Successful products are those presenting the highest quality at a fair cost. Although different approaches can be used to define the concept of quality, functional reliability is always a major requirement, due to implications such as safety and user losses regarding maintenance expenses, and product availability. Intelligent designs are robust and result in a fair cost. Robust designs are those insensitive to sources of variation occurring during the product life, keeping their performance under variable use conditions, like thermal and stress effects. The robustness approach is a function of two main design criteria: low complexity and tolerance design. Design for manufacture and assembly is closely related to decreasing complexity. Tolerance design is a tool in which the unavoidable manufacturing variations are considered during product development. This work presents a proposal for an intelligent design in an actual application by considering design simplification through the reduction of parts for an automotive water pump. The tolerance analysis is performed by means of a powerful statistical approach—a Monte Carlo simulation—in which process behavior is randomly simulated representing a high production volume. Additionally, service thermal effects are also contemplated, and assembly tests are proposed for automatic rejection of non-conforming parts, assuring high reliability and full compliance with functional requirements. This is an example of integrated design–manufacturing work aiming at both cost saving and improved reliability.

Advanced Engineering Design

Tolerance analysis based on Monte Carlo simulation: a case of an automotive water pump design optimization

Fretting fatigue occurs in contacting parts which are simultaneously subjected to fluctuating loads and very small sliding movements. This phenomenon can significantly reduce the fatigue life of components. This paper focuses on the conceptual design of an advanced, especially in functionality and human engineering, test rig for fretting fatigue experiments. Different designs of test rigs are evaluated by weighing their advantages and disadvantages.

/pdf/conceptual-design-of-a-fretting-fatigue-testing-device-3x56rghiy6.pdf

Conceptual design of a fretting fatigue testing device

Failure analysis of pipeline indents using steel precision balls under subsea conditions

In this paper a research on the practical application of prognostic enhancements of health and usage monitoring systems is presented. By combining prognostic theories for improving the predictability of lead time intervals to maintenance inspections, it is demonstrated that a practical application can be realized. This research is performed on the health and usage monitoring system of the NH-90 helicopter, MDS. By focusing on failure modes of components, the prognostic methodology enables relating specific component usage to remaining useful life predictions. This is performed for three case studies to determine improvements on their predictability for lead time’s intervals. With these results a comparison is made to the current component’s maintenance strategy. It is seen that an improvement in predictability was realized.

Advanced Engineering Design

Citations

Tolerance analysis based on Monte Carlo simulation: a case of an automotive water pump design optimization

Conceptual design of a fretting fatigue testing device

Failure analysis of pipeline indents using steel precision balls under subsea conditions

Prognostic Enhancements on Health and Usage Monitoring Systems

Effect of hardness in shackle chain wear under harsh environmentally conditions

Related Papers (5)

Advanced engineering design : an integrated approach

An introduction to engineering and engineering design

Industrial Design in Engineering

Industrial Engineering and Digital Engineering

Design and Planning of Engineering Systems