Professor Blair articles
 

Professor Blair, a very knowledgeable Engine Guy, at one point,
provided a series of articles on engine design.
He also gave the same lectures in our building.

I have attached the links for those articles here. ENJOY

http://www.profblairandassociates.com/RET_Articles.html

Lots of accurate information on Engine Design and how things 'work".

Tom V.

Thanks Tom. Lot of info to digest.

You are welcome, Mr sdbob.

Tom V.

Nice. The "Death of black art" has hit most tehcnical design industries due to the software being the design predictor for young designers, and the scrutinizer by onlookers.

In microwave engineering (my industry), there is still MGMT that knows that the older designers can out-do the software and they have patience to await the hardware performance results. Yet there is also MGMT that will not budge on an idea/approach unless it has been simulated. Well that is dull.

The simulation models rely on calculations based in research data- results on hardware that usually has a constrained range of size, materials, and operating range. That fiction happens when the modeller goes beyond these constraints. Designers familiar with the model elements can perceive what the performance trend should be rather than what the SW is showing.

We would say the model is only as good as the modeller.

We still build "engineering models" and measure the crap out if it, to verify compliance to all specifications. Clean little industry secret is the older designer usually able to drive the customer requirements up front, to assure Pass/Fail success on every RQMT, because the customer usually has a systematic requirement set that lacks reality in production Pass/Fail, and Analyses Compliance when the parts are derated from their ABS Mas ratings. And the Boiler Plate RQMT to comply with MIL-STD-xxx does not play well with COTS parts and Commercial Programs.

Some article came out in the past 5-years ago titled like "The Democratization of Design" and delivers a similar message.

Katia software has been out there for design work for at least 20 years.
The OEMS are still using it every day.

Tom V.

Mechanical Pencil applier to vellum allows a designer to DESIGN without dedicating half their brain to operating a SW tool, like katia.

When the designer has a concept turned design concept, oh sure the SW like katia can be driven, and driven hard, to a point.

I put the basic design on paper and then they would do the Katia work.
A good Designer does not need a lot of instruction if they have been in the game for 25+ years. I knew nothing about Katia except that Ford required the designers to use it in Research. A lot of initial work on the First ECOBOOST trucks was done by me and ONE Designer working together. Today there are 2.7 million Ecoboost vehicles out there.

Tom V.

Thanks Tom!

Catia (computer-aided three-dimensional interactive application) was developed in the late 1970s, and version 1 was released in 1981.

Thanks Stuart. If you don't have a great Designer the software does nothing.

Tom V.

Ashlar-vellum "Graphite-8" seems to be thee drawing tool that lets the Designer use their brain to design, and not dissipate their brainpower to run the tool.