Engineering Products

CAD Customisation Tools:

Engineering firms often run into the challenge of manually mapping critical engineering data between their proprietary tools and the commercial CAD/CAM/CAE packages they use. Manual mapping of engineering data needs great care from the engineers, as precision is quite critical and there is no margin for error. This invariably makes the process time consuming and tedious. Integrating the proprietary engineering tools into the CAD systems greatly overcomes such problems. Engineers at MGS have a good knowledge of prominent CAD software API such as, CATIA V5 CAA, Pro-Toolkit, NX Open and SolidWorks API and can help integrate proprietary tools to CAD systems.
CAD customisation also helps to automate the repetitive CAD tasks performed by a design engineer, which makes him/her more productive and reduces cost to the company. Some of the CAD customisation tools developed in-house at MGS, are as follows:

CAD (Computer Aided Design) Data Translation:

MGS offers CAD interoperability solutions between major CAD Stations and CAD Kernels. These solutions provide seamless data translation for the clients to effectively manage their Product Life Cycle. Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) frequently needs Mechanical CAD (MCAD) data to be moved from one CAD station to another. This has to be done with minimal data loss.
 

TCADView

In supply chain the necessity to view huge MCAD data is inevitable which consumes a lot of resources. CAD stations minimize this by means of tessellation or light weight data of the model. MGS provides the leverage of viewing every CAD station’s light weight data in a single viewer, TCADView.
 

Development of a customised user material (Non-linear material model) subroutine to model the cyclic response of high strength low alloy tubing steels

High pressure autofrettaged vessels and thick-walled tubes are constructed using high strength low alloy tubing steels. These steels exhibit a characteristic cyclic stress-strain behaviour; on forward loading the behaviour is approximately elastic perfect plastic and on unloading it undergoes a profound non-linear response. Modelling such response in finite element analysis is necessary to provide the accurate prediction of residual stress distribution. In this work, an ABAQUS user-material (UMAT) subroutine has been developed to model the cyclic response of the material. The subroutine is utilised in a finite element analysis of a C-ring fracture mechanics specimen to predict the residual stress induced by mechanical preload. The prediction is in excellent agreement with test measurements (neutron diffraction technique) performed on the preloaded C-ring. The subroutine is also used to predict the deformation of the mechanically preloaded C-ring in a fracture toughness test and was found to give reasonable agreement with the measured deformation.
 

Fig 1. Stress strain response of typical non-linear steel material in first cycle
 

Pressure drop/fluid flow analysis preliminary design tool for Automatic Transmission hydraulic circuits

• Pressure drop Analysis tool for a general Flow network
• One-dimensional(1-D) fluid dynamic calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros
• Calculation of pressure drops and flow rates across 2D circuitry of hydraulic elements for all gear-state paths of various transmission configurations. [Typical application: Valve body in an automatic transmission]
• Able to construct hydraulic circuitry design as per user inputs and calculate flows and pressure drops across all elements
 

Fig 1. Hydraulic gear state path
 

Fig 2. Typical Valve body section
 
• The valve body is the hydraulic control center of the automatic transmission. It contains a maze of channels and passages that direct hydraulic fluid to the network of numerous valves which then activate the appropriate clutch pack or band servo to smoothly shift to the appropriate gear for each driving situation.
• Other applications – Air intake piping system analysis
• Less dependence on 1-D commercial tools such as AMESim, etc., to solve these types of fluid flow problems.

 

Analytical Prediction of Driveline Stiffness – Preliminary design architecture tool

• Accurately estimate the equivalent park system stiffness of various driveline configurations such as FWD, RWD, 4WD/AWD in design phase so that peak torques can be determined and used in park system design. Also, locked and open differential(50/50 or variable ratio torque split) math models have been incorporated into the tool for previse prediction of park system stiffness
• One-dimensional(1-D) Structural calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros
• Less dependence on 1-D commercial tools such as AMESim, etc., to solve these types of structural problems.
 

 

 

Bolted flange Joints and fatigue life estimation of bolts – Preliminary design architecture tool

• Accurately estimate the fatigue damage of bolted joints and to determine fatigue life of bolts
• Structural (linear static stress) calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros and FEA packages
• Automation using python scripts to integrate the spreadsheet platform and commercial FEA package
• Reduce analysis cycle time and this tool can be used for analysing typical bolted flange joint configurations

 

 

 

 

Press-fit (Interference fit) – Preliminary design architecture tool

• Accurately simulate the interference/press fit characteristics for various pipe & housing combinations
o Uniform Pipe and Uniform Housing
o Uniform Pipe and Non-uniform Housing
o Non-uniform Pipe and Uniform Housing
o Housing pressed onto the Pipe
o Pipe pressed into Housing
• Structural (Non-linear static stress) Analysis tool calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros and FEA packages
• A three step analysis is performed prior to the thermal cycle loading to establish stable equilibrium of the press fit in the inserted position
• Automation using python scripts to integrate the spreadsheet platform and commercial FEA package
 

 

 

Automatic Transmission Thrust Bearing Analysis – Preliminary design tool

• Helps in carrying out preliminary designs of thrust bearings used in Automatic transmission circuits
• Accurately estimate the thrust bearing capacity or loads, design compliance parameters and estimated bearing life from standardized input parameters. [Typical application: Analysis of Needle Roller Thrust Bearings used in Automatic transmissions for FWD and RWD vehicle configurations]
• Useful for selection of gear helix hands and thrust bearing sizes
• Structural calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros

 

Automatic Transmission Spin loss Analysis – Preliminary design tool

• Helps in carrying out preliminary designs of Auto trans components such as bearings, bushings, clutches, rotating seals, gears, chains, etc., based on spin loss calculations
• Computes average spin loss at different gear speeds and fuel economy cycles of various Automatic transmission rotating parts
• Identify the contribution of spin loss from different Automatic transmission components at certain input speed
• Structural calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros

 

Gear noise sensitivity analysis – Preliminary design tool

• Accurately determines the gear noise risk factors of different gearset transmission configurations based on gearstates, gear mesh frequencies and user-input design specifications
• Helps in carrying out good initial preliminary designs for typical transmission configurations considering Noise risk factors into account
• Structural calculations or analysis using spreadsheet VBA macros