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This section was

written by
Associate Editor
Jean Thilmany
computing
Digital By 2005, plants won't be able to operate without first
Factory to testing production runs by means of digital factory
Become the software, according to Emmerich Schiller, who is director
Norm of digital production planning in the passenger car division
at DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, Germany.

Schiller spoke at the Delmia user group meeting held

recently in Stuttgart. Delmia makes digital factory
software.

"On the assumption that, in the long run, only five or six
car manufacturers and about 1,000 suppliers will be left
by 2005, the crucial thing is to speed up production with
fewer model ranges and more model variants," Schiller
said.

Planners today spend more than 70 percent of their time

collecting, testing, and updating data, he said. In the
future, those planners might be able to access the current
state of the actual factory digitally—that is, to see a
digital, working mockup that mirrors current factory
workings. Planners could access the data from anywhere
they happen to be, said Gunter Schmidgall of the
automaker's research and development arm.

All factory data could be monitored continually, he added.

More Maj. Steve Schweitzer, who teaches a computer-aided

Classroom design course at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point,
Learning N.Y., thinks that professors should devote the most time
Time possible in the classroom to content, and students should
spend less time learning how to use support technologies.

For example, the more time professors spend explaining

the ins and outs of finite element analysis programs, the
less time students will have to spend learning the theories
and principles of engineering design and analysis,
Schweitzer said.

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Schweitzer said he uses an FEA software package called

Cosmos/DesignStar from Structural Research and
Analysis Corp. of Los Angeles. He said that students are
able to pro-
duce meaningful analyses after just a few lessons.

How to The globe set within the newly completed Al-Faisaliah

Perch a Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was created and mounted
Globe in the building with the help of design software.
Within a
Skyscraper Engineers used CAD
software from TekCAD
of Longwood, Fla., to
design the 79-foot
golden globe on the
Al-Faisaliah Tower in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The owner of the

multi-use, 875-foot
skyscraper decided
to change the
original design
significantly while
the building was still
under construction.
The owner, Prince Bander, wanted a globe mounted
partway up the building. The building's contractor, Turner
International, brought in StarNet International Corp. of
Longwood, Fla., specially for the globe. The company
designs, engineers, and fabricates domes, spaceframes,
and climatic envelopes.

StarNet used CAD software called TekCAD from TekStar

of Longwood, Fla., to develop and link the triangular
faces that make up the 79-foot golden globe.

StarNet then worked with the consulting design team Buro

Happold Engineers of Bath, England, to create a floating
globe effect based on the CAD configuration.

Before assembling the globe, StarNet engineers used a

model-building system that was included in the CAD

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software to make a one-meter prototype of the globe.

With that prototype in hand, engineers were more easily
able to determine how to install the globe 584 feet high on
the building.

Testing a To help test a new design, the John Deere Golf and Turf
New division turned recently to a consulting firm tied to its
Fairway technology supplier. John Deere had redesigned a ball
Mower joint lift yoke on its line of lightweight fairway mowers
Design with the hope of improving the mowers' cutting
performance, and grass-catching ability.

Engineers in the division wanted to make sure the product

would work as designed. To that end, they worked with
engineers at Manta Corp., who field-tested and analyzed
the design.

In order to measure performance of the new design, the

Manta engineers collected data on how the mower
performed on a variety of terrains. They also carried out
finite element analysis of the assembly to predict stresses
for unit load. Then, they combined the measured data
with the stress results and simulated a variety of scenarios
to predict the useful life of the new design. For this, they
used software from International TechneGroup Inc. of
Milford, Ohio, where Manta is also located. Manta is a
majority-owned subsidiary of ITI.

With the test results in hand, John Deere engineers

determined that the new design would meet the company's
requirements.

Plastics Coin Acceptors Inc., a St. Louis maker of coin

Analysis mechanisms, bill acceptors, and control systems for food
Aids Coin and beverage vending machines, has found a way around
Mechanisms one of its engineering challenges: the molding of plastic
parts that require close tolerances.

"Typically, coin changers are restricted in size and require

small and accurate components," said Max Molenaar,
senior engineer at the company. He supervises the tool
design and drafting departments as well as the model shop
and prototyping and computer-aided engineering activities

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at the company.

Coin Acceptors of St.

Louis uses plastic-
flow-analysis software
from Moldflow of
Wayland, Mass., to
design small parts for
its vending-machine
coin and bill acceptors.

Coin Acceptors
engineers began
using plastics
simulation software
called Moldflow Plastics Insight from Moldflow of
Wayland, Mass., in September of last year.

Now, Coin Acceptors' engineers use the software to

analyze each newly designed plastic part. That analysis
lets engineers plan and position the cooling lines before
machining them, which helps prevent the need for
retooling, Molenaar said.

The engineering team is also using the plastics software to

design new parts—some as large as 6 inches wide by 18
inches long and others, including small gear pieces, with
quarter-inch diameters.

Molenaar determined that, before implementing the

plastics simulation software, he and his colleagues spent
about eight hours per model to generate meshes and clean
them up. With the new software, Molenaar says he has
saved around 120 hours of labor on mesh generation. He
calculates that the company will save more than $26,000
per year as a result of the reduction in labor.

Visual- Researchers in Pennsylvania State University's aerospace

ization for engineering department are using parallel computers,
Quieter virtual reality systems, and visualization software to test
Vehicles the causes of aircraft noise and to find ways to reduce it.

While engines cause the majority of noise from aircraft,

aerodynamic noise is also a contributor. This noise comes

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from atmospheric wakes, turbulent airflow passing the

fuselage and wings of the airplane, and a phenomenon
called flow separation. In this phenomenon, an uneven
airflow causes drag, loss of lift, and increased noise and
vibration.

Penn State researchers have been focusing their attention

on the effects of this flow separation on helicopters, but
research in that area could lead to improvements in many
types of vehicles, said Lyle Long, a Penn State professor
of aerospace engineering involved in the studies.

"Separated flow is very common in airplanes,

automobiles, helicopters, trucks, trains, and water
vehicles," Long said. "Being able to predict these flow
fields would have an enormous impact on designing better
vehicles. They could potentially be more efficient and also
quieter."

The airflow around a complex body such as a helicopter

always leads to flow separation, which causes increased
drag and noise, Long said. Helicopters also generate a
downwash of air from the rotor blades that can cause
additional flow separation on the fuselage, leading to
unusual aerodynamic loads and more noise, he said.

If designers could predict separated flow in helicopters,

they could design quieter, more efficient helicopters.

To better understand separated flow, Long recently tested

the Parallel Unstructured Maritime Aerodynamics code
for generating time-accurate flow data. The goal was to
use the code to help predict helicopter airframe noise
coming from complex parts, such as landing gear, slats,
and flaps. For the tests, the research team used parallel
computers, a virtual-reality environment called a
reconfigurable advanced visualization environment, or
RAVE, from Fakespace Systems of Kitchener, Ontario,
and visualization software called Ensight Gold, from
Computational Engineering International of Apex, N.C.,
which worked with the RAVE.

The RAVE is made up of 8-foot-square panels that fully

surround the researcher. The Ensight Gold software
displays animations and also automatically detects and
displays flow features, such as shock waves, cortex cores,
boundary layer separation, and reattachment lines.

"Visualization is crucial to evaluating these codes," Long

said. "Our simulations are really four-dimensional—space

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and time—so traditional graphics are inadequate. Many of

our simulations can't be understood or interpreted by just
looking at a computer monitor."

Long said that with the technologies' help, he and his team
are closer to understanding flow separation, which will
eventually lead to vehicles that emit less aerodynamic
noise.

Advancing Researchers in California have created a publicly

Interaction available database of acoustic measurements of human
Through subjects.
Sound
Richard Duda and V. Ralph Algazi, who are researchers at
the University of California, Davis, said the database
could have a wide range of applications, including
teleconferencing, mobile computing, and home
entertainment.

"One day, computer users could operate a small, wearable

computer using voice commands, with spatial sounds
replacing a visual display," Algazi said. Also, the database
could help develop a virtual-reality system that would
allow engineers and scientists to inter-act with their data
in a 3-D space that uses images and sound.

People use a number of complex sound cues to

experience their surroundings, Algazi said. However,
reproducing those cues accurately is a difficult technical
problem. The cues that stem from the interaction between
sound waves and the human body are important, but they
are difficult to reproduce.

Among the challenges to creating 3-D sound fields is that

each person's spatial sound cues are influenced by
individual factors, such as the shape and position of the
person's ears, Algazi said. These factors vary greatly
among individuals. To mass-produce digital systems that
accurately reproduce 3-D sound fields, engineers need
information about each listener's spatial sound cues. The
new database provides the information that engineers
need to design these fields.

To develop the system, Duda and Algazi measured 45

different people to see exactly how the sizes and shapes
of their ears and bodies influenced the sounds they heard.
Acoustic measurements were stored in a database,

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together with measurements of the size and shape of the

listeners' ears, heads, and torsos.

By knowing how a click pattern gets changed on the way

to a listener's ears, an engineer can modify any sound
presented over headphones to make it seem as if it is
coming from a particular location in space. Because
people have individual sizes and shapes, the modification
must be individually tailored, much as eyeglasses are
individually fitted, Algazi said.

Lacking data, engineers previously have had to base their

designs on an average set of values, which resulted, for
listeners, in sounds analogous to vision through a poorly
fitted set of eyeglasses. The database should provide
engineers with the information to properly adjust their
designs to account for individual differences, according to
Duda.

The database may help engineers build personalized sound

systems for computers that could rival or exceed the
experiences of listening to a high-end home stereo system,
according to the National Science Foundation in
Arlington, Va., which funded the work.

The information may be downloaded via the Internet.

Briefly Gibbs and Associates of Moorpark, Calif., developer of

Noted computer-aided manufacturing software, is now shipping
GibbsCAM 2002.

EDS of Plano, Texas, has released Unigraphics Quick

Stack, a software program that is part of what the
developer calls its Product Lifecycle Management
Solutions line of business.

The provider of simulation software and services

MSC.Software of Los Angeles has released MSC.Fatigue
2001, which predicts the durability of structural
components and assemblies.

Ricoh Corp. of West Caldwell, N.J., has released the

Aficio 470W, a digital wide-format copier that is
upgradeable to a high-resolution scanning and printing
digital imaging system for CAD designs.

The maker of computational fluid dynamics software

Fluent Inc. of Lebanon, N.H., has released Gambit 2.0, a

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general-purpose preprocessor for CFD analysis.

Allsheets, Inc. of Orlando, Fla., a manufacturer of CAD

software and AutoDesk developer, has released its Detail
Compiler software. It is for CAD professionals who use
cut symbols and detail drawings and is an Autodesk
add-on. The software automatically compiles details on
the existing drawing or a separate one.

PlanetCAD Inc. of Boulder, Colo., has released its first

commercially available version of SCS|Envoy, which is
software that streamlines the handling, security, and
transmission of manufacturing data.

Cimatron Technologies of Livonia, Mich., has released

Cimatron E, Windows-based CAD/CAM software
designed for the tooling industry.

ESI Group of Detroit, a provider of virtual prototyping

and manufacturing solutions, has released Pam-Opt, a
software package intended to speed virtual prototyping
time.

A maker of engineering design software, Vistagy Inc. of

Waltham, Mass., will release new versions of its FiberSim
and EnCapta design software at the National Design
Engineering Show in Chicago March 18-21.

Inovx Solutions of Irvine, Calif., has released version 2.3

of the company's RealityLinx and 3-D PlantLinx
software.

The enterprise software maker Oracle, of Redwood City,

Calif., has released Oracle CADView-3D. The software
allows users with a Web browser to par-ticipate in
collaborative design of 3-D CAD model creation or
review over the Web.

SolidWorks Corp. of Concord, Mass., has released an

upgrade to its 3-D PartStream.net service, which lets
component manufacturers publish 3-D Web-based
catalogs using a step-by-step process.

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