Creating a Component Selection Resource for Undergraduate Design Teaching
Year: 2012
Editor: Lyndon Buck, Geert Frateur, William Ion, Chris McMahon, Chris Baelus, Guido De Grande, Stijn Verwulgen
Author: Barrie, Jeff; Culley, Stephen
Series: E&PDE
Institution: University of Bath, United Kingdom
Section: Design Environment and Tools
Page(s): 199-204
ISBN: 978-1-904670-36-0
Abstract
Within the industrial setting, it will be quite normal to find company best practices in place, a list of approved suppliers and perhaps CAD models of standard components configured through a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) or MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components) system. However, an academic environment may not be so bespoke and rigorous. Undergraduates can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the breadth of information available to them; they do not have the industrial knowledge or experience to disseminate appropriate information. This can be the case when students are asked to specify and integrate 'bought in' components, such as bearings and springs, for design projects of whatever level. Many would rely on on-line search engines like Google or Bing, however this process can lead to confusion and fruitless searches. A design engineer in industry would obtain this information using similar techniques, but in a more controlled and thoughtful manner. This paper describes some of the research conducted and implementations put in place, by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath, to support and address this issue for undergraduate design projects.
Keywords: Research, component selection, design process