UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO

Project 01 An Introduction to CAD - MAE 377

Jonathan E. Jones – 3451-8370

9/17/2009

Project 01 was meant to introduce an aspiring Engineering student to the basics of ProEngineering Wildfire 4.0. By completing the three drawings, I learned such techniques as protrusion, cut, hole, chamfer, and mirrors, among others.

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Table of Contents 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3

2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................................... 3

3 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 3

3.1 Part A ............................................................................................................................................. 3

3.2 Part B ............................................................................................................................................. 4

3.3 Part C ............................................................................................................................................. 4

3.4 Part D: Bonus ................................................................................................................................ 5

4 Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 6

5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 6

6 References ............................................................................................................................................ 6

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1 Introduction Project 01 has served as an introduction into the world of ProEngineering three-dimensional CAD.

Through the modeling of four separate and differentiable parts, I learned basic techniques in ProE that

will help me draw and design engineering parts for years to come.

2 Problem Statement In order to better my CAD skills, I was tasked with drawing four figures from our engineering textbook

Pro\ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0. Our textbook generally walked me through the process step by step, with a

few wrinkles along the way (these will be gone into later). This entire process was meant for me to

garner the techniques of protrusion, cut, hole, chamfer, round, mirror and revolved-protrusion among

others, all within the felt of ProEngineer Wildfire.

3 Results Happily, I was able to recreate each and every part assigned to us in Project 01. The following will detail

the procedure and development of each model along with any hiccups I may have encountered along

the way.

3.1 Part A Part A was probably the most painless model to create. After sketching the bottom face, extruding it to

the desired length, and removing the U-shaped interior with another sketch and remove material

command, the bulk of the piece was already completed. Adding rounds on the inner edges, mirroring

the hole from one side to the other, and chamfer the outer edge was finished easily and without much

distress. Literally all that was left was adding the right radii to the arced corners, and Part A was

complete.

(a) (b) Figure 1 (a) The CAD model of the block made in Part A; (b) the same CAD model of Part A at a different view.

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3.2 Part B Part B proved to be one of the trickier parts to model. The base of the object proved simple enough,

simply extruding the pentagonal front view a specific depth. The cutouts were made without headache,

utilizing newly learned loop cut tool and mirroring from front to back. Following the book’s instruction,

the holes were made through only the top thickness, and mirrored across the model. The feature that

proved most troublesome was the rotated-protrusion on top. I was able to create a side-view sketch of

the general shape without much dismay, but after the actual rotation the protrusion would simply be

rotated about the edge of the top face, completely throwing off the model’s symmetry. After seemingly

hours of troubleshooting, we learned that our base model had not been drawn on the origin of the

drawing, and once this had been fixed the revolved protrusion came together without a hitch.

(a) (b) Figure 2 (a) The CAD model of the block made in Part B; (b) the same CAD model of Part B at a different view.

3.3 Part C I went into the creation of the model of Part C perhaps a little too confident. I figured that all I needed

to do was create the base, one simple fin, and then somehow magically pattern that around the turbine

shaped figure. The inner base did prove easy, only requiring a revolved sketch of specific geometry.

However, after using my newly garnered knowledge of the thickness tool (another tool learned through

trial and error, you can’t extrude, sketch, and then thicken, one has to sketch, extrude and then thicken)

I was able to create the fin minus the cut seen in Figure 3. I was also able to make a sketch to revolve a

remove material command to create the shape of the fin, but try as I might I was not able to pattern the

true fin shape around the turbine. I could pattern a rectangular fin fine, but the true fin shape proved

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difficult. After finally noticing that (and then fixing) the patterned rectangular fins did actually not have

any thickness whatsoever, one more revolved remove material of a side-view sketch at long last brought

out the desired fin shape. I think that I may have initially went wrong with the order of use in the

thickness section of the initial fin creation, and that just compounded my issues.

(a) (b) Figure 3 (a) The CAD model of the block made in Part C; (b) the same CAD model of Part C at a different view.

3.4 Part D: Bonus After the headache and verifiable torment of Parts B and C, Part D came together quickly and without a

hitch. Creating the sketch of the bottom face with a few circles, lines, and arcs and extruding up took

little time. Likewise, extruding two different sized circles upon that were menial tasks, along with the

rounding and chamfering of a few edges. The bonus part indeed proved easy.

(a) (b)

Figure 4 (a) The CAD model of the block made in Part D: Bonus; (b) the same CAD model of Part D at a different view.

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4 Discussion The specific problems detailed in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 regarding the creation of Parts B and C have

already been duly noted. Another issue I have with the program is the ultimate dependence on the use

of the middle mouse button. This stroke is used in a very large percentage of tasks, including the

orientation of the model, the ability to pause and resume a specific line draw in sketcher, and most

aggravatingly the final command to insert a dimension. Sure, these tasks are completely quickly and

without resent when a mouse is readily available, but going into my first real CAD project and wanting to

work on my “mouse-less” computer proved maddening and time consuming at best. Having to break

down and buy a wireless mouse was not on the top of my priority list, but it sure did midway through

Project 01.

5 Conclusion Project 01 did end up being quite the lengthy project, accumulating approximately 20 hours in total.

The problems mentioned in sections 3.2 and 3.3 with Parts B and C really slowed down the process and

without a readily available answer-mage at all hours of the night, my fellow engineers and I struggled to

understand the sometimes finicky nature of ProEngineer Wildfire. I was able to eventually create all of

the models up to specifications, and learned quite a few handy CAD techniques in the process. Each

part truly brought out a new wrinkle in the design capabilities of ProE, and I feel that I have mastered

the basics quite well.

6 References

1.) Toogood, Roger, Pro\ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0. Edmonton, Alberta: ProCAD Books Ltd, 2006.