EDITORIAL EXCELLENCE Des i gn Worl d E ach month Design World brings the engineer information that develops his or her skills with, and understanding of, new techniques and technologies. Tutorial features cover engineering fundamentals and more. Other feature articles offer how-to-tips on specific devices or programs that speed the creation, analysis, and testing of new products, or that facilitate the implementation of components, systems, and equipment. Through Design World articles readers stay up to date on the latest developments in CAD/CAM, motion control and mechanical systems, sensors, materials, and communication systems for the medical, packaging, automation, off-highway, and semiconductor markets. FEATURES: INSIGHTS: The editorial page brings pertinent and topical concerns to the engineering reader. The insightful commentary provokes thoughts in new directions, highlighting issues faced by today’s readers. DOWNLOAD THIS: A department that showcases CAD drawings featured or introduced by advertisers. The reader can preview these new designs and go to the website, www.Designworldonline.com, to access these drawings. DESIGN FOR INDUSTRY: Here is where readers receive the latest news or developments that will help them execute their engineering tasks more efficiently and productively. DESIGN NOTES: This department stimulates innovation by presenting real-world engineering challenges and the creative solutions applied to those challenges. FEA REPORT: The latest news and developments and how-to tutorials on finite element analysis features or programs is offered in this department. SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS: Through news and educational features, this department showcases new design-focused tools for CAD/CAM/CAE systems. PRODUCT WORLD: A showcase of the latest components, devices, and equipment useful in the design of mechanical, electrical, and mechatronic systems. DEPARTMENTS: MOTION CONTROL drives cover a wide, full range of powers and voltages. Single industrial drives also feature a range of built-in options as standard equipment. They can be installed for most applications right out of the box; and they also can be ordered and manufac- tured as a custom unit for a particular application. Multidrives A multidrive is built from industrial drive modules that are connected to a common dc bus bar. This bus bar supplies the drive modules with dc power and each module then inverts the dc to ac and powers an individual motor. The dc power is derived from a single supply unit (rectifier) that is built into the front end of the same multidrive configuration. This configuration simplifies the total installation and provides many benefits: • savings in cabling • reduced line currents and simpler braking arrangements Michael Vallier, Product manager, ABB Low Voltage Drives, ABB Automation Products E fficient management of the energy consumed by motors was always important. Today, however, this issue has become vital as the world wrestles with the supply and demand of precious resources. Thus, integrators, OEMs, panel builders, and users are looking for ways to use energy as efficiently as possible. It is well known that the precise control of motors is one technique. Some engineers, though, are turning to multidrive systems to boost energy efficiency even higher. Since drives are available in both multidrive and single drive configurations, it is useful to define the difference, and profile the benefits that new generations of multidrives can provide. Single drives Adjustable speed drives are used in any application in which there is mechanical equipment powered by motors. The drives provide precise elec- trical motor control so that motor speeds can be maintained or ramped up and down depending on the action needed. Such control uses only the energy required, rather than having a motor run at constant (fixed) speed and using excess energy. Because motors consume a majority of the energy produced, controlling the amount consumed based on load demands is the way to go. You can real- ize 25 to 70% energy savings through the use of motor controllers. Despite these benefits, though, the majority of motors continue to operate without drives. Several single industrial drives are flexible ac drives that can be adapted to meet the pre- cise needs of a single- motor application. These units convert ac power to dc, and then invert the dc back to an ac output to a motor. Such 44 DESIGN WORLD JULY 2007 www.designworldonline.com Why work with multidrives? If you need precise control of multiple motors, compact multidrive systems deliver. Multidrives, such as this one from ABB, are made from several components. 3D CAD Going to the Vault Legacy data — old drawings — are a big issue for QED. Because many products are made for the medical industry, they must deal with various compliance issues. And since many of their “new” products are based on some components from Larry Boulden, Staff Editor Q ED makes compact little lights for dentists, doctors, and surgeons. Most major orders call for custom products. Required schedules are tight, turnaround quick. And the design engineering team that makes it all happen? Just a few engineers, using only two seats of CAD. One is on a laptop. ”Working with 3D CAD is fun,” explains David Russell, the man with that laptop. Russell is a design engineer at the Lexington firm. “You can see your product come alive. We design on the fly, and watch the product grow right out of the computer screen.” Russell started QED down the CAD path about 10 years ago with AutoCAD R12, a 2D drafting package. After a few years they upgraded to Mechanical Desktop, a 3D package from Autodesk. Four years ago, QED upgraded again to another 3D package from the same supplier, Inventor. One reason for the change was the need to handle legacy data. 46 DESIGN WORLD JUNE 2007 www.designworldonline.com 3D CAD lets small company design on the fly 3D CAD lets small company design on the fly CAD delivers the goods for a small medical-products company that needs extensive product customization and quick redesigns from an efficient design engineering team. At QED Inc, engineers design on the fly, and watch the product grow right out of the computer screen. Photos, courtesy Alex Orlov. Small, precise light assemblies, containing a light source, lenses, housing and mounting, are often used by medical professionals in operating and examination rooms. OFF-HIGHWAY rotary actuator to position our piercing nozzle, we can quickly penetrate and maneuver into tight spaces in a variety of aviation and municipal applications,” stated Grady North, chief engineer for Crash Rescue Equipment. Better load management Before the rotary actuator, Crash Rescue Equipment used two electric motors to position the piercing and water volume nozzles on the telescopic booms found on fire trucks. When the object was pierced, a load was also put on the water volume nozzle, taxing the motors. Crash Rescue Equipment changed the overall design of the telescoping boom assembly to overcome this problem. They F irefighters have one of the most dangerous and demand- ing jobs in the public’s eye. They are called upon to face complex fires or natural disasters to save lives or property. Innovative technology to help protect people and property is in high demand from firefighting forces around the world. This urgent demand led Crash Rescue Equipment to team up with Helac Corp. to design a telescoping nozzle on fire trucks that allows the nozzle to penetrate compos- ite fibers and be placed inside small door openings or other restricted areas. “Our Snozzle is a quick attack tool that can penetrate all current building, aircraft, automobile or train container materi- als including composite panels. By using Helac’s hydraulic 48 DESIGN WORLD MAY 2007 www.designworldonline.com Actuator extends nozzle’s reach into dangerous places Innovative use of a hydraulic rotary actuator aids firefighters in complex crash rescues and natural disasters. Actuator extends nozzle’s reach To get to a fire, firefighters often must break their way through a building or structure. Special crash rescue trucks, like this Panther, rely on the Snozzle quick attack tool to penetrate building, aircraft, automobile or train container materials including composite panels. Leslie M. Morgan Helac Corp. 26 DESIGN WORLD JULY 2007 www.designworldonline.com displace the wastewater from the well to the treatment facility. Drives are key in support- ing the pump operation, ensuring that a constant flow is discharged to maintain optimum wastewater levels. Plus, the drives eliminate unnecessary pump starts. Previously, the site ran the pumps based on an on/off level and used an across- the-line starter. When the level in the wet well reached a designated point, it triggered the starter to rev the motors up to maximum speed as quickly as possible. This rapid acceleration created spikes and mechanical stress on both the motor and pump. The motors ran at full speed until they reached the “off” level elevation. The con- stant-speed, starting-and-stopping process led to wear and tear on the bearings and impellers, causing the motors to deteriorate. By maintaining a consistent level in the lift station wet well, drives also help to avoid water hammers. When a pump starts or stops suddenly, it slams the check value on the back of the pump and creates a “water hammer” effect. Water hammers are pressure surges caused by the energy of a fluid in motion when it is forced to stop abruptly. In a lift station, hydraulic water hammers often occur when trying to pump fluid vertically or at a slant. Once a pump stops, the fluid will come back to the source, jarring the piping. Over time, water ham- mers can deteriorate the pipe. The accelera- tion and de-accelera- tion ramp provided by the ACS800 re- duces wear and tear on the pump me- chanicals. DESIGN NOTES W ith 450 miles of sanitary sewer- collection lines and 33 lift stations that feed into a central wastewater treatment plant, the City of Lawrence, Kansas wastewater management system is extensive. Gravity drives wastewater distribution to the treatment plant, except where vertical elevation changes the topog- raphy. In these circumstances, lift stations– structures that contain pumps and controls– move wastewater to the treatment plant. Because of ongoing increases in demand, Dave King, wastewater maintenance man- ager, City of Lawrence, continually looks for ways to improve efficiency. Lift station number 16, built in 1958, transports approxi- mately 600 million gallons of dry weather- flow a year, about 25-30% of the city’s wastewater usage. Aging equipment and increasing flow from new residential developments led to the decision to retrofit the station completely in the spring of 2006. King turned to the city’s long-time PLC supplier, Logic, Inc. to handle the job. Logic recommended installing ABB ACS800 drives on each of four new 125 hp pump motors to: increase efficiency and power factor to improve electricity cost savings; extend the life of the motors and reduce repair costs; and minimize or eliminate harmonics that can interfere with instrumentation and overheat feeder breakers and transformers. When wastewater enters a lift station, it initially goes through a course screening process, which removes solid particles that could damage the pumps. The wastewater then flows into an enclosed wet well, which can be 30-40 feet deep. Sensors monitor the wastewater depth in the wet well. Pumps smalley.com [email protected] Uniform cross-section does not interfere with assembly Compatible with ordinary snap ring grooves Easy to assemble and remove No gap or lugs allows for functional, aesthetically pleasing ring 5,000 stock sizes in carbon and stainless steel No-Tooling-Costs™ on specials, available from .200” to 90” No Ears To Interfere ™ piral Retaining Rings Spiral Ring Spiral Ring Ordinary Snap Ring Ordinary Snap Ring Spir Spir Ring Ring Spir Spir S ing S Ri l ral ral g g r l l g g ry Snap Snap S y smalley.com [email protected] in om The compact footprint of the ABB ACS 800 Ultra-low Harmonic Drives was a perfect fit in the lift station at the City of Lawrence, Kansas wastewater facility. Another area of focus to streamline internal processes was to substitute simu- lation for physical prototyping. Prototype design and fabrication often took one to two months, followed by an extensive wait in a queue until the prototype could be experimentally tested. Thus, Modine decided to build a virtual technology group of analysts to support all product lines around the company. To fulfill their vision, they needed to: •Apply more analysis during the early stages of product development • Facilitate better and more commu nication between product engineers and analysis engineers • Select optimal technology. In this case, they chose programs from PTC and Ansys. • Determine a way to engage more virtual testing in lieu of physical testing • Optimize and integrate the CAD/analysis software • Reduce capital costs Management requested that all analysis engineers co-locate to one area. After gaining buy-in, the new team redesigned their layout and setup to enable a successful workflow. This team, the Virtual Technology Group, now sat right in the middle of all product line groups. With analysts from all product divisions, the Group could share technol- ogy processes and create best practices for rolling out simulation technologies to engineers in different divisions. The state- of-the-art environment delivered an expedient work space that removed inter- group barriers. Communication bound- aries slowly disappeared while engineers spoke daily. Previously, an engineer might struggle for days, weeks, or months on a technical problem, especially as remote location hindered collaboration with peers. The new work space promoted dynamic col- laboration. Engineers were soon moving quickly through technical difficulties and leveraging one another’s knowledge. Work quality improved dramatically. The redefined organization handled a higher U .S. and Europe emission standards continue to drive the design of liquid-cooled and air-cooled charge air coolers. These stan- dards are pushing higher thermal loads and more rigorous durability require- ments for many engine and exhaust compo- nents, such as the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) cooler and charge air cooler from Modine Manufacturing Co., Racine, Wis. For nearly 90 years, Modine has been a world wide innovator and leader in thermal manage- ment, serving such organizations as BMW, Caterpillar, John Deere, Paccar, Fiat, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, Hyundai, International Truck & Engine, and Man Diesel. Its products are used in light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles, HVAC equipment, industrial equipment, refriger- ation systems, fuel cells, and electronics. The exhaust gas recirculation cooler transfers heat from the engine exhaust to the same coolant loop that serves the radiator and the charge air cooler in a truck or automobile. As heat is extracted from the engine exhaust, the coolant loop temperature increases, making it harder to cool the engine and the intake air. A hotter engine produces more NOx, a targeted pollutant in current emission laws. Hot engines can also be a reliability concern. Engineers at Modine felt they needed to optimize the flow field and pressure drop in these components to meet the new specifications. Bringing this about, however, would require more testing and additional design iterations. With the surge in demand for engine components that meet the new emission standards, it was clear that Modine needed to conduct a greater number of concurrent engineer- ing projects without increasing the number of employees or adding to phys- ical test facility capital investment. The need to leverage the virtual environ- ment was clear. Improving the durability of a liquid- cooled charge air cooler required redesign, which mandated multiple tests to confidently deliver the new product. Modine’s management believed that improved communication between prod- uct development engineers and analysis engineers would speed the overall design process. They also felt it was important for the final design to have more input from the analysis engineers. To bridge this commu- nications gap, they restructured the development process and brought in custom analysis tools that would enable more virtual analyses without increasing staff. Creating the virtual technology hub To deliver the best products to customers, management made several significant changes within the organiza- tion. For one, they opted to insource to meet these new challenges. Modine has used outsourcing, but it offers little benefit when a project requires multiple design iterations and a tight schedule. Engineers need easy access to each other to avoid excessive delays. Insourcing can be faster and less expensive and is well suited to results- driven, large, quick-turn-around projects. With the right foundation of a talented staff, tools, and efficient processes, the focus is on the project itself. 28 DESIGN WORLD JUNE 2007 www.designworldonline.c FEA REPORT Shift fromphysical tovirtual prototyping A collaborative process and better tools help engineers leverage the virtual environment to meet emission standard design changes. This model shows an Engine Gas Recirculation Cooler designed by Tom Reiss at Modine’s Racine, Wisconsin engi- neering facility using Pro/ENGINEER. Spot weld connector RobiFix robotic plug connectors will debut at the Interna- tional Robots and Vision Show in Chicago. The reliable, cost-effective connectors are for integrating power supplies in robotic dress packs and running them along robotic arms. The con- nectors use MC-Multilam technology, and their insertion and removal is simple. Insulating material is resistant to spattering, sparking, and welding vapors. The connectors are rated at 690 Vac and 150 A. Multi-Contact USA www.multi-contact-usa.com Standard lengths shorten lead-time The heavy-duty SRX-150 compact, aluminum-profile linear actuators come in 400, 600, 1000, 1500, and 1900 mm stroke lengths in both belt and ball screw-driven versions. The standard lengths shorten lead-time up to three weeks. Bishop-Wisecarver Corporation www.bwc.com 72 DESIGN WORLD JUNE 2007 Making the switch easy On July 1st, Circulate 3000 cycloidal speed reducers will be available with (Sumitomo) SM Cyclo mounting dimensions. This option lets engineers easily migrate from one brand to another. Circulate 3000 reducers specified with this option will drop right onto an SM Cyclo mounting plate, and the output shaft will be posi- tioned and sized to directly replace the SM Cyclo. Alternate CAD files will also be available on the Web site July 1st. Shimpo Drives, Inc. www.shimpodrives.com Switch boosts sensitivity to small angle changes The DSA01 combination tilt/sensor switch is triggered when tilted beyond ±10° of the horizontal and is sensitive to small angle changes. It has a single pole, single throw, main- tained circuit. Operating range is ON Angle =10° to 170°; OFF Angle = 190° to 350°, allowing 500 ms set- tling time between states. Resistive load is 0.1 A at 12 Vdc. Mechanical and electrical life are rated at a mini- mum of 100,000 operations. Operat- ing temperature is from -10° C to +70° C. Additionally, the product is rated to withstand 90 percent humid- ity for 96 hours at 40° C. NKK Switches www.nkkswitches.com PRODUCT WORLD A ccording to Joel Galliher, semicon- ductor industry manager, Bosch Rexroth Corp., the semiconductor indus- try is moving away from its focus of perfecting microelectronic processes. As wafers become larger and feature smaller widths, issues like productivity, through- put, reliability, and automation have gained importance. Moving wafers into and out of a fabri- cation tool, positioning and repositioning them within the tool, and changing setups and job parameters significantly influ- ence the overall productivity of the tool. “As tools process wafers faster and more accurately, it becomes more apparent that the bottleneck is material handling,” noted Galliher. “The more time the tool spends waiting to receive a wafer, the less efficient is the overall production. Thus, efficient wafer handling between tools is increasingly viewed as critical to improving productivity.” Semiconductor fabs are significantly increasing the levels of automation, replacing manual transport with auto- mated material handling systems and turning more attention to the flow of materials throughout the fab. Thus, process integration, such as enabling in-line metrology to detect errors faster and earlier to increase yields, is needed. Automation components must also deliver product to the processing area more efficiently. “For example,” noted Galliher, “simply increasing the speed of motion in transferring wafers is not suffi- cient. The mechatronic handling systems must be tailored to meet cycle time requirements, yet still protect delicate, high-value wafers.” Toolmakers in the semiconductor industry are beginning to outsource non-core engineering. For example, one wafer-processing equipment manufac- turer looked outside to develop a high- performance wafer lift subassembly. “The company had been purchasing about 30 separate components from a handful of vendors and was building the lift assem- bly in-house,” said Galliher. “While the existing design worked well, the OEM wanted to reduce engineering expenses for a new lift, lower the cost of the assem- bly, and streamline the supply chain by obtaining the item as a single part DESIGN FOR INDUSTRY From the Clean Room To the Sawmill DualVee ® Technology 888.580.8272 www.bwc.com • Excellent in extreme environments • Speeds to 5.5 m/s • Acceleration to 5 g’s • Smooth, quiet operation • Long lengths available • Stainless steel, carbon steel and polymer wheels • Complete new line of integral wheels • Range of single & double edge track • Ground mounting surfaces not required www.designworldonline.com JULY 2007 DESIGN WORLD 15 Semiconductor fabs focus on efficient material handling