HYPERGEN HELPS REVERE TRANSDUCERS LOWER DESIGN COSTS, IMPROVE QUALITY FIGURE

A stress analysis contour of the Revere Transducers product. The new "Slice" command was used to reveal stress contours in the interior of the solid model.

Any company that is a leader in its field, and wants to stay that way, must face the need to constantly improve their product designs. This is especially true when the products being produced must meet very stringent design and performance criteria.

Revere Transducers, based in Cerritos, California, is a leader in the design and manufacture of strain-gage-based load sensing devices used in a wide variety of weighing applications. The company's engineering department is constantly working to design new products that meet the tough requirements of both RT and their customers. They also carry on a program of improving existing designs.

Here we see a light-shaded rendering of the solid tetrahedral model.

Although Revere Transducers has a comprehensive prototyping and test facility, in recent years the company has expanded their use of finite element analysis to create quality parts while reducing the need for expensive, time consuming prototypes. Recently, Project Engineer Brad Spindler further expanded the company's use of Algor FEA by using the new Hypergen Automatic Solid Mesh Generator in the redesign of an existing RT product.

"The 3-D model was built and a series of linear stress analyses were performed to assure the structural integrity of the redesigned part," says Mr. Spindler. "It was also critical that the product conform to company and industry specifications, which are very stringent. The analyses helped determine the necessary design parameters while reducing costs, prototypes and test iterations."

Building in 3-D

As is often the case, Mr. Spindler's decision to construct a 3-D model was necessitated by the geometry of the part. In his words: "This is a case where a solid model was the only way to go. To the eye, the part resembles a block of metal with holes drilled in it. There is a one-inch hole along the long axis with mounting holes perpendicular to that axis.

"The part could not be adequately modeled with plate/shell elements and the use of bricks was simply not feasible," continues Mr. Spindler. "Although the model is large, the actual construction was greatly simplified by the use of Superdraw II and Hypergen. Basically, I modeled the outside shell in Superdraw, then Hypergen automatically created the solid model by filling in that shell."

The Analysis

Once the model was completed, Mr. Spindler added loads and boundary conditions in Superdraw II. "A series of linear stress analyses were performed using a total of 12 different load cases and various boundary conditions," says Mr. Spindler. "The boundary conditions were varied to assure conformance to test lab results.

"The analyses proved the redesigned part's structural integrity," continues Mr. Spindler, "Further study is required to verify conformance with test results. We have started a program which will serve to prove Algor's analysis results by comparing them to data from our lab.

"When asked about Algor design software in general, and Hypergen in particular, Mr. Spindler says: "Hypergen is really a helpful tool. Of course, Superdraw II is easy to use and has many features that make modeling a much less time consuming task. In a case like this, the key is using them together. With Hypergen you just model the shell, and away it goes!