1.

Explain how computer aided product design of Concurrent Engineer can help to cut down cost of lead time while simultaneously improving the quality. The product development cycle begins with the conception of a need based on market analysis and research and development (R & D) activities. Conventionally, a series of sequential steps is followed to design the product, identify the process, machine the parts assemble the components, and ship the product to the market place. Product designers are mainly concerned about the out the products performances and functionality and rarely take process design or manufacturing constrains into considerations .However ,design decisions made early in the product development cycle which can have a significant effect of the manufacturer ability, quality ,product coot ,production introduction time ,and thus on the ultimate marketplace success of the product. The corrective costs of engineering change order increase logarithmically as the order are placed later in the product life cycle. The product designer must include manufacturing considerations as early possible along with the structural, functional, and aesthetic requirements. Therefore all organization-wide information should be used to augment design information to arrive at the finalized product design for manufacture. As the world became more technologically competitive, people began to realize the importance of efficient utilization of manufacturing resources. The underlying prerequisite to the computer based approach is systematically to acquire, represent, integrate, and coordinate the requisite concurrent engineering knowledge with which computer can performance required analyses. A large number of computer aided product design (CAD) tool will be also required during the stage to examine the influence of the design on the products life cycle .Consequently the expectation is to see on

integrated design environment in which all the CAD tools interact and corporate to find a globally optimized or compromised design. In order helping to find a globally satisfied

interface, if required often introduces errors and inconsistencies, reduces the extent of automation, and increase product development time and cost.

User

Market Analysis R&D

Manufacturing

Process Planning

Design

Series of Engineering Change Orders

Figure above shows General process flow in Concurrent Engineering

However there has been an apparent gap between design and manufacturing. In bridging the gap the development of more versatile product modelling software should pay the

major role. In an attempt to overcome the gap between design and process planning, the concept the gap between introduced, because the process planning is feature based. For an ideal computer integrated manufacturing system, one of the very basic requirements is that the part design feature as well as its dimensions and orientation must be readily available to a set of analysis software for justification of the design. A feature has if own geometry and some associated attributes such as dimensions, tolerance manufacturing information depending on the most current CAD system do not store features and their attributes explicitly a generic methodology for automatic feature recognition and extraction is required to make the manufacturing system an integrated continuum The extracted information is then seat either to a set of advisor modules for the evaluation of the design or computer-aided process planning (CAPP) system is the design has been justified. Such an environment would enable designers to justify design decisions from the standpoint of downstream processes, simultaneously satisfying structural and functional requirements of the part, processing constraints, and the capital budget or costs. Because of the important characteristics that features may constrain, several algorithms have been proposed to recognize and extract features from geometric models. In this environment, the designer is provided with certain desired higher level abstractions of the model that relate directly to certain design and manufacturing characteristics. Different manufacturing process such as casting, forging, metal cutting, assembly, etc. may require different features for their various activities which that are includes fitting, manufacturability evaluation, manufacturing cost analysis, tool or die design and so on. This implies that the geometric model designed with features needs to be refined to meet a process-activity sets requirements. The refinement may involve some feature extraction to obtain more abstract features or breaking down certain features into sub-features, the computer aided product design (CAPD) of concurrent engineer entails that product design and process plans be developed simultaneously. This is best assured by having the designers work in

manufacturing modes, rendering the freedom to add features to the design or manipulate the process plan itself. The conventional operation of product design and process planning proceeds sequentially, coupled with annotated engineering drawings. The problems with this sequential practice are well known in terms of the quality, cost and time to market. One of the most promising methodologies to solve the problems is the concurrent design of product and process which is a part of concurrent engineering. In such an environment, it is even necessary to evaluate alternate manufacturing processes such as casting, forging, and machining according to the preliminary product design using expert systems. In concurrent engineering environments, the time to develop a new product can be significantly reduced by avoiding designs errors and features difficulties to machine. The basic idea of design for manufacturability (DFM) addresses this time to market issue as well as those of quality and cost. For an aspects of concurrent engineering which incorporates machining process modelling and the design of experiments to find robust product or process design in terms of the factors are included; in the face milling model case, part geometry, part material, number of inserts and spacing, insert geometry, insert run out conditions, amount of surface error left by the preceding machining pass, and machining conditions including federate and depth of cut. Rather than that, assembly is often the most labor intensive operation and accounts for a major portion of the total cost. Assembly robots have been used in industries that manufacture simple products in large volumes. However, most products are still not well suited for robotic assembly. In order to utilize fully robotic assembly, the designers must modify some of the current design practices.

2) Cite an industrial example of how Computer Aided Product Design (CAPD) has

helped to improve their competitiveness. Computer Aided Product Design helped to improve the competitiveness by implementing the Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) processes. In this case, Toyota is being considered as the industrial example. About CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is software used to assist engineers, architects and other design professionals in their design activities. It is the main geometry drawing tool within the Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) process and involves both software and sometimes special-purpose hardware. Generally, CAD is not just a drafting tool, it is a very accurate and robust design tool too. Due to the complexity of computations in design methodology, the power of computers is improved to compute solutions to complex problems like stress analysis, shear analysis, thermal analysis and fluid flow analysis. The CAD offers very simple, easy to use, less time consuming and clean methods to study and evaluate the design process and providing a closest perfect design. About CAM Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) refers to the use of computer systems for the control of robotics and tools during product manufacturing. Integrating CAM with CAD systems provides quicker and more efficient manufacturing processes. This method is applied in different areas.

In CNC manufacturing the CAM system is used to simplify the machining and designing process. In most cases the CAM system will work with a CAD design made in a 3D environment. The CNC programme will specify the machining operations and the CAM system will create the CNC program. This compatibility of CAD/CAM systems eliminates the need for redefining the work piece configuration to the CAM system. In other words, CAM software usually comes with a machine such as a lathe or a mill. CAD/CAM systems offer the advantages of increased programming accuracy, geometric conformance to design parameters, the ability to make minor and often major changes to part configurations and programming metrics within the same system. CAD/CAM is used widely across the world at schools and companies, who design innovate and manufacture new and existing products.

Usage of CAD/CAM in the Product Life Cycle The value of CAD/CAM increases significantly when integrated with Product Life Cycle (PLC) applications. Product Life Cycle extends product information and business processes beyond the individual designer, allowing them to both collaborate and to leverage product innovation for corporate profits. Product Life Cycle tools can also provide an infrastructure for companies to continuously enable downstream processes that translate the designers creative ideas into profitable products. The success of CAD and Product Life Cycle solutions in discrete industries such as Automotive and Electronics points towards significant value for formula-based

industries, including Consumer Packaged Goods, Cosmetics, Pharmaceuticals, Food & Beverage, Specialty Chemicals and Paints. For example, in the automotive industry, the usage of CAD/CAM in its Product Life Cycle management is important in order to create a valuable product which meets customers needs and satisfying them without wasting much time and money besides keeping up the companys reputation. In any automotive design, there are typically many changes in the particular area of an items geometry according to the customer proposals or marketing specifications, conceptual design, detail design, finite element analysis, other engineering analysis, detail drafting, fabrication and assembly sketches. This process is very time consuming and its a very tedious task to be done. In order to this drawing, an automotive company needs the CAD software to build them and CAM software to manufacture them. This allows them to complete the task faster and easier with less time consuming.

3) i) Explain what is Rapid Prototyping of its advantages?

Rapid Prototyping (RP) can be defined as a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) data. Rapid Prototyping has also been referred to as solid free-form manufacturing; computer automated manufacturing, and layered manufacturing. RP has obvious use as a vehicle for visualization. In addition, RP models can be used for testing, such as when an airfoil shape is put into a wind tunnel. RP models can be used to create male models for tooling, such as silicone rubber moulds and investment casts. In some cases, the RP part can be the final part, but typically the RP material is not strong or accurate enough. When the RP material is suitable, highly convoluted shapes (including parts nested within parts) can be produced because of the nature of RP.

Advantages of Rapid Prototyping are as shown below.

Advantages of Rapid prototyping

Visualization capabilities are enhanced in the early designing phase with use of rapid prototyping. The user gets a fair idea of how the final product will look by observing the working model in early design stage.

Rapid prototyping enables producer and users to participate actively. Active participation between the users and producer is encouraged.

With rapid prototyping, it is possible to detect deficiencies in the earlier prototype, coding activities and requirement analysis.

Better communication is enabled between the users and designer as there is clear expression of requirements and expectations in the start itself.

The development costs are reduced considerably; hence rapid prototyping proves to be quite cost effective

The design flaws can be detected before manufacture process is initiated.

ii) Outline the different methods of Rapid Prototype in brief. There is a multitude of experimental RP methodologies either in development or used by small groups of individuals. This section will focus on RP techniques that are currently commercially available which are:
Stereo lithography (SLA)

Stereo lithography is an additive manufacturing process using a vat of liquid UVcurable photopolymer "resin" and a UV laser to build parts a layer at a time. On each layer, the laser beam traces a part cross-section pattern on the surface of the liquid resin. Exposure to the UV laser light cures, or, solidifies the pattern traced on the resin and adheres it to the layer below.
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an additive manufacturing technique that uses a high power laser (for example, a carbon dioxide laser) to fuse small particles of plastic, metal (Direct Metal Laser Sintering), ceramic, or glass powders into a mass representing a desired 3-dimensional object. The laser selectively fuses powdered material by scanning cross-sections generated from a 3-D digital description of the part (for example from a CAD file or scan data) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness, a new layer of material is applied on top, and the process is repeated until the part is completed.

 Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)

Laminated object manufacturing (LOM) is another rapid prototyping system developed by Helisys Inc. (Cubic Technologies is now the successor organization of Helisys) In it, layers of adhesive-coated paper, plastic, or metal laminates are successively glued together and cut to shape with a knife or laser cutter.
Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)

Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is an additive manufacturing technology commonly used for modelling, prototyping, and production applications. Like most other additive manufacturing processes (such as selective laser sintering, 3D printing and stereo lithography) FDM works on an "additive" principle by laying down material in layers. A plastic filament or metal wire is unwound from a coil and supplies material to an extrusion nozzle which can turn on and off the flow. The nozzle is heated to melt the material and can be moved in both horizontal and vertical directions by a numerically controlled mechanism, directly controlled by a computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software package. The model or part is produced by extruding small beads of thermoplastic material to form layers as the material hardens immediately after extrusion from the nozzle.

 Ink Jet printing techniques. Another technology for this Rapid Prototyping is 3D printing. It is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by successive layers of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. Advanced 3D printing technologies yield models that closely emulate the look, feel and functionality of product prototypes.

The reasons of Rapid Prototyping are:

To increase effective communication. To decrease development time. To decrease costly mistakes. To minimize sustaining engineering changes. To extend product lifetime by adding necessary features Eliminating redundant features early in the design.

Rapid Prototyping decreases development time by allowing corrections to a product to be made early in the process. By giving engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and purchasing a look at the product early in the design process, mistakes can be corrected and changes can be made while they are still inexpensive. Rapid Prototyping improves product development by enabling better communication in a concurrent engineering environment.

iii) Select one method of Rapid Prototyping and explain in detail? Laminated Object Manufacturing In this RP technique, developed by Helisys of Torrance CA, layers of adhesive-coated sheet material are bonded together to form a prototype. The original material consists of paper laminated with heat-activated glue and rolled up on spools.

Schematic Diagram of Laminated Object Manufacturing (RP Technique)

As shown in the figure above: Firstly, a feeder or collector mechanism moves the sheet over to the build platform where a base has been constructed from paper and double-sided foam tape. Next, a heated roller applies pressure to bond the paper to the base. Then, a focused laser cuts the outline of the first layer into the paper and then cross-hatches the excess area (the negative space in the prototype). Crosshatching breaks up the extra material, making it easier to remove during post-

processing. During the build, the excess material provides excellent support for overhangs and thin-walled sections. After the first layer is cut, the platform lowers out of the way and fresh material is advanced. The platform rises too slightly below the previous height, the roller bonds the second layer to the first, and the laser cuts the second layer. This process is repeated as needed to build the part, which will have a wood-like texture. Because the models are made of paper, they must be sealed and finished with paint or varnish to prevent moisture damage. Besides that, Helisys developed several new sheet materials including plastic, water-repellent paper, and ceramic and metal powder tapes. The powder tapes produce a "green" part that need to be sintered for maximum strength.