
Electrical circuits can be tested, fluid flow can be analyzed and plastic injection molding processes can be designed and tested before melting any pellets.

Parts can be tested for strength under different loading conditions, analyzed for failure due to thermal, vibration, buckling or fatigue. In addition to creating fantastic designs and bringing ideas to life, engineers can now simulate, test or validate their designs before any manufacturing takes place. SOLIDWORKS mission to enable 3D on every Engineer’s desktop was started in 1995 and has since reached out to include over 2 million users in education and commercial endeavors.ģD CAD has evolved each year to add more power, speed, realism and efficiency to creating and inventing anything. While some 3D capabilities existed for very well-funded companies in the aerospace and automotive industries, the mass market was not exposed to 3D CAD until the early 90’s. In addition, problems that could only be solved using complex true projection calculations (such as in calculating true lengths of non-prismatic shapes) could now be solved using correctly drawn geometry with basic r drawing techniques. Computerized drafting tools advanced negating the need for performing mathematical calculations to find midpoints, areas, centers of gravity. Significant increases in speed could be realized, especially when making any changes as the need to erase pencil or ink was replaced by a simple electronic eraser. This revolution improved over 20-30 years and is still available and in use today by many individuals and organizations. With the advent of computers, first expensive mainframes, then mini-computers and finally personal computers, engineers, designers and inventors were able to place circles, lines and arcs virtually on a computer screen. While materials and manufacturing methods became more sophisticated, the methodology of creating technical drawings did not change substantially until the computer age.
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Incredible inventions were designed and manufactured through the early 1900’s using pencil and paper, vellum or mylar (and trial and error) such as the steam engine, cotton gin, telegraph, sewing machine the Model T Ford automobile and flying machines. While papyrus (thin paper) was manufactured as early as 2550 BC, today’s modern design and engineering can be traced back to the start of the industrial revolution in the 1760’s. To understand where the future trends in Engineering are leading us, we should step back and review how we got to our current point in history.Įngineering and manufacturing have been around as long as the earliest inventions including the wheel.

What is the next wave of best practices in engineering?.
