FEATURE CAD/SOFTWARE Designing and manufacturing to suit immediate requirements is more or


less a straightforward task. But looking to the future and striving to guarantee that a design will still work as intended in ten or fifteen years is a much taller order. It requires careful thought and access to the right tools, including good CAE and design software, as Ken Christie, director at EPLAN, explains


Designing for the future G


etting the project built is just one aim of the design process – the


design also needs to be viable for the lifetime of the equipment, while allowing a certain degree of flexibility to match the user’s requirements as time goes by. With this in mind, the design must include, for example, detailed and accurate documentation so that someone trying to maintain the equipment five, or even ten years, after it was built will know how it works and what to do if it goes wrong. By using a good CAE software


system, documentation is produced almost at the touch of a button and it’s guaranteed to be accurate (with conventional engineering approaches, this can be a tedious and time- consuming job that’s prone to mistakes). It is also very straightforward to keep the documentation up-to-date when design changes are made. Design packages will take accurate


and up-to-date component data from a data portal and, by using macros, will dramatically reduce the design time needed. It will also make sure relevant standards are observed and the quality and accuracy of documentation it produces will offer a tremendous competitive advantage.


FUTURE-PROOF A future-proof design must also consider the mechanical aspects of maintainability – are components accessible if they need to be repaired or


data portal will help here. A data portal is an on-line database of


replaced? A 3D CAE design package will help to answer this question. Visualisations in 3D and dimension information relating to production and implementation can be easily and quickly generated directly by CAE software that includes this functionality. As an example, Rittal Therm, the


software calculation programme for the climate control of enclosures, eliminates laborious calculation of climate control requirements. This has an easy to use interface that leads the user to the appropriate and correctly dimensioned cooling solution. A direct link to Rittal Therm software has been added to the EPLAN Platform to facilitate even more efficient planning options, together with high-quality heating, cooling and air conditioning component product data by Rittal. If there are plans to use this type of


advanced facility, however, it is worth checking that the CAE package has flexible data export facilities to ensure the information can be provided in a form that is compatible with external systems and that is likely to remain accessible in the future. Obscure proprietary file formats are definitely best avoided!


DATA PORTALS But what about the components themselves – are they the best and latest of their type? Where are they in their product lifecycle? Will they be around for years to come? Access to a


component data. This is maintained by the component suppliers themselves who regularly update it to reflect their latest product developments. More and more of our data portal partners are supplying macros in 3D form (physical representation). This makes it much easier when dragging and dropping into the 3D environment within EPLAN Pro Panel Professional, enabling a digital twin to be produced that creates an accurate virtual model of the process, product or service. Some providers have databases


containing hundreds of thousands of components from key manufacturers, which are updated every four weeks. This data can be directly imported into the CAE software with no need for conversion or manipulation. Another important issue for designers


who like to plan ahead is compliance with the latest industry codes and standards. Here, the best CAE providers build guidelines into their software for understanding and using existing standards, and for incorporating them into specific designs. What’s more, if you happen to work for


an ambitious business that wants to stand out from the crowd by developing their own corporate standards, good CAE software can lay the foundations for that with provision for creating and reusing optimised templates based on high quality design and master data. The predefined master data and settings, and the pre-set report templates, make compliance easier and far less time consuming, as well as ensuring a high degree of standardisation – another important element of future-proofing. The best standards modules help


By using a good CAE software system, documentation is produced almost at the touch of a button


and it’s guaranteed to be accurate. It is also very straightforward to keep the


documentation up to date when design changes are made


24 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DESIGN SOLUTIONS


engineers comply not only with product standards, but also with global standards for documentation and production, such as the new IEC 81346, ISO 1219, IEC 61355, and NFPA/JIC standards. Good CAE and design software will


help ensure the design in the future. And if it happens to be supported by a team of specialists always on call to help, then producing future-proof designs suddenly turns into clear commercial opportunity rather than a daunting challenge.


EPLAN www.eplan.co.uk


/ DESIGNSOLUTIONS


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