Establishing a Euro-Asia Network in Design and Manufacture Through Eu Projects

In an era of rapid economic growth and industrial development in developing countries in Asia, engineering education systems in these countries are under increasing pressure to meet the demands of the local labour markets. At the same time there is a lack of interest from students in engineering in Europe. With support from the Asia-Link Programme of European Commission, three projects on engineering design and manufacture, led by the University of Strathclyde, have been undertaken by eleven Institutions in nine countries in both Europe and Asia. These projects aim at establishing a European and Asian (EUROASIA) network in engineering design and manufacture, contributing to the demands of today’s multinational engineering industries, and promoting local development through engineering education for both Asia and Europe. One project has been successfully completed, and the other two projects are still ongoing. Overall, this network in engineering design and manufacture has been successfully built up; the proposed deliverables and achievements have been made; and the impact in the engineering sectors of Asian partner countries is positive and remarkable

Rapid prototyping using the selective sintering process

Examines the process of selective laser sintering [SLS] for rapid prototyping. Begins with a brief history of [SLS] then describes the main components of the SLS system, the build materials which are used and the actually process operating cycle by which models are produced. Looks at the 3‐D CAD data preparation and factors affecting the quality of the models. Concludes that selective laser sintering is a continually developing process and in particular much effort is being spent on the development of new materials for the models

Information Requirements for the Support of Assembly Mating Conditions

This paper presents an analysis of the requirement to be able to exchange or share data about assembly mating conditions between different computer systems. The challenge is that although drawing and solid model data can be exchanged between different systems, there are currently no methods of exchanging data about assembly mating conditions. A brief assessment of existing data exchange technologies is presented, the benefits of a canonical representation for mating conditions are discussed, and some of the information requirements that need to be satisfied are detailed. The requirement for a canonical representation is illustrated with a data model that satisfies the information requirements. An example of the use of the data model to describe a mating condition is presented

Forensics and autopsies: exploiting popular culture to teach design for commercial manufacture?

Forensic science is the discipline that students and parents consider as most interesting, providing a well paid and satisfying career (Manufacturing Foundation 2003). The influence of popular culture and the high level of media exposure may be a reason for this positive perception. Contrary to this, there seems to be a negative image of manufacturing, often perpetuated by the media. This anti-manufacturing attitude has prevailed for some time and is acknowledged by many (e.g. Scottish Executive, Make It Scotland, RSA, Foresight, MORI/EMTA, Unipart, The Manufacturing Institute). Industry and universities alike are finding it increasingly difficult to find enthusiastic recruits. This paper reviews current approaches to teaching the relatively new curriculum content (SQA, 1999) of commercial manufacture in the Scottish secondary school system and describes development work with in-service teachers and school students. The development work described aims to challenge the anti-manufacturing stereotype through a pedagogy designed on motivational principles and explicit use of the language and tools of popular media culture. The approach taken exploits the interest in all things ‘forensic’ and uses ‘product autopsy’. It aims to link the author’s previous work in exploring values and expressing opinions in Technology Education (McLaren, 1997) with recent curriculum developments and related teaching strategies. The integrated approach attempts to encourage greater engagement in aspects of technological sensitivity and technological perspective (SCCC, 1996) when learning about designing for commercial manufacture

Information Sharing Within a Distributed, Collaborative Design Process: A Case Study

A current research project at the University of Strathclyde is introduced which aims to better understand the role of distributed engineering design in industry and address present problems. The first major industrial case study of the project, completed within a multinational in the oil and gas industry, is then described together with the main research questions. This multinational will be described in the text as company A. The findings are split into three areas depending on the data collection method employed. The main case study issues are investigated through interviews while a profile of current activities and perceptions comes from completed questionnaires. Sampling and analysis of distributed activity over time is served by the completion of daily diaries and direct observation. These combine to increase the understanding of information sharing and collaborative design in a distributed organization. Interviews show the importance of design reuse within the organization contrasting with the pressures of formalizing all parts of a design project. The preponderance of variant design activity is also highlighted along with concerns of continued practice. The questionnaires show that 34% of engineers’ time is spent sourcing relevant information and knowledge and that the most popular sources are company systems followed by personal contact. 18% of work is found to be distributed while colleagues from another location and another floor/department know more 51% and 57% of the time respectively. The detail design phase of a distributed design project is analysed over time which finds that most collaborative work consists of simple information exchange supplementary to the main design activity. Furthermore, concentrated periods of collaborative design are found to follow these information exchange cycles’. Distributed problems are also discussed in the paper, ranging from difficulties with unfamiliar terminology to a lack of visibility at worldwide sites

Guiding component form design using decision consequence knowledge support

This paper describes a generic approach to guiding designers when making decisions during the early stages of design. The objective of the research is to enable designers to foresee unintended life-cycle consequences during mechanical component design. Engineering design is a process of evolving solutions to a design problem through the commitment of decisions. As a designer commits a new design decision, a more concrete design solution is generated. Decisions made can have intended and unintended consequences on the performance of the life phase activities that follow, such as manufacturing, assembly, and disposal. Many existing tools only consider the impact of the design solution on later life-cycle phases when the solution is almost complete. This makes changes expensive and difficult. This paper presents a novel approach to how consequences encountered in down stream life-cycle phases can be brought to the designer's attention early in generation of component form. For this purpose, a knowledge model has been derived from a phenomena model. The phenomena model describes how life-cycle consequences are generated during component synthesis. An insight into the representation of the resultant knowledge model is discussed through examples. The implementation of a prototype Knowledge Intensive CAD tool, entitled FORESEE, aimed at supporting life-oriented, feature-based component synthesis and exploration, is also described. The results of the evaluation of FORESEE with a range of designers show that by using the system designers are motivated to explore alternative design solutions and are able to make more informed design decisions. This highlights that the knowledge structure provides a base for extending feature-based component design to a ‘Design Synthesis for Multi-X’ approach

A functional approach to redesign

This paper describes a methodology to assist in the identification of possible conceptual design variants during redesign. The approach is based on functional reasoning and involves: (1) the structural and functional analysis of an existing design; (2) the production of abstract representations of functions and design entities using conceptual graphs; and (3) design interrogation based on a functional tree approach. The research reported in this paper also focuses on the definition and the representation of elementary mechanical functions. Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) notations are used to structure in a computable form, the relevant information (or design knowledge) conceptualised in either the conceptual graphs or the functional trees. EBNF syntax is also used to formulate rules which aid the partial automation of the reasoning process. The EBNF notations can be mapped to any programming language. A diaphragm valve is used as a case study to demonstrate the approach

An Assessment of Assembly Mating Conditions in the Context of a Product Model

Recent research at the University of Leeds has concentrated on the role of product models in a design and manufacturing environment. This paper describes initial progress in a project developing a data model that can support applications requiring assembly information throughout a product’s life-cycle. Research by other groups worldwide have used sets of mating conditions to describe the physical connectivity between components in an assembly. However these mating conditions are usually application specific. Experiments have been conducted at Leeds to determine whether these previously reported approaches can form the basis for a set of mating conditions which can be represented in a Product Model from which many applications can draw. The experiments were performed by modelling the relationships between components of a shaft mounted speed reducer by 1) using a set of mating conditions and 2) describing the constraints on the degrees of freedom between pairs of components. The perceived shortcomings of these approaches are discussed

Towards a Product Model for Virtual Prototyping

Most virtual prototypes used within the domain of mechanical engineering are well defined geometric representations loosely linked to analysis packages. By taking a holistic, top-down view of the product introduction process this paper argues that virtual prototypes should be based upon product models that allow for the representation of more than just geometric information. A methodology based upon the reference model for open distributed processing is presented that simplifies the task of deciding what information should be supported. The paper argues that virtual prototypes should use product models that integrate the representation of the geometry, function and behaviour of a product. A case study is presented to show how experimental virtual prototyping software, based on such a product model, can aid the product introduction process