Ever think civil engineers speak a foreign language? It might be the math they use.

Now a mechanical engineer at Purdue University in Indiana and a civil engineer at Tel Aviv University in Israel have developed mathematical theorems that give mechanical and civil engineers a common language.

The theorems combine the mathematics of kinematics and statics, used by engineers in both professions but in different ways, and should improve design software, said Gordon Pennock, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.

Designs for multiple-platform robots could be created using theorems that combine civil and mechanical engineering math, developers say.

"Civil engineers understand the mathematics of forces and moments, and mechanical engineers understand the mathematics of velocity and acceleration," Pennock said. "We have shown that these concepts are, in fact, analogous. This duality was not fully appreciated until we presented several theorems and documented the proofs of these theorems."

The theorems help engineers account for force, moment, velocity, and acceleration.

Pennock developed the theorems with Offer Shai, a civil engineer in the Department of Mechanics, Materials, and Systems at Tel Aviv University.

The theorems could help mechanical engineers create a new class of multiple-platform robots that maintain their strength even when damaged or otherwise compromised, Pennock said.

Robot manipulators—used in manufacturing—are controlled by sophisticated computer software and can perform a variety of tasks.

"Current robots have a single platform," Pennock said. "But we demonstrated how the dual theorems will enable engineers to design more functional robots with more than one platform."

The theorems could also be incorporated into design software that both mechanical and civil engineers could use to create better machines and structures, he added.

This year should bring a steady rise in computer-aided engineering purchases by engineering companies, according to an analysis firm.

In January, Daratech of Cambridge, Mass., which tracks the CAE software sector, surveyed companies with engineering software installations to see if managers plan to invest in more this year.

Most respondents were charged with purchasing the CAE software for their companies. Based on their responses, Daratech predicts that the CAE market is ripe for growth in 2006, said Sean Hackett, principal analyst.

For instance, 60 percent of respondents said their investment in CAE would increase in 2006, and 82 percent said that their executives described CAE investments as a benefit to the business.

A 25-year-old company that primarily serves the automotive industry says it has found a number of advantages in switching to a 3-D CAD system from a 2-D system about a year ago.

The company, Burloak Tool and Die Ltd. in Burlington, Ontario, provides a variety of services, from custom-built fabrication to precision custom machining and stamping.

About a year ago, Burloak's project engineers adopted VISI Series software, a CAD/CAM package from Vero International Inc. of Bingham Farms, Mich., for many activities related to designing tools and dies, engineering, and quoting new jobs.

Burloak Tool and Die Ltd., which serves the automotive industry, recently switched from a 2-D CAD system to a 3-D system, its president says.

For a recent project involving a skid plate that rests under an automotive engine, designers used VISI to determine the final shape of the product.

"The skid plate properties are such that there is tremendous bounce-back once the aluminum form is pressed into the die," said Randy Barber, Burloak's technical sales representative.

The company used the package early in the design process to research the best methods to design the part so it would fit the customer's tolerances. This early research helped create a part that met all job specifications, Barber said.

In another use for the package, Barber calls upon design files to help sell products and services. He maintains an Excel spreadsheet with screen shots of parts and dies, and analysis reports that define job materials, costs, schedules, and the like. He also has a library of parts with associated quotes.

Les Rackham, Burloak's president, said he opted to implement the software package because it offers specific modules for tool and die design.

The design software that mechanical engineers rely on every day also plays a key role in other—don't take this the wrong way—perhaps more glamorous industries.

Take Hollywood, for example. Set designers often mock up an entire movie set using CAD software before lifting a hammer. The digital models give them early cost and structural information to work with.

James Bissell, a production designer, modeled the broadcast studio set for the movie Good Night and Good Luck in CAD software before the crew built it.

For instance, James Bissell, a production designer, digitally prototyped the broadcast-studio set used in last year's film, Good Night and Good Luck. For that, he used SketchUp 3-D modeling software from @Last Software of Boulder, Colo.

The film, directed by George Clooney, follows journalist Edward R. Murrow as he investigates Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Army hearings of the 1950s.

Bissell used the script as reference when modeling the studio set. His models took into account all the camera angles and showed in great detail how the set would look. The final movie sets and the camera angles were based on those digital models, according to a statement from the software developer.

Executives at a Korean automotive supplier know something about engineering software: Don't buy more than you need.

To that end, ShinSung Information Technology Co. Ltd. of Seoul, Korea, an automotive parts supplier, recently installed viewing and file-sharing software so its employees and customers could easily pass 2-D and 3-D designs back and forth across the Internet.

The move lets all authorized users—the supplier and the supplied—download and access native CAD files from the Internet.

The company first checked out product lifecycle management software. But the systems that the supplier looked at didn't allow employees to view and distribute their design data as managers would like. They were also too expensive, said Phil-Soon Shin, ShinSung's general manager.

With Actify Publisher and SpinFire Professional—the viewing and communication software that ShinSung eventually purchased—employees can view and share files without the unnecessary bells and whistles the PLM system would have provided, he added. Both packages are from Actify Inc. of San Francisco.

"The ability to distribute drawings and models through the Internet has increased the utilization of our legacy systems, so we could immediately begin reducing expenses and increasing productivity," Shin said.

A healing cut and an embryo slowly developing into a fetus are both examples of what a researcher at the University of Missouri in Columbia calls biological self-assembly: the tendency of living systems to make themselves whole.

Gabor Forgacs, a professor of biological physics at the university, and his team recently received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to try to isolate the forces that control self-assembly. They'll use a number of proprietary and commercial software programs to aid their search. Forgacs says the answer could offer breakthroughs in a new process called organ printing, which his team is helping to develop.

The printing process takes cells from a patient with a damaged organ, blood vessel, or valve and uses those cells to produce a replacement organ. Bio-printing could solve many transplantation problems. It would eliminate the need for people to be on long waiting lists for transplants and, because the cells used belong to the patient, there would be no worry of rejection or infection.

Once scientists understand the organizing principles that control self-assembly and the cues necessary to trigger the system, they can put that knowledge to work for the organ printing process, Forgacs said.

"We'll probably never learn exactly how biological self-assembly works, but we won't need to," he said. "What we want to know is how to control self-assembly and be able to mimic what the biological system does."

Forgacs calls organ printing the future of transplantation.
"It's quick and relatively simple," he said. "A number of fundamental questions have to be answered first, but these don't seem to be insurmountable."

A developer of decision-management products, Robust Decisions Inc. in Corvallis, Ore., has adapted its team-decision software to run on a central server.

The original software, called Accord, guides teams to reach decisions and has been available for use on desktop PCs. Under the name Accord Network, the new version is designed to reside on a server, allowing for better collaboration among members of dispersed teams, the developer said.

Toward consensus: Team members rate an idea and their knowledge of issues in Accord software.

The software uses various devices to help team members quantify their levels of knowledge, confidence, and perceived risk on various questions. Managers use the information to define consensus and ultimately to reach decisions. The company said that Accord software supports teams with product development, trade studies, vendor selection, and many other business decisions.

David Ullman, CEO and president of Robust Decisions, said Accord Network keeps a database with a record of entries by various team members, allowing members to reconstruct the process. "This helps to explain the rationale behind the decision," he said.

A renewable server license costs $10,000 a year. Accord Network can be accessed by 10 users at a time.

A quick tour of the application is posted on the company's Web site, www.robustdecisions.com.

When it comes to deadly diseases, a simple change in the fold of a protein makes the difference between life and death. But it's often hard for researchers to visualize and thus study these complexly folded proteins.

A Michigan Technological University physics professor, Ulrich Hansmann, hopes to advance his understanding of some of the world's deadliest diseases with the help of a powerful supercomputer.

Through an agreement with the Neumann Institute for Computing in Juelich, Germany, Hansmann can use the institute's supercomputer to model the shape of malformed proteins.

Protein molecules fold into shapes so complex as to make the most elaborate origami seem simplistic, he said. Properly folded proteins form the underpinning of all processes in the human body. Malformed proteins have been implicated in diseases ranging from Alz- heimer's to mad cow disease.

"To predict how a protein will function—or malfunction—you need to calculate its structure. And you need lots of computational power to do that," Hansmann said.

A supercomputer at the Neumann Institute lets him simulate proteins in a way that is particularly useful to his research, he added.

Misfolded proteins can form toxic aggregates in the brain, causing damage that, so far, has proved irreversible. The misfolded proteins stick together and can destroy regions of the brain, Hansmann said. Mad cow disease is among the best known and most feared of these diseases, but individuals are much more likely to succumb to other maladies involving proteins gone bad, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

Under an agreement between the university, in Houghton, Mich., and the Neumann Institute, Hansmann will head the institute's Computational Biology and Biophysics research group, whose researchers will have access to the institute's 10-teraflop supercomputer.

"It's orders of magnitude better than what's available to me now," Hansmann said.

TekSoft of Scottsdale, Ariz., which makes manufacturing software, has released CAMWorks 2006EX with a new module for multi-axis machining.

Algor Inc. of Pittsburgh says its upgraded finite element analysis program, Algor version 19, features expanded support for 64-bit Windows and 32- and 64-bit Red Hat Linux operating systems.

Collaborative data and process management software maker Empresa Solutions Inc. of Phoenix has upgraded its Kinnosa Workflow program for PDMWorks from SolidWorks.

Dynamic Design Solutions of Leuven, Belgium, has released FEMtools 3.1.1, a maintenance release that provides several improvements and corrections to the CAE analysis and scripting software program.

Office2DWG, newly available from DotSoft of Ewing,
Ky., lets users place Microsoft Office documents in designs. It's a self-contained server designed for workgroups.

PartMaker Software/IMCS Inc. of Fort Washington, Pa., has released version 7.8 of its PartMaker CAD and CAM software for CNC machining.

Coade Inc. of Houston has released Caesar II version five, an updated edition of the company's pipe-stress analysis software.

Spirax Sarco Inc. of Blythewood, S.C., has expanded its CAD Center drawing library of steam system components and applications for steam system engineers.

CoCreate Software Inc. of Fort Collins, Colo., has released its OneSpace 2006 PLM application.

A company that makes plastics injection molding software, Moldflow Corp. of Framingham, Mass., has released version six of its Moldflow Plastics Insight design analysis software.

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© 2006 by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers