Engineering Portfolio
ME 496: Tools/Methods for Iterative Product Design &
Analyses
Purdue University
Fall 2022
The official course description:
This course deals with extended principles and procedures of multi-dimensional computer-aided engineering applications. This course teaches students how to solve real world engineering problems using the capabilities of commercial CAx tools and systems.
I took this class because I wanted to learn more about CAD applications other than solid modeling. Here you will find the final project for the class. For this project, we were to create an assembly based on a real-life RC car. Using some calipers and many hours in the computer lab, we were able to create a digital replica of the RC car. The goal was to have our assembly be fully scalable in all three axis directions. As you will see in the slides below, we had some difficulties with the scaling, but it still works surprisingly well for our first time attempting it. We also learned more about FEA, CFD, motion analysis, and material properties within CAD programs.
Here are some images of the RC car we based our model off of. We had a physical model on hand from which we hand-collected measurements in order to make the CAD model. The site that these images are from can be found here.
As you can see, the rear suspension fell apart after we tried to scale the model. I realized after the fact that this was because I referenced a surface in order to create geometry, resulting in a reference loop that led to failures when updating the model.
