software was developed for automatic feature extraction from conventional CAD model database to impliment feature-based design approach for the sheet metal stamping industries

Automated process planning for metal hybrid additive and subtractive manufacturing

The manufacturing industry is currently evolving from mass production to mass customization and ultimately towards mass personalization. Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) is deemed as a key to the future of manufacturing, and Hybrid Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing (Hybrid AM/SM) can be a path to realize it. While Hybrid AM/SM equipment are being developed, automated process planning for them is far from being integrated. Enabling automated process planning for Hybrid AM/SM will bring the integrationof AM and SM to an unprecedented level. This research problem spans multiple aspects of Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM). This presentation introduces several proposed methods for AM/SM automated process planning, including an out-of-envelope method, Design-for-Hybrid systems and future integration modes for Hybrid AM/SM. The results of this work will enable integration of the extraordinary geometric capabilities of Additive Manufacturing with the precision of subtractive methods

User interface for integrated computer aided design systems

The purpose was the development of a user interface and other appropriate tools to be used in Computer Aided Design systems which can integrate a wide variety of independently developed design and analysis tools. The interface was intended for the integration of programs to be used in the conceptual design of aerospace systems. A user's manual is included

Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) and the principle of business control

In response to the increasing international competitiveness, many manufacturing businesses are rethinking their management strategies and philosophies towards achieving a computer integrated environment. The explosive growth in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMI) has resulted in the formation of functional "Islands of Automation" such as Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM), Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) and Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRPII). This has resulted in an environment which has focussed areas of excellence and poor overall efficiency, co-ordination and control. The main role of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is to integrate these islands of automation and develop a totally integrated and controlled environment. However, the various perceptions of CIM, although developing, remain focussed on a very narrow integration scope and have consequently resulted in mere linked islands of automation with little improvement in overall co-ordination and control. This thesis, that is the research described within, develops and examines a more holistic view of CIM, which is based on the integration of various business elements. One particular business element, namely control, has been shown to have a multi-facetted and underpinning relationship with the CIM philosophy. This relationship impacts various CIM system design aspects including the CIM business analysis and modelling technique, the specification of systems integration requirements, the CIM system architectural form and the degree of business redesign. The research findings show that fundamental changes to CIM system design are required; these are incorporated in a generic CIM design methodology. The affect and influence of this holistic view of CIM on a manufacturing business has been evaluated through various industrial case study applications. Based on the evidence obtained, it has been concluded that this holistic, control based approach to CIM can provide a greatly improved means of achieving a totally integrated and controlled business environment. This generic CIM methodology will therefore make a significant contribution to the planning, modelling, design and development of future CIM systems

Multidisciplinary Expert-aided Analysis and Design (MEAD)

The MEAD Computer Program (MCP) is being developed under the Multidisciplinary Expert-Aided Analysis and Design (MEAD) Project as a CAD environment in which integrated flight, propulsion, and structural control systems can be designed and analyzed. The MCP has several embedded computer-aided control engineering (CACE) packages, a user interface (UI), a supervisor, a data-base manager (DBM), and an expert system (ES). The supervisor monitors and coordinates the operation of the CACE packages, the DBM; the ES, and the UI. The DBM tracks the control design process. Models created or installed by the MCP are tracked by date and version, and results are associated with the specific model version with which they were generated. The ES is used to relieve the control engineer from tedious and cumbersome tasks in the iterative design process. The UI provides the capability for a novice as well as an expert to utilize the MCP easily and effectively. The MCP version 2(MCP-2.0) is fully developed for flight control system design and analysis. Propulsion system modeling, analysis, and simulation is also supported; the same is true for structural models represented in state-space form. The ultimate goal is to cover the integration of flight, propulsion, and structural control engineering, including all discipline-specific functionality and interfaces. The current MCP-2.0 components and functionality are discussed

Specialized case tools for the development of information-calculating applications

© SGEM2017. All Rights Reserved. This report presents an approach to building specialized computer-aided software engineering(CASE) tools for the development of information-calculating applications including computer aided accounting, business correspondence, statistics etc. These tools form an integrated development environment allowing the computer aided development of different applications in this field. The concept of the integrated development environment is defined as aset of tools and techniques allowing the design and development of software applications. This concept, previously used in procedural programming, has more recently proved to be a very important attribute for object-oriented programming. Integrated development environments traditionally include tools for the design and implementation of software systems, different libraries of classes, programming tools and program generators. Theintegrated environment which we consider in our report consists of a formulainterpreter, a screen form generator and a specialized library of classes. The distinguishing features of information-calculating applicationsare the processing of a set of tables and the making calculations which can be conveniently represented by thetools of relational database systems. The implementation of software productwas carried out using the Visual FoxPro database system and has been practically tested in a series of commercial applications concerning computer aided accountancy and business correspondence

Integrated design of production systems in a lighting manufacturer using CAD and simulation in layout and process optimization

This paper discusses production systems design issues, applied to the production system layout of a manufacturer of lighting fittings and components. In this paper, production systems design software tools – Information Systems, Simulation and Computer Aided Design are integrated, exploring ways of dealing with data diversity and assuring valid and efficient production system layouts, taking advantage of the mentioned data integration. This integration is implemented on Microsoft Access (databases with system knowledge repository), AutoCAD (layout design) and WITNESS (simulation). The software package developed was called IDS (Integrated Design of Systems). This approach can help on global system optimization that considers all important system resources and system performance measures. Solutions are expected to be faster to achieve and better than solutions obtained with non-integrated approaches. IDS approach is open and accessible, thus enabling different companies to use this advanced production systems design tool, taking advantage of simulation and CAD systems and their integration. This application intends to validate the concept and functionalities of the proposed tool, on a real industrial case study.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (algoritmi