×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Mechanical Design Indicators

Mechanical Design Indicators

Mechanical Design Indicators

(OP)
Do any of you use indicators to measure any aspect of your mechanical designs?  I need some help on this topic and would greatly appreciate your response.  Thanks in advance

RE: Mechanical Design Indicators

Sorry, if I sound like some kind of mafia, but would you get closer to your main question, please?

RE: Mechanical Design Indicators

EngPro2004,

Your question is very broad, but I'll take a stab at it.  The main Mechanical Design Indicator is answered by the following question:  Does what I've designed do the job?  If the answer is yes, then the indicators are good.  If the answer is no, then the indicators are bad. This simple question has plenty of underlying qualifiers that makes this issue a little more complex, but they all basically boil down to the functionality of your final design.  

There are many paths to solving the same design problem and each path may have different advantages/disadvantages depending on the ground rules you are given up front.  The path your design takes will come down to a balance of satisfing all your up front constraints, within your given budget.  Within these two constraints you are free to let your imagination go wild.  

Personally here is the checklist I run through, when I'm designing capital equipment, to validate my design.

1.  Does my design perform the job it was intended to, at the rate it was intended to, with some factor of safety built in?

2.  Are all appropriate safety considerations designed into the equipment, to prevent accidental injury or death?

3.  Is the mechanical design robust enough to prevent breakage of the equipment under automatic and manual operation.  If no, are there electrical safeties to prevent breakage.

4.  Have I designed a Cadillac, Porsche, Mercedes, when the customer wanted a Yugo?

5.  Do the controls/automation engineers have all the needed sensing/feedback to effectively do their job, and is it guarded against breakage under Rule #3?

6.  Does the machinery need to be expandable and does the original design allow for easy expandability?

I could go on and on, but this list hits my key areas that I look at.  The most critical thing in all these rules is to make sure you understand completely the customers expectations and constraints.

Regards,


Rich.....

Richard Nornhold, PE
nornrich@redrose.net

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources