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Department of Mechanical Engineering

ME EN 4000 - Engineering Design I

Engineering Lab 9

Advanced Modeling Through Importing Complex Datum Curves

Assigned: Thursday, November 11, 2004
Due: Friday, November, 19, 2004 at 12pm in 2110 MEB

Introduction
The creation of complex features such as the shape of an airfoil, a helical springs, or other irregularly
shaped bodies are difficult to achieve using the sketching tools available within Pro/ENGINEER. In such
cases, it is beneficial to generate the data that drives the creation of a feature outside of the CAD environ-
ment. This is particularly true if the feature can be described using a set of equations. This lab explores the
creation of a complex feature using a Matlab script.

Importing Datum Curves into Pro/ENGINEER

The easiest and most straight forward method of creating a complex feature is to import one or more datum
curves that can be used to generate the desired feature. The file required for this operation is a tab limited
text file with the file extension .ibl. An ibl file lists the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of a number of points
through which Pro/ENGINEER will fit a spline.

Task
You are asked to design a helical spring with 10 turns.
The initial radius of the spring is 25 mm which
increases 25 mm per revolution. The pitch of the spring
is constant and reaches a total length of 200 mm.
a) Derive a set of equations that calculate the x-, y, and
z-coordinates of the spring’s trajectory.
b) Using any suitable software (Matlab1, Excel, Math-
cad, etc.), calculate the cartesian coordinates of a
sufficiently larger number of points that can be used
to create a datum curve suitable as a trajectory for
the feature creation in Pro/ENGINEER.
c) Create an ibl file that contains the coordinates of the
points determined in part b) (check with the course
website on the required syntax).
d) Create a datum curve in Pro/ENGINEER by import-
ing the ibl file created in part c).
e) Create a variable section sweep with a constant section diameter of 10 mm.
f) Print out the shaded model, write your name on it, and hand it in.

1. You may use the matlab script that is available for download from the course website