ME 451

Mechanical

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

Design II

Department of Mechanical Engineering

College of Engineering, Taibah University
© Department of Mechanical Engineering
Feature
• A shape and an operation to build parts

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

– Shape is two dimensional sketch whose orientation is
controlled in the three-dimensional modelling space via
the sketch plane.
– Operation is an activity that converts the sketch into a
three-dimensional shape. Sample operations include
extrude, revolve, fillet etc

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• Using features to create parts involves three steps

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

– Create sketches
– Create features
– Use features to build parts

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Feature Entities
– Extruded feature

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

– Revolved feature
– Sweep
– Loft
– Shaft
– Pipe
– Cut
– Hole
– Slot
– Pocket
– Shell
– Fillet
– Chamfer
– Draft
– Rib
– Flange
and many more

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Feature Representation
• The major goal of features when they originally appeared

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

was to store product definition i.e. design and
manufacturing data in addition to shape information
• However, the majority of features provided by CAD system
are shape (form) features
• They only store shape information

© Department of Mechanical Engineering

Feature representation
• Shape: the geometry and topology

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

• Configuration parameters: all parameters and their values
that fully define a feature
• Default values
• Location and orientation parameters
• Relations: features can be related to each other via
relations and equations
• Constraints
• Composite features
• Symbolic or skeletal representations
• Feature validation

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Three-dimensional sketching
• Cad systems allow designers to create 3D sketches

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

• 3D sketches can be used as sweep paths, as guide curves
for lofts or sweeps or as centrelines for lofts and pipes

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Three-dimensional sketching

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

© Department of Mechanical Engineering
Parametrics
• supports the notion of

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

changing and editing solid
features as design changes
occur in the product life
cycle
• Supports the notion of
model reuse

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Relations
• A mathematical way of describing how sketch parameters

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

are related
• Uses variables, dimension names, expressions and
algebraic equations
– variables: input1, input2, ...
– dimension names: length, diameter, ...
– expression: 3*length − 1.5*diameter/3
– equation: height = 3*length – 1.5*diameter/3

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Relation: Steps of procedures
• Rename features

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

• Rename feature parameters (dimensions)
• Link features’ non-sketch values
• Change values and rebuild part
• Create relations
• Create a relations table

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Constraints
• Add intelligence to a sketch, which helps to maintain design

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

intent as the designer modifies the model
• An auto-constraint is also available; if enabled the CAD
system looks for geometric relationships between entities

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Popular constraints
• Coincident: makes two distinct points have the same (x, y,

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

z) coordinates
• Concentric: makes two distinct circles have the same
centre all the time
• Coradial: makes a circle and an arc, whose centres are the
same, tangent to each other
• Equal: makes two sketch entities equal
• Fix: fixes the location of a sketch entity in space relative to
other entities
• Merge points: makes two points become one
• Mirror: updates the mirrored part of a sketch when its
parent changes
• Pierce: makes one entity penetrate the other
• Symmetric: makes an entity symmetric relative to another
entity, e.g. a circle can be made symmetric relative to an
exis

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Example constraints

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

© Department of Mechanical Engineering
Example constraints

ME-451 Mechanical Design II

© Department of Mechanical Engineering