The Cutting Edge of Design – Complete Project Series

Our sample project goal will be to create and design an ergonomic handle for an electronic reciprocating carving knife. There are several different skill sets, people and departments that need to be involved in this process and we’re going to use the cloud power of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to string all the different employees, vendors and teams together.  

SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE Together

Many of you are probably very familiar with SOLIDWORKS (or at the very least with traditional desktop 3D CAD design) but maybe not so much with the newer 3DEXPERIENCE cloud-powered platform. Both are provided by Dassault Systèmes and were specifically designed to work together, but what does that really mean and what do you need to know to follow along in this series?

The good news is that this series is specifically designed for people new to the idea of cloud-powered project design. Where we won’t be diving into all of what the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can do, we will be breaking it up, so that it will be easy to follow along, even for those that have never seen it before. 

To get a little bit more of a general understanding, you can read up on some of the other introductory articles we have written and watch the video below for a general overview and introduction from our team of engineers.

>> On-Demand Webinar: Get to Know the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform
>> Related article: Top 3 Reasons Why Cloud Integrations Fail
>> Video Case Study: Faster Collaboration for Eviation Aircraft

Cutting Edge of Design Series

With this series, we’ve tried to break it up by skillset or the role that a team member would play in the product design cycle. In some cases, the project will be passed back and forth between team members and we’ve tried to simulate that here in this project as well. We’ve tried to represent these different roles with different TriMech engineers, so it’s easier to see where the project is, by who is walking you through it. 

1. Project Planner – Establishing a centralized plan can significantly increase the success of a project, so we are kicking off the series with how to use the Project Planner app.

2. Organizing a Product Structure – Defining what needs to be done to the assembly using the 3D Product Architect role: a perfect solution for project managers who need access to CAD data, but don’t need a full seat of SOLIDWORKS.

3. Making Changes in a Connected Space – Designing, referencing and making parts available to different collaborative team members including industrial designers, machinists and management. 

4. Subdivision Modeling with xShape –Getting into the creation of an ergonomic design from preliminary sketch (literally) to full 3D CAD model.

5. Working with xShape Data in SOLIDWORKS – We see how the recently created xShape data, stored on the cloud, can be accessed from anywhere and works within the SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE interface. 

6. Design Changes in xShape – We noticed some interference between the design and the internal components which need to be resolved. We will edit the original design component to accommodate and make some additional design changes.

7. Handling xShape Changes – We updated the handle design using xShape, but the geometry is fairly complex and it’s not a native SOLIDWORKS file. We show how to make this a usable form from a manufacturability standpoint.

8. 3D Printing from 3DEXPERIENCE – It’s time to bring this virtual design into reality with a prototype. In this step, we show how easy it is to 3D print your designs from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

9. Drop Test Simulation – SIMULIA Structural Mechanics Engineer (SME) is one of the roles in the 3DEXPERIENCE portfolio and allows for high-speed nonlinear analysis such as Impact Analysis and Drop Testing.

10. Plastic Injection Engineer – We look at a part fill analysis to check gate location and determine if the part will fill in a mold. This will allow us to make any design changes before starting the mold design or cutting any tooling.

11. Mold Design – We walk through how the powerful mold tools in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can be utilized for functionality on our complex design geometry. 

12. Shop Floor Programmer for CAM – We review the features in Shop Floor Programmer as we program the CAM data for the mold for the handle that has been designed. 

13. Project Wrap-Up – With the mold successfully created for the production of our design, we have come to the end of our project. We take a step back and take a top-level view of all the different parts of the process in this recap. 

Each new part will be released daily right here on our blog or you can follow us on social to get updates as soon as new articles and videos are posted.