Machine Design

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Machine Design
Machine Design Magazine Logo.png
Type business magazine
FormatPrint and web-based magazine
Owner(s)Endeavor Business Media
Founded1929
Language English
Headquarters New York, New York, USA
Circulation 765,000
ISSN 0024-9114
Website machinedesign.com

Machine Design ( ISSN   0024-9114) is an American trade magazine and website serving the OEM engineering market. Its print issues reach qualified design engineers and engineering managers twice a month.

Contents

Key technologies covered include computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM), electrical and electronics, fastening and joining, fluid power, manufacturing, engineered materials, mechanical engineering, and motion control.

Today, Machine Design is owned by Informa, and has editorial offices based in New York, New York and Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

History

The inaugural issue of Machine Design coincided almost exactly with the 1929 stock-market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. Although the nation was in the economic doldrums, there was significant design development taking place in almost all industrial segments including automotive, aircraft, farm equipment, home appliances, and industrial machinery.

The onset of World War II came and brought almost frenetic activity to design engineering at large. After the war, civilian industries thrived. But in the years following the war and into the 1950s the role of design engineer languished, stigmatized by the war effort as the creator of new means of destruction.

Engineering colleges began to feel slighted because doctors, lawyers, and business executives were viewed as having more prestige and professional status than their engineering graduates. [1] Intellectual elites viewed engineering colleges as trade schools, and graduate engineers were said to be nothing more than mechanics or glorified shop hands. In response, engineering schools began to drop courses that lacked academic rigor or had the slightest blue-collar aura.

The launch of Sputnik in 1957 again changed the perception of design engineering. The perceived loss of world leadership in air and space technology by the people of the United States set the stage for a considerable renewal of prestige to the engineering discipline. After more than a decade into the Cold War, the public realized science and engineering could play a key role in keeping the Communists at bay. The government unloaded almost limitless supplies of money on high-tech defense industries, and engineering became the career of choice. High salaries and generous perks were lavished on engineers and scientists.

Unfortunately, Sputnik also accelerated the movement to delete courses on manufacturing and shop practice from the curricula of top schools. The idea was to portray engineers as being more scientist than a mechanic. The rocket scientist working on the space program became the image to which most engineers aspired.

This attitude had a lot to do with framing the editorial policies of Machine Design through the 1960s. The policies were in tune with what was happening in the largest and most-sophisticated corporations, especially the aircraft and automotive industries, where design engineering and manufacturing engineering were increasingly treated as separate entities having no common interest. Reflecting this, articles selected for Machine Design were carefully tailored not to have too much of a manufacturing orientation.

Starting in the late 1960s, another shift in American perception was brought about by the growing awareness of overseas manufacturing facilities returning a lower cost product with higher quality. While lower labor rates played a key role in the lower costs, they could not justify the higher reliability of offshore products over those domestically produced. It was soon discovered that those shops with higher quality production realized design and manufacturing engineering were closely intertwined. Machine Design articles started to reflect this trend. For example, it's believed to be the first industrial trade magazine to run a comprehensive article explaining numerical control machining and how it relates to design engineering.

Machine Design's coverage of manufacturing positioned it well when concurrent engineering became the trendy idea in industry. Major corporations suddenly discovered that design and manufacturing were interrelated, and it became vogue to tear down the walls between design and manufacturing engineers.

In the 1970s, finite-element analysis broke on the industrial scene. Computer-aided design was evolving, and by the 1980s, it was also having a profound impact on design procedures. Computer-aided manufacturing evolved separately, but by 1990 CAD and CAM had merged. In the field of electrical and electronic technology, relay controls were giving way to digital electronics and the microprocessor that led to combining a number of design disciplines into the technologies of mechatronics and motion control.

In the 2000s, the Internet of Things has taken hold of the industry and has infiltrated every level of engineering, from design to manufacturing, all the way to predictive maintenance and augmented reality. Machine Design as provided in-depth coverage on these emerging technologies to keep engineers up to date on what lies in store for the engineering industry.

For over 80 years, Machine Design had predicted and led the industrial community spotting trends and fundamental changes in manufacturing operations. Providing an ongoing series of technological overviews interspersed with in-depth tutorials, it kept readers abreast of technologies that were transforming product design. It does this with an editorial staff of degreed engineers possessing industrial experience and obligated to create lucid and interesting articles supported by the intelligent use of graphics.

Related Research Articles

Mechanical engineering Engineering discipline

Mechanical engineering is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and maintain mechanical systems. It is one of the oldest and broadest of the engineering branches.

Computer-aided design Constructing a product by means of computer

Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software are helpful in protecting products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The terms computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer aided design and drafting (CADD) is also used.

Computer-aided manufacturing Application of computer

Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) also known as computer-aided modeling or computer-aided machining is the use of software to control machine tools and related ones in the manufacturing of work pieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most common; CAM may also refer to the use of a computer to assist in all operations of a manufacturing plant, including planning, management, transportation and storage. Its primary purpose is to create a faster production process and components and tooling with more precise dimensions and material consistency, which in some cases, uses only the required amount of raw material, while simultaneously reducing energy consumption. CAM is now a system used in schools and lower educational purposes. CAM is a subsequent computer-aided process after computer-aided design (CAD) and sometimes computer-aided engineering (CAE), as the model generated in CAD and verified in CAE can be input into CAM software, which then controls the machine tool. CAM is used in many schools alongside computer-aided design (CAD) to create objects.

Computer-aided engineering

Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is the broad usage of computer software to aid in engineering analysis tasks. It includes finite element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), multibody dynamics (MBD), durability and optimization. It is included with computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) in the collective abbreviation "CAx".

Product lifecycle Duration of processing of products from inception, to engineering, design & manufacture

In industry, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprises.

CAD/CAM Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing

CAD/CAM refers to the integration of Computer-aided design (CAD) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). Both of these require powerful computers. CAD software helps designers and draftsmen; CAM "reduces manpower costs" in the manufacturing process.

Computer-aided technologies Index of articles associated with the same name

Computer-aided technologies (CAx) is the use of computer technology to aid in the design, analysis, and manufacture of products.

Computer-integrated manufacturing Manufacturing controlled by computers

Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is the manufacturing approach of using computers to control entire production process. This integration allows individual processes to exchange information with each part. Manufacturing can be faster and less error-prone by the integration of computers. Typically CIM relies on closed-loop control processes based on real-time input from sensors. It is also known as flexible design and manufacturing.

Mechanical Engineering Technology is the application of engineering principles and technological developments for the creation of useful products and production machinery.

ASME Y14.41 is a standard published by American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) which establishes requirements and reference documents applicable to the preparation and revision of digital product definition data, which pertains to CAD software and those who use CAD software to create the product definition within the 3D model. ASME issued the first version of this industrial standard on Aug 15, 2003 as ASME Y14.41-2003. It was immediately adopted by several industrial organizations, as well as the Department of Defense (DOD). The latest revision of ASME Y14.41 was issued on Jan 23, 2019 as ASME Y14.41-2019.

Delcam is a supplier of advanced CAD/CAM software for the manufacturing industry. The company has grown steadily since being founded formally in 1977, after initial development work at Cambridge University, UK. It is now a global developer of product design and manufacturing software, with subsidiaries and joint ventures in North America, South America, Europe and Asia with a total staff of over 800 people and local support provided from over 300 re-seller offices worldwide. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until 6 February 2014, when it was acquired by Autodesk. It now operates as a wholly owned, independently operated subsidiary of Autodesk.

Heinz Joseph Gerber was an American inventor and businessman. An Austrian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor who immigrated in 1940, he pioneered computer-automated manufacturing systems for an array of industries. Described as the "Thomas Edison of manufacturing," he was one of the first to recognize and develop the productivity-enhancing potential for computer automation in skill-intensive industrial sectors.

Rapid prototyping Group of techniques to quickly construct physical objects

Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printing or "additive layer manufacturing" technology.

Manufacturing engineering Branch of engineering

Manufacturing engineering is a branch of professional engineering that shares many common concepts and ideas with other fields of engineering such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering. Manufacturing engineering requires the ability to plan the practices of manufacturing; to research and to develop tools, processes, machines and equipment; and to integrate the facilities and systems for producing quality products with the optimum expenditure of capital.

Computer-aided inspection (CAI) is the use of software tools to assess manufactured objects. It is closely related to computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). Its primary purpose is to allow engineers to more quickly and precisely assess the physical properties of manufactured objects. These properties can include dimensions, material consistency, roughness and roundness.

Multiaxis machining

Multiaxis machining is a manufacturing process that involves tools that move in 4 or more directions and are used to manufacture parts out of metal or other materials by milling away excess material, by water jet cutting or by laser cutting. This type of machining was originally performed mechanically on large complex machines. These machines operated on 4, 5, 6, and even 12 axes which were controlled individually via levers that rested on cam plates. The cam plates offered the ability to control the tooling device, the table in which the part is secured, as well as rotating the tooling or part within the machine. Due to the machines size and complexity it took extensive amounts of time to set them up for production. Once computer numerically controlled machining was introduced it provided a faster, more efficient method for machining complex parts.

Siemens NX

NX, formerly known as "unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/CAE, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both software packages into a single product which became Unigraphics NX or NX.

Industrial and production engineering (IPE) is an interdisciplinary engineering discipline that includes manufacturing technology, engineering sciences, management science, and optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations. It is concerned with the understanding and application of engineering procedures in manufacturing processes and production methods. Industrial engineering dates back all the way to the industrial revolution, initiated in 1700s by Sir Adam Smith, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Frank Gilbreth and Lilian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, F.W. Taylor, etc. After the 1970s, industrial and production engineering developed worldwide and started to widely use automation and robotics. Industrial and production engineering includes three areas: Mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, and management science.

Designers have used computers for calculations since their invention. Digital computers were used in power system analysis or optimization as early as proto-"Whirlwind" in 1949. Circuit design theory or power network methodology was algebraic, symbolic, and often vector-based.

References