Lecture 1

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN

REQUIREMENTS AND CONSIDERATIONS

[1]
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
Essentially, design is the process of problem solving. The primary objective of any
engineering design project is to fulfil the human need or desire. Professional engineers are
concerned with obtaining solutions to practical problems. Such problems occur in a wide
range of types and their degree of complexity also varies. The real challenge is to transform
the customers’ needs and expectations into technical specifications in an efficient and
professional manner. This is a complex undertaking, requiring many skills. The provided
solutions must reflect an accurate understanding of customer needs and the underlying
science. Such solutions also require empirical knowledge as well as engineering judgement.
Figure 1.1 shows the basic steps involved in the design process.

Figure 1.1: The design process [2]

Mechanical Design
As shown in Figure 1.2, there are many subfields that are part of the overall domain of the
problem solving process – mechanical design is one of those. The field of mechanical
engineering is divided into two broad areas – 1) Energy and 2) Structures and motion. The
term mechanical design refers to design in mechanical engineering systems in which both
stems of mechanical engineering can be involved, whereas the field of machine design is a
subset of mechanical design in which the focus is on the structures and motion stems only.
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Figure 1.2: Design Horizons [2]

For example, the design of heat exchangers, air compressors and internal combustion
engines are examples of mechanical design, because those devices depend on the use of
technical material from heat transfer, thermodynamics, and combustion. These topic areas
are related to the energy domain of mechanical engineering. On the other hand, the designs
of a gear box, a V-belt drive system, or a machine structure fall under machine design
category because they draw on technical material from strength of materials, solid body
mechanics, kinematics and dynamics. These technical materials are all connected to the
structures and motion stem of mechanical engineering [2].

2.0 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

Most of the design problems in mechanical engineering do not have a single right answer.
Consider, for example, the problem of designing a household washing machine. There are
endless alternatives when it comes to the possible number of workable designs and none of
which could be called an incorrect answer. Obviously, some of the answers are better than
others because they incorporate a more sophisticated knowledge of the underlying
technology, a more creative concept of basic design, a more effective and economic
utilization of existing production technology, a more pleasing aesthetic appearance, and so
on.

Therefore, design engineers are required to carefully review the relevant design factors
before proposing a solution to a particular design problem. These considerations include
issues, such as functionality, reliability and maintainability etc. In addition to the traditional
technological and economic considerations fundamental to the design and development of
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mechanical systems, the broader considerations of safety, ecology, and overall “quality of
life” are also required to be addressed. The following is a list of many of the important
factors, which play a fundamental role in achieving a good design [3]. They are not
necessarily in the order of importance.

Functionality Noise
Strength/stress Styling
Distortion/deflection/stiffness Shape
Wear Size
Corrosion Control
Safety Thermal properties
Reliability Surface
Manufacturability Lubrication
Utility Marketability
Cost Maintenance
Friction Volume
Weight Liability
Life Remanufacturing / resource recovery

Most engineering designs involve a huge range of considerations, and it is a challenge to the
engineer to recognize all of them in proper proportion. Following is a summary of some of
the major categories involved.

Traditional Modern Miscellaneous

Considerations Considerations Considerations
Materials Safety Reliability
Geometry Ecology Maintainability
Operating conditions Quality of life Ergonomics
Cost Aesthetics
Availability
Producibility
Component life

Some of these categories and other design considerations are further discussed in the
following sections [2, 4, 5].
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2.1 Material considerations

The mathematical relationships used in designing are derived for an idealized material,
which is assumed to posses the following properties:

a) Perfect Elasticity
• A perfectly elastic material will return to its original shape immediately upon
removal of the loads.
• If a material doesn’t have this property, then the mathematical equations, in
many cases, become too complex for practical calculations.
• However, it should be noted that there may be a considerable variation between
the actual stresses in the body and the stresses obtained from equations for an
idealized substance.

b) Homogeneity
• A homogeneous part/component is one that has the same properties throughout
its entire extent.

c) Isotropy

• An isotropic material is one in which the elastic properties are the same in all
directions.

2.2 Safety and liability considerations

The strict liability concept of product liability generally prevails in most of the developed
countries. This concept states that the producers of an article is liable for any damage or
harm that results because of the defect. It doesn’t matter whether the manufacturer knew
about the defect, or even could have known about it.
The best way to prevent the product liability problems is to adopt good engineering in
analysis and design, quality control, and comprehensive testing procedures. The followings
are some of the techniques to improve product safety [4]:

a). Safety awareness

The important first step in developing engineering competence in the safety area is
cultivating an awareness of its importance. All engineers and technicians, who are involved
in the design process, must be aware of the significance of the safety of the products they are
delivering.
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b). Imagination and Ingenuity

The design engineer must be imaginative and ingenious to anticipate potentially hazardous
situations relating to a product. The old saying that anything that can happen probably will
happen sooner or later is relevant.

c). Techniques and guidelines

The following techniques can be used to improve the safety of a product.
- Review the total life cycle of the product from initial production to final disposal,
with an eye toward uncovering significant hazards. Various stages of product life
cycle, such as manufacturing, transporting, storing, installing, using, and servicing,
should be kept in mind when analysing the product safety attributes.
- Safety provisions should represent a balanced approach.
- Safety should be regarded as an integral feature of the basic design.
- Where possible, a “fail safe” design should be used.
- Adherence to government and industry standards should be ensured.
- Warnings of all significant hazards that remain after the design has been made as
safe as reasonable possible should be provided.

2.3 Ecological considerations

Making a product environmentally-friendly is another very important design aspect that
needs to be considered right at the early stages of product development. The basic
ecological objectives of mechanical engineering are:
- to utilize materials so that they are economically recyclable within reasonable time
periods without causing objectionable air and water pollution
- to minimise the rate of consumption of non-recycled energy resources (such as fossil
fuels) both to conserve these resources and to minimise thermal pollution
Ecological factors are much more difficult for the design engineer to tie down than are such
matters as stress and deflection. The following suggestions are useful to be considered.
I. Consider all aspects of the basic design objective involved, to be sure that it is
environmentally safe.
II. Consider design for recycling.
III. Select environmentally-friendly materials
IV. Select green manufacturing processes.
V. Where possible, use reusable packaging
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2.4 Ecological assessment and analysis

There are several tools, such as life cycle assessment (LCA), available for the environmental
performance evaluation of products and services. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool that
can be used to evaluate the environmental impact of a product, service, or activity
throughout its life cycle. It can be employed to identify environmental ‘hot spots’ in a
product's life cycle and to select new environmentally optimised solutions for new products.
The LCA consists of the following four major steps:
• Goal definition and scope
• Inventory analysis
• Impact assessment
• Interpretation of results
Figure 1.3 shows a generalized arrangement of the four phases of LCA.

Goal
Definition and
Scope

Inventory
Analysis Interpretation

Impact
Assessment

Figure 1.3: Generalized framework of LCA [6]

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2.4.1 Goal definition and scope

This phase is aimed at defining and describing processes, activities, materials, new and old
parts used in the manufacturing, packaging, transportation, distribution, use, maintenance
and end-of-life treatment of a product. As shown in Figure 1.4, the inputs and
environmental impact associated with each of the product life cycle are identified.
Measurement units, key assumptions, boundaries and likely limitations are also defined for
each of the identified processes and activities.

Materials

Manufacturing

OUTPUTS (Environmental impacts)

INPUTS (Materials and Energy)

Assembly

Packaging

Transportation

Distribution

Use/ Maintenance

End-of-life

Figure 1.4: Environmental assessment – inputs and outs

2.4.2 Inventory analysis

In this stage of LCA, detailed information and data on all the direct and indirect
environmental inputs and outputs are gathered. This includes:
• raw materials (virgin / recycled)
• energy consumed
• emissions to air and water
• waterborne wastes
• co-products
• solid waste (from processes and products) and other environmental releases
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2.4.3 Impact assessment

In this phase of the assessment, the inventory results are interpreted into potential impacts.
Basically, these interpretations reflect the entities, which are to be protected by the impact
assessment study. These entities include human health, ecosystem health and the resource
base. For the impact assessment phase, the following four steps are recommended [6-8]:
a) Classification: defining the impact categories
b) Characterization: quantifying the environmental impacts and impact
categories
c) Normalization: expressing the results of characterization on a
common scale to facilitate comparison
d) Weighting: reflecting the relative significance of impact categories

2.4.4 Interpretation
This is the final step of the life cycle assessment process. The impact assessment results are
interpreted along the lines of the defined goal and scope of the study.

2.5 Factor of safety (SF)

The quality of a design can be measured by many criteria. It is always required to calculate
one or more factors of safety to estimate the likelihood of failure. There may be legislated, or
generally accepted, design codes which must be adhered to as well.
A factor of safety or safety factor can be expressed in many ways. It is typically a ratio of two
quantities that have the same units, such as strength/stress, critical load/applied load, load to
fail part/expected service overload, maximum cycles/applied cycles, or maximum safe
speed/operating speed. A safety factor is always unitless and is denoted by SF.

a). Value of Safety Factor

As a machine or product may have more than one potential mode of failure, therefore, it can
have more than one value of safety factor. The smallest value of SF for any component is of
greatest concern, since it predicts the most likely mode of failure.
When SF = 1, the stress in the part is equal to the strength of the material and failure occurs.
Therefore, the factor of safety should always be greater than 1.

b). Choosing a Safety Factor

Choosing an appropriate safety factor is very important and requires a thorough
understanding and assessment of the related factors. The safety factor can be thought of as a
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measure of the designer’s uncertainty in the available data, analytical models, failure
theories and the material property data. How much greater than one SF must be depends on
many factors including:
- the level of confidence in the model on which the calculations are based
- the knowledge of the range of possible in-service loading conditions
- the level of confidence in the available material strength information
- consequence of failure – human safety and economics
- cost of providing a large safety factor

Table 1.1 provide guidelines for the choice of a safety factor for ductile materials.

Table 1.1: Factors used to determine a safety factor for ductile materials [5]
Information Quality of Information Factor
The actual material used was tested 1.3
Representative material test data are available 2
Material test data F1
Fairly representative material test data are available 3
Poorly representative material test data are available 5+

Are identical to material test conditions 1.3

Operating conditions Essentially room-ambient environment 2
in which the product F2
will be used Moderately challenging environment 3
Extremely challenging environment 5+

Models have been tested against experiments 1.3

Analytical models Models precisely represent system 2
used for analysing F3
loading and stress Models approximately represent system 3
Models are crude approximations 5+

The overall safety factor is taken as the largest of the three factors chosen. Due to the
uncertainties involved, a safety factor typically should not be taken to more than one
decimal place accuracy.

SF ductile = MAX (F1, F2, F3)

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As brittle materials are designed against the ultimate strength, so failure means fracture
(without visible warning of failure before fracture), therefore the safety factor for brittle
materials is often made twice that which would be used for ductile material in the same
conditions.

SF brittle = 2 x MAX (F1, F2, F3)

Table 1.2 provides more information on the recommended values for a safety factor. The
method of determining a safety factor are only guidelines to obtain a starting point and is
obviously subject to the judgment of the design engineer in selecting factors in each
category.
Table 1.2: Recommended values for a safety factors [4]
Safety
Quality / Nature of the Available Information
Factor

• Materials are exceptionally reliable,

• The product is used under controllable conditions
1 • Loads and stresses can be determined with certainty 1.25 – 1.5
(This scenario is more suited to situations where low weight is a particularly important
consideration).

• Materials used are well-known

2 • The product is used under reasonably constant environmental conditions 1.5 – 2
• Loads and stresses that can be determined readily.

• Average materials
3 • Ordinary environments 2 – 2.5
• Loads and stresses that can be determined.

Rarely used (less tried) materials or for brittle materials under average conditions
4 2.5 – 3
of environment, load, and stresses.
The materials that haven’t been used before will be used under average conditions
5 3–4
of environment, load, and stresses.
Materials that are better-known are to be used in uncertain environments or
6 3–4
subjected to uncertain stresses.

Repeated loads: These loads test the fatigue strength of materials. Therefore, the
7 above values of safety factor must be applied to the endurance limit (not the yield
strength).

Impact factors: For applications involving impact loads, an impact factor should be
8
included when determining the safety factor.

Brittle materials: In situations where the ultimate strength is used as the theoretical
9
maximum, the above factors should be approximately doubled.

A more detailed analysis should be performed for applications requiring higher

10
safety factors.
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3.0 BASIC RELATIONSHIPS

a). Work and Energy

Work done W = Force x distance

= FS
Where s is the distance through which force is applied.

Figure 1.5 shows a wheel being turned by a tangential force F acting at radius R. Let the
wheel rotate through ‘q’ revolutions. Then the work done, W, is given by

W = F (2πR) (q) = FS

Figure 1.5: Wheel being turned by a tangential force F [4]

The torque produce by the force F is give by

T=FxR

Suppose the wheel is rotated through an angle θ by applying the torque T. Then the work
done, W, is given by
W = Tθ

OR

W = FRθ

In SI system, the unit for work is newton.meter (N•m), called the Joule. The work
done is also expressed as Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy or Internal Energy. The
total amount of energy is conserved in all transfers.
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b). Power

The rate of energy transfer by work is called power and is denoted by Ẃ. It is given
by
Ẃ=F•V

In SI units, the unit for power is Watt (Joule/s), which is the same as 1 N.m/s.
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DESIGN TESTING AND VALIDATION

The traditional methods and techniques of stress and deflection analysis are primarily
applicable to parts that are made up of simple geometric shapes, such as cylinders,
rectangular or triangular prisms. However, many real machine parts have more complicated
geometric forms; making accurate calculations of stress and deflection are difficult and even
impossible with classical techniques. For example, analysing the stress and deflection in a
part like the crankshaft, as shown in Figure 1.6, becomes difficult because of the highly
intricate nature of the part. Such problems make the conventional methods highly laborious,
inefficient and difficult to apply.

Figure 1.6: Crankshaft of a diesel-truck engine [5]

These types of objects can be divided into finite number of contiguous and discrete
elements, as shown in Figure 1.7. Then a large set of equations is developed, each of which is
applied to an element and to the nodes that connect the elements. These equations are
subsequently solved simultaneously to analyse the stresses and deflections. This method is
known as Finite Element Analysis (FEA).

Figure 1.7: Finite element method of an engine piston, connecting rod, and crankshaft [5]
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The mathematical theory behind FEA is beyond the scope of this unit, and is covered in a
number of books. This topic is also covered in detail in the unit titled “Finite Element
Analysis 431.”

THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Finite element analysis is a numerical technique and is well suited to digital computing
machines. The FEA is based on the formation of a simultaneous set of algebraic equations
relating forces to corresponding displacements at discrete preselected points (called nodes)
on the structure. These mathematical equations, also referred to as force displacement
relations, are expressed in matrix notation.
As stress varies throughout the continuum of any part, dividing the part into a finite
number of discrete elements connected together at their nodes (called a mesh) provides an
approximation of the stress and strain within the part for any given set of boundary
conditions and load applied at various nodes in the structure. The approximation can be
improved by using more elements of smaller size at the expense of increased computation
time. The computation time has been reduced remarkably because of the development of
very high speed computing machines.
An important part of the designer’s work is to choose an appropriate type, number and
distribution of elements to optimize the trade-off between accuracy and computation time.
Large elements can be used in regions of the part where stress gradient varies slowly. In
regions where the stress changes rapidly, such as near stress concentrations or applied loads
and boundary conditions, a finer mesh is needed. This is shown in Figure 1.8, in which the
mesh density varies in different regions of the part.

Figure 1.8: High density of elements near regions of high stress concentrations [3]
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The basic procedure for stress analysis using FE method include the following steps [4]:
I. Dividing the part into discrete elements
II. Defining the properties of each element
III. Assembling the element stiffness matrix
IV. Applying known external loads at nodes
V. Specifying part support conditions
VI. Solving the system of simultaneous algebraic equations
VII. Calculating stresses in each element

4.0 REFERENCES
1. Earle, J.H., Engineering Design Graphics. 12th ed. 2007: Pearson Prentice Hall.
2. Spotts, M.F., T.E. Shoup, and L.E. Hornberger, Design of Machine Elements. Eighth ed.
2004: Pearson Prentice Hall.
3. Budynas, R.G. and J.K. Nisbett, Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design. Eighth ed.
2008: McGraw Hill.
4. Juvinall, R.C. and K.M. Marshek, Fundamentals of Machine Component Design. Fourth
ed. 2006: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
5. Norton, R.L., Machine Design: An Integrated Approach. Third ed. 2006: Pearson Prentice
Hall.
6. Westkämper, E., L. Alting, and G. Arndt, Life cycle management and assessment:
approaches and visions towards sustainable manufacturing. Proceedings of the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers Part B-Journal of Engineering Manufacture, 2001. 215(B5 ):
p. 599 - 626.
7. Craighill, A.L. and C.J. Powell, A life cycle assessment and economic evaluation of
recycling : a case study. 1995, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global
Environment (CSERGE). p. 1 - 28.
8. Rebitzer, G., et al., Life cycle assessment: Part 1: Framework, goal and scope definition,
inventory analysis, and applications Environment International, 2004. 30(5): p. 701 - 720.
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PRACTICE QUESTIONS
Q1: What are the steps involved in the design process of a product? Draw a sketch to
illustrate the relationship between these steps.
Q2: Differentiate between Mechanical Design and Machine Design.
Q3: Define Homogeneity and Isotropy.
Q4: What is LCA? Draw a sketch to demonstrate the relationship between different
phases of LCA?
Q5: What is the purpose of “Inventory analysis” in LCA?
Q6: Define factor of safety.
Q7: Usually, the FoS for brittle materials is made twice that would be used for ductile
materials in the same conditions. Why?
Q8: What is FEA?