The program offers business and marketing solutions that are based on technology. Such solutions might include real-time application service assistance, market information, technical fixes, or scientific knowledge that supports a regulatory requirement. It might also include a full-scale development effort.

"Technology can provide the critical edge for improving productivity, reducing costs, and providing greater customer value," said Kurt Yeager, EPRI president and CEO. "It also has the benefits of increased global electrification, improved health and safety, and better stewardship of our natural resources."

The Solid Edge solid modeling program is equipped with a sheet metal design sensor from E-Ring of Madison, Ala. The sensor provides a gauge-like readout that gives continual distance readings to designers and helps guide them as they design.

The sensor offers a technique for extracting geometric properties and characteristics, according to its developer.

Kelly's company designs stamping dies and checking fixtures for the automotive industry. Designs range from dies that stamp out simple brackets to those that stamp entire car hoods or chassis panels. The company typically designs new stamping and checking equipment for each new vehicle design.

Neil Fowler Design Associates, a designer of stamping dies, has moved from 2-D to 3-D design software in order to meet requirements of the automotive parts industry.

The software Kelly uses helps design fixtures from start to finish, including small brackets, full instrument panels, front fascias, and automated fixtures. Three years ago, Neil Fowler began using Mechanical Desktop software. The change came because customers wanted solid models delivered at low cost, Kelly said.

"Car manufacturers and suppliers are increasingly requiring us to provide solid models," Kelly said. "Our designs are very complex, so the work is challenging."

The company needed a 3-D tool for the kinds of part models engineers create, he said. "These tools allow us to design as though we were assembling the part on the shop floor," Kelly said. "The 3-D renderings help us see how the parts fit together."

For Kelly, who used AutoCAD, another Autodesk software in high school and college, the move from 2-D to 3-D felt like meeting an old friend.

When the company was asked to design a private sailing yacht, a trimaran that had to weigh exactly 6.5 metric tons, engineers needed a way to design the various structures so that they would all come together to meet the proper weight. And each structure also had to fit together and hold up under the rigors of sailing.

Because the yacht would be so big, engineers couldn't build a prototype, or even of various structures that were to be a part of it. ComTec used solid modeling software to design the complex structure. It ran into problems that seemed minute, but it had to pay attention to every detail. For instance, the outriggers had been designed to fold toward the hull. Therefore, the engineers had to specially model all bolts, adjusting cylinders, and rods to accommodate the outrigger design. To improve the sailing characteristics, they simulated stresses to the mast to find its failure point. For that, they used a temperature simulation feature included in the software. The company used a Cosmos software package for simulation, modeling, and finite element analysis. The software is from Structural Research and Analysis Corp. of Los Angeles.

Engineers also had to determine stress or failure risks for the different laminates and constructions used on the hull, outriggers, and floats. They were able to do that by using the software. In the end, they had modeled a yacht that included many components and weighed exactly 6.5 metric tons.

Visualization software, called Ensight, from CEI of Morrisville, N.C., lets Voith researchers watch the virtual fish pass through a hydraulic turbine and pinpoint what forces generated by the turbine could harm the fish.

This virtual method of analysis is based on the assumption that fish swimming through the complex flow field of a hydro turbine can be represented as simple geometrical ellipsoids moving through a digital flow field. Researchers calculate velocities and pressures through the water using CFD software, also from CEI. After running those calculations, researchers input fish positions, sizes, and other properties into the virtual fish program.

The CFD calculations and kinematic formulas are used by the virtual fish program to determine the forces on the fish and the resulting movements and rotations around them. The data are then imported into the visualization software program, which analyzes, visualizes, and communicates large CFD problems.

Voith Hydro presents its animation on a large screen that can be viewed in 3-D with the help of special glasses. The 3-D images enable the simulations to be viewed with depth perception, which makes it easier to see flow fields and the interaction between objects.

Held all over the United States, the camps are sponsored by a partnership between Cybercamps of Kirkland, Wash., and Stanford University's academic computing department.

"Most high school students are very computer savvy, but few of them have the quality of skills necessary for academic and professional excellence," said Pete Findley, chief executive officer at Cybercamps.

The camps are held at colleges and universities around the country for children 7 to 16 years old, but the program held at Stanford this year is specifically designed for students 16 to 21. Instructors from both Cybercamps and Stanford's academic computing department teach at the camp held at Stanford.

The developers say a computer vision-based gauge would be much safer than current gauges that rely on a sensor using low-voltage electrical leads that come in contact with the fuel.

The image processing method was developed by Srivatsan Chakravarthy, who earned a master's degree in 1999 at Penn State, and two Penn State faculty members, Rangachar Kasturi and Rajeev Sharma.

With the method, two transparent glass portholes in the top of the fuel tank allow the access needed to determine the depth of the liquid inside. One port enables a light source to flash the image of two crossed lines on the surface of the liquid, while the other one enables a video camera attached to a computer to record the position of the lines.

The computer calculates the change in the depth of the tank's liquid applying a process called digital mapping to these lines.

The mathematical problems involved in determining the depth in a three-dimensional space from a two-dimensional camera image forms a part of almost all computer vision applications, according to the developers.

The city solicited the expertise of Italian engineer Guccio Galluzzi to design a safe, strong, economically viable, and aesthetically pleasing diving structure. Officials then asked Giorgio Morelli, a civil engineer, to ensure that the platform was designed in the best way possible. For this, Morelli used finite element analysis software from Algor of Pittsburgh.

To test the diving platform structure, Morelli used the software's vibration analysis capability to perform a natural frequency analysis on the springboard structure.

To test the diving structure's four tiers, he designed a test model of the structures using a composite plate-shell element included within a finite-element model-building tool. Each tier—at 3, 7.5, and 10 meters—was a platform composed of concrete on a metal frame that extended from concrete columns.

For safety assessment, Morelli used natural frequency analysis to analyze each tower model without platforms, each tower with platforms, and each platform individually. The natural frequencies for each had much greater values than the critical value of resonance created by the divers, meaning they were safe to use.

Morelli said the Italian Swimming Federation verified his findings by testing and approving the structure after it was built. The result: a strong, attractive, and economical diving structure that was a success during the 1998, 1999, and 2000 Italian Diving Championships.

"We had been using several design tools within the organization and we needed to identify a single standard to ensure efficient collaboration among 10 facilities in six countries," said David Hoskins, project engineer at BorgWarner Cooling Systems.

The company chose 3-D computer-aided design software from SolidWorks of Concord, Mass. It will use more than 50 seats of the software to design and manufacture its line of cooling systems for automotive, sport-utility vehicle, truck, and off-highway equipment.

The company chose the CAD software because it provided the modeling, drawing, and animation capabilities the company sought, coupled with a range of data translation tools, Hoskins said.

"The ISE Initiative will revolutionize the way NASA plans, develops, and operates its missions," said Daniel S. Goldin, NASA administrator, in a recent statement he made to Congress. "ISE will help engineers develop tools to enable NASA to rapidly assess multiple mission concepts and system design options and to predict total lifecycle cost, schedule, risk, and performance with much greater accuracy than is now possible."

To that end, the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland has installed a reconfigurable advanced visualization environment, or RAVE, from Fakespace Systems of Kitchener, Ontario.

Engineers and scientists at NASA's Glenn Research Center will use the RAVE to explore computational fluid dynamics and structural analysis simulations simultaneously with engineers in other locations. They will use broad bandwidth links among systems to share the virtual reality environment.

Briefly Noted

Detroit-based LMS has released CAT/DADS Version 9.51, a motion simulation software integrated with CATIA from Dassault Systèmes of Paris.

Mastercam Mill Version 8, Windows-based CAD and CAM software for two- to five-axis milling, is now available from CNC Software of Tolland, Conn.

Structural Dynamics Research Corp. of Milford, Ohio, has announced the availability of its I-deas 8 software, which allows engineers to create and automate designs online.

The latest version of CFX-5 computational fluid dynamics software is available from AEA Technology of Waterloo, Ontario.

Cadkey of Marlborough, Mass., a maker of CAD software, has signed a licensing agreement with Digital Immersion Software of Sudbury, Ontario, a developer of 3-D software. The agreement lets Cadkey offer virtual reality capabilities and animation within its Cadkey 99 software.

In order to enter the touch panel product marketplace, the optical systems division at St. Paul-Minn.-based 3M has purchased Dynapro of Vancouver, B.C., a manufacturer of touch products.

EdgeCam 5.0, a mold and die making program, is now available from Pathtrace Systems of Ontario, Calif.

MSC.Software of Los Angeles, which provides simulation software, has launched Engineering Exchange, a Web-based service that connects companies outsourcing engineering services with consultants who provide those services.

Theorum Solutions of Loveland, Ohio, has created a business partnership with Knowledge Technologies International of Luxembourg. The two companies said they will develop tighter CAD integration tools than are currently available.

The soon-to-be-released version of Vellum Solids CAD software from Ashlar of Austin, Texas, will feature dimensional constraint managing capabilities. The company has licensed DCM technology from D-Cubed of Cambridge, England.

Structural Research and Analysis Corp. of Los Angeles, developer of the Cosmos suite of design analy-sis software, and ElectroMagneticWorks of Montreal, a maker of electromagnetic analysis and simulation software, announced the development of Cosmos/EMS, a 3-D field simulator for low-frequency electromagnetic and electrome-chanical applications.

home | features | news update | marketplace | departments | about ME | back issues | ASME | site search

© 2000 by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers