Computer supported application engineering and design of hydrostatic systems

Abstract

The Institute for Mechanical Engineering Design of the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg is develop-ing a product model based tool for application engineering of hydrostatic systems, which supports the early stages of product design. To guarantee that all employees of the company have access to product data and design knowl-edge via Intranet the tool is WEB-based. Increased data processing support especially in the early stages of product development requires computer supported acquisition of the task, which is offered by the tool. Additionally differ-ent modules support the solution identification process by supplying design experience and giving access to realized solutions. Circuit diagram creation, selection of compo-nents, system simulation, error estimation and 3D layout of the hydrostatic system are also supported by the tool. The central component of the application engineering tool is a product model, defined especially for hydrostatic systems, in which all product specific analysis and synthesis data are stored. The design of the hydrostatic system, thus the filling of the current product model with information, takes place with help of IT tools, which support the several stages of product design, following the VDI guideline Design of Hydrostatic Systems, namely control-systems and especially hydraulic manifolds is “the up to date” subject of „by hand“ designers; CAD support can be found as a tool to reproduce a handmade layout for inter-ference checking, presentation and make of production drawings. To create a higher efficiency a CAD tool must be extended for this special task, so that some of the calcu-lations and checking of the constraints can be done inter-nally by the program and are immediately available.
Due to this situation the „Arbeitsbereich Kon-struktionstechnik I“ started to build a design system based on an object-oriented 3D-CAD-modeller. With the objec-toriented programming it is possible to create product models that contain not only geometric data but also tech-nical and administrative data that are necessary for calcula-tions and constraint checking. Based on this technology product models for hydrostatic components are evaluated and used in the new design system.