AC 2007-2827: VALIDATION OF A CAD-BASED TOOL FOR DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE COMPONENTS

Flexible components such as hydraulic hoses are critical to the operation of basically all vehicles, but they are difficult to model accurately, be that in a CAD system or for an engineering calculation. Thus, in many industries, experimental mockups are built to gain confidence in the placement of flexible components. These mockups are made from hard-tooled components, thus leading to another problem: the hose models make a late entry into the CAD database. The effect is that it is difficult to plan for the space needed for proper hose clearance. Better and valid modeling techniques are needed. One hose modeling technique being studied at Western Michigan University involves the use of discrete flexible links in simulation software. To aid in the proper implementation and validation of this modeling technique, a group of four students in a Capstone Design Course were asked to apply reverse engineering techniques to measure points along an actual hose and enter those points into the simulation software for comparison and validation of the model. This validation process is the work presented in this manuscript.