Aspects of Mechanical Design Engineer San Francisco CA

There is a lot of information on mechanical design floating around. The student is encouraged to look into this body of information and apply it to their Drafting and Design Engineering San Francisco CA. Here I present just a few basic “pointers” commonly used in Engineering Design. 

Mechanical design problems usually start with some sort of problem statement. What are we trying to do or improve? Why? Generally it will be “blurry” at first, i.e., something like: “Improve fuel consumption of the Campro Engine”, or “Decrease cost of the torchlight”. We must help define the problem by focusing on the constraints, e.g., “Improve Fuel consumption, but do not reduce power, cost can not increase by more than 2%, Emissions …” 

Economics will always be an important factor. Any potential solutions should include economic analysis as well as a timeline, as time in money. Manufacturability is another important factor. For example you can design an engine modification to save energy (say replacing your current engine with a more “high-tech” engine), but if the energy required to make the modification (i.e., Manufacture the new engine) is more than the expected savings of energy from the modification, then it is a waste of time. 

Energy is another important factor Efficiency may or may not be an important factor. In a power plant efficiency is crucial: It will be worth it to improve the efficiency of the plant by 2% even if it costs 1,000,000 RM to do so, if the plant burns 50,000,000 RM of natural gas per year. 

In this case the “payback period” of the modification is only one year, and large plants typically have life times of >20 years, meaning you just saved 19,000,000 RM over the life of the plant! With a wind turbine the efficiency is not important, as the wind is free, but the installed cost and cost of maintenance is. 

This is related to efficiency (less efficient turbines require larger rotors, and heavier towers), but a less efficient, less expensive system might work out to be the best choice. 

You are a Mechanical Design Engineer San Francisco CA! Once you have data you need to start calculating the other important parameters. Make simple models first, then get more sophisticated as your data and techniques improve. Be sure to check your work with common sense: if you calculate that it will take 14.652 A to run your walkman, you have a serious problem! Often you can “test” various hypotheses or options in the model much easier than you can in actual hardware for example how long will it take a window crank motor to open the steel door?