It may not be death by a guillotine, but the Queen’s Head rock formation at Yehliu Geopark (Wanli, Taiwan) is destined for decapitation. The iconic sandstone structure’s neck circumference has decreased from 148 to 136 cm over the last two years, falling victim to natural erosion and tourist touch. Experts say it’s only five to 10 years before it completely snaps. So Ri-Cung Model Co., specialists in the mock-up and model industry, has developed a way to prolong the life of the symbolic royal highness by creating a replica.

Using a FARO Photon 120 laser scanner, the Queen’s Head was converted to point cloud data. The orange model shows surface data after conversion to a triangular mesh stereolithography (STL) file.

The STL file was then converted to a surface model using Vero’s VISI Modeling. The modeling software offers the flexibility to construct, edit or repair complex 3D designs. In this case, the CAD model was separated into 32 sections and manufacturing toolpaths were created using VISI Machining.

The structure was machined from expandable polystyrene (EPS) and hand sculpted for reassembly. EPS properties include low weight, high compressive strength and resistance to moisture--ideal material for the Queen’s Head replica.

When NASA originally considered employing composites in manned spacecraft, it had conflicting considerations. On the one hand, there were concerns that composites might have an unacceptable leak rate and insufficient damage tolerance. On the other hand, composites potentially offered lots of benefits, including reduced weight and lower lifecycle costs. The most appealing aspect of applying composites to the crew module primary structure was a potential 10 to 15% reduction in weight on complex shapes compared to its aluminum counterpart. In space travel, where every additional ounce of weight drives costs skyward, this weight reduction would have a profound effect on payload capacity and mission expense.

The potential of advanced composites was compelling, so the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) at NASA's Langley Research Center (Hampton, VA) was charged by Mike Griffin (then NASA administrator) with putting together a team of government and industry structures experts to gain experience in making use of new composite construction and inspection technologies specifically for manned spaceflight structures. One of the primary goals of the program was to determine which composite materials are best suited for future NASA spacecraft, for such things as lunar landers, habitation modules, and launch vehicles. Another goal of the project was to gain experience putting together an organizationally flat, collaborative and geographically dispersed team that could work together effectively. Nine of the 10 NASA sites around the country contributed to the project as well as a number of significant aerospace companies, including ATK, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

The team considered nearly a dozen concepts and decided to develop the Composite Crew Module (CCM), a primary structure, a stiffened honeycomb sandwich of carbon fiber. It is composed of upper and lower pressure shells spliced together to help meet an accelerated schedule and keep non-recurring costs under control (a mass produced pressure shell would likely be one-piece using multi-part extractable tooling). Further strengthening the shell are gussets, panels, and various metallic fittings to distribute point loads. The lower shell is stiffened by the floor backbone forming a unified structure which carries pressure and inertial loads via bending.

“Back-of-the-envelope calculations predicted that this concept would reduce the mass of the lower structure by 20% over a traditional ring frame pressure head design,” said Ian Fernandez, lower structure lead at NASA Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, CA). “The concept was verified by finite element analysis and we went with it.”

To help develop the CCM the team deployed FiberSIM composites engineering software from VISTAGY “It’s a big step to go from what’s in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire to the manufacturing floor and then layup,” said Mike Kirsch, CCM project manager for the NESC. “The fidelity between what we saw in Pro/E and how it translated in terms of wrinkles, ply angle and flat patterns was the true test of FiberSIM.”

“One of FiberSIM’s strengths is defining individual segments of plies, often referred to as ‘flags,’” said Fernandez. “It calculates how big and what shape the flags can be before they become too difficult to conform to the tool.” FiberSIM can display important features of a ply, such as splices, darts, boundaries, local coordinates, warp angle, etc. to help engineers build the best possible part. “We paid special attention to minimizing overlaps in fit-up critical areas to prevent any issues down the road during assembly,” said Fernandez.

FiberSIM then calculates what shape the flat pattern needs to be and exports that data to manufacturing for the NC cutting machine. Another critical FiberSIM capability is generating data to drive accurate laser projections of the flag boundary. “Without this boundary projection on the tool, determining the location of the flags would be a painfully slow process and quality would be degraded,” said Fernandez. FiberSIM was also used to produce laser projection files to help locate and trim the core (in place on the tool) and also to create an inspection grid on the skins.

“I don’t think it would be economical to construct something like the crew module without FiberSIM,” said Kirsch. “You could build a simplified version for the same price, but mass and quality would take a big hit, driving operational costs way up. For state-of-the-art applications like this where every aspect is critical, FiberSIM was the perfect solution.”

Simulation generated by FiberSIM showing how fibers deviate from the specified orientation as a ply of composite material is draped over a tool for making the NASA Composite Crew Module. The areas highlighted in white indicate fibers whose orientations fall within an acceptable range from specification while the yellow and red areas indicate where fibers mildly (yellow) or significantly (red) deviate. FiberSIM enables users to understand the behavior of continuous fiber reinforced composite materials as they conform to complex curvature, ensuring that stiffness and strength requirements are met and validating that the manufactured part matches the design intent.

Fabricators at ATK (Iuka, MS) laying up plies of composite material to create the inner honeycomb sandwich skin of the NASA crew module. The plies are being laid up with the assistance of a laser projection system driven by FiberSIM software.

While there is lots of understandable attention on the in-development Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the Next-Generation 737 (yes, that’s what the one’s being built right now are officially called) deserves a note of attention.

Although the Next-Gen planes have been built for the past 12 years, starting in 1997, it is worth noting that during this period of time the people in Renton, Washington, have manufactured and delivered 3,133 units.

What’s notable is that it took 32 years to produce that many of the previous-generation 737.

Employees have gotten to the point where they are able to produce a 737 in just 10 days, compared with the 22 days once required. They are manufacturing 31 aircraft a month.

The improvements in throughput are attributed to “relentless employee and supplier focus on efficiency.”

Speaking of efficiency, the 737s are said to be lighter, consume less fuel, release fewer emissions, and are more economical to operate and maintain—all good things, to put it mildly.

According to a Boeing statement: “Airplanes delivered between September 2008 and September 2009 had so few technical issues that passengers left the airport gate 99.8 percent of the time.”

Presumably that metric is based on the readiness of the aircraft, not of the various airlines and airports, which seem to have less in the way of high-reliability or timeliness ratings.

We want to give a big shoutout to Autodesk for the Autodesk Assistance Program, which it has been running since this past April, for displaced workers, of which there are far too many.

The program allows designers, engineers and architects who are out of work due to the recession to obtain free software, training and resources—yes, you read the word FREE right—to help them maintain and upgrade their design skills during this down economy. Specifically, there are 17 Autodesk products—including Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD Mechanical, and Alias Design—that are available via 13-month student licenses.

In addition to which, Autodesk is organizing networking events to help bring the out-of-work designers, engineers and architects together. What’s more, if one of the people who have registered with Autodesk for the software gets hired, the employer is eligible for significant software discounts.

The program runs through the end of 2009 (in the U.S.).

The people are Autodesk are to be commended for this initiative.

Imagine for a moment you are a budding viola player who wants to buy your own instrument, but the up to $3,000 price tag is a bit too steep. Realize also that you have access to a CNC machining center. You see where we’re going with this?

One determined stringed-instrument player has turned his love for music and high-speed machining into a problem-solver. The blogger, who only goes by the name of “Mark,” carved the body of his 5-string viola—in the notes of C, G, D, A and E through steel-cored strings—using a CNC router; he designed the entire instrument himself. “Building my own is significantly cheaper than buying one,” he says.

Of course, we’re guessing that the CNC machine probably set his employer back more than a few grand. Check out his blog for more pics and details.

[Source: IDSA—The Buzz]

Fast and cheap. These are the targets typically at the forefront for any process plant modification engineering team—with fast and cheap leading the way. After all, time is money.

Autodesk’s AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010 software aims to help these engineers be faster by improving the accuracy of their modification plans during the planning phase, while reducing cost by using the AutoCAD backbone to streamline the placement of piping, equipment and support structures before any material is ordered.

Mark McLeod, CAD manager at Energy Solutions, which manages the decommissioning of nuclear sites and facilities, says the new software has proven beneficial: “Currently, we are blind to obvious clashes, have duplicate tag numbers, and cannot see our piping designs in 3D model review. As we evaluate AutoCAD Plant 3D, we expect to benefit from correct tagging, 3D model reviews, clash detection, connection to P&ID work, orthographics, and isometrics.” Pretty important stuff when you consider the material he’s dealing with.

Want to up your machining speed? Check out Mastercam X4 (even sounds fast, doesn’t it?), the latest from CNC Software. It includes a new technique named “Dynamic Machining.”

What does that do for you? It is said to create a constantly adapting toolpath that delivers consisting cutting conditions and allows the use of the entire tool flute length, thereby often eliminating the need for multiple depth cuts. Also, there are flexible retract options when machining smaller parts, and rapid retract for larger. And a “micro lift” option retracts the tool ever-so slightly when moving to the next cut.