CHAPTER 2

MECHANICAL DESIGN

o Outline the major steps involved in a mechanical

design process.
o Recognize the importance of mechanical design for
solving the technical, global, and environmental
challenges that society faces.
o Recognize the importance of innovation in
designing effective engineered products, systems,
and processes.
o Recognize the importance of multidisciplinary
teams, collaboration, and technical communication
in engineering.
o Be familiar with some of the processes and
machine tools used in manufacturing.
o Understand how patents are used to protect a
newly developed technology in the business side of
engineering.

GADGET
PRODUCT
DEVELOPM
ENT

RENEWABL
E ENERGY
PRODUCT
DEVELOPM
ENT

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has

identified 14 Grand Challenges facing the
global engineering community and profession in
the
twenty-first
century.
Make
solar energy
economical
Provide energy from fusion
Develop carbon sequestration
methods
Manage the nitrogen cycle
Provide access to clean water
Restore and improve urban
infrastructure
Engineer better medicines
Advance health informatics
Reverse-engineer the brain

Prevent nuclear terror

Secure cyberspace
Enhance virtual reality
Advance personalized learning
Engineer the tools of scientific

Requirements Development
Engineering design begins when a basic need has been
identified. This could be a technical need from a certain
market or a basic human need like clean water,
renewable energy, or protection from natural disasters.
Initially, a design engineer develops a comprehensive
set of system requirements considering the following
issues:
o Functional performance: What the product must
accomplish
o Environmental impact: During production, use, and
retirement
o Manufacturing: Resource and material limitations
o Economic issues: Budget, cost, price, profit
o Ergonomic concerns: Human factors, aesthetics, ease
of use

Requirements Development
o The design team develops the following set of
system requirements. These requirements state
what the system must do, not how. Determining
how starts in the conceptual design stage.
o Affordable
o Reliable
o Efficient
o Aesthetically attractive/unobtrusive
o Minimize noise levels
o Simple to install
o Adaptable
o Easy to maintain
o Safe to use
o Easy to manufacture

Conceptual Design
o In this stage, design engineers collaboratively and
creatively generate a wide range of potential solutions
to the problem at hand and then select the most
promising one(s) to develop.

Detailed
Design
At this point in the design process, the team has defined,
innovated, analyzed, and converged its way to the best
concept. However, many design and manufacturing
details remain open, and each must be resolved before
the product hardware can be produced. In the detailed
design
of theproduct
product,
a number
of issues must be
o Developing
layout
and configuration
determined:
o Selecting materials for each component
o Addressing design-for-X issues (e.g., design for
reliability, manufacturing, assembly, variation,
costing, recycling)
o Optimizing the final geometry, including appropriate
tolerances
o Developing completed digital models of all
components and assemblies
o Simulating the system using digital and mathematical
models
o

Detailed
Design
Simplicity
Iteration
Usability
Documentation
Patents
Design patent
Utility patent
Rapid Prototyping

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
The main classes of manufacturing processes are as
follows:
o Casting is the process whereby liquid metal, such as
gray iron, aluminum, or bronze, is poured into a mold,
cooled, and solidified.
o Forming encompasses a family of techniques whereby a
raw material is shaped by stretching, bending, or
compression. Large forces are applied to plastically
deform a material into its new permanent shape.
o Machining refers to processes where a sharp metal tool
removes material by cutting it. The most common
machining methods are drilling, sawing, milling, and
turning.
o Joining operations are used to assemble subcomponents
into a final product by welding, soldering, riveting,
bolting, or adhesively bonding them. Many bicycle
frames, for instance, are welded together from individual
pieces of metal tubing.

Examples of hardware produced by casting:

a disk-brake rotor, automotive-oil pump, piston, bearing
mount, V-belt sheave, model-airplane engine block, and a
two-stroke engine cylinder

Examples of hardware

Examples of aluminum extrusions

This body for a hydraulic valve assembly was

first cast from aluminum (left) and then
machined in order to produce holes, flatten

(a) Major components of a

drill press

(b) Different types of

holes
that can be produced

Power Infrastructure Alleviation

Concepts
Mini wind turbines placed on roofs of buildings

Sidewalks that produce energy when walked on

Mini turbines in toilets that generate energy when flushed
Batteries using new high-kappa materials
Hybrid cars that charge the grid when not in use
A large array of roof-mounted solar panels across the city
Wind turbines located near a city
A power plant using a Rankine cycle with rocket-derived combustion
A plasma-arc gasification plant to burn garbage to produce power
Increasing the number and efficiency of traditional steam power plants
Developing a series of hydroelectric dams
Geothermal plants that exploit in-ground temperature differences
Generating power from humans using a Matrix style farm
Developing a fusion reactor
Organic Rankine cycle to recover heat from lower-temperature sources
Using algae as a biofuel
Developing a revolving door generator for use in large commercial
buildings
Photovoltaic steel to generate energy
Photovoltaic paint to generate power on all buildings
Generating power in gyms (treadmills, bicycles, elliptical machines)
Using running animals to generate power