The boundary between mechanical and AEC CAD programs continues to fade, especially in project where structure and machine unite. One notable British firm that specializes in this niche is finding mechanical CAD software SolidWorks to be of value.
British engineering design consultancy M G Bennett & Associates Ltd. is using SolidWorks Office Professional software to design key foundations for the new Wembley Stadium roof in London, which when completed, will be the longest opening roof structure in the world. The firm is also using SolidWorks to develop equipment that will help Scottish transportation authorities test the Forth Road Bridge, the oldest major suspension bridge in the country.
Founded in 1984 in Rotherham, England, Bennett has earned an international reputation for design creativity with expertise focusing on tunneling machinery, pipelines, vessels, movable bridge structures, aerospace, oil and gas, and nuclear projects. Such projects are often cross-disciplinary, where mechanical systems meet infrastructure and capital assets.
“SolidWorks allows us to save time and eliminate time-consuming work by automating some of the most crucial design tasks such as executing changes between 3D models and 2D drawings and detecting parts that interfere with each other,” said Paul Wade, an engineer at Bennett. “It has become a priceless tool for helping us tackle some of our most challenging projects.”
The structural testing of the Forth Bridge in Edinburgh, Scotland, was one such challenge. The bridge weighs 16,000 tons, spans 1,006 meters and carries over 24 million vehicles across the Forth estuary every year. The testing process begins with bridge safety officials removing several feet of tightly wrapped wire that supports the bridge's massive cables, to expose the interior for structural analysis. Bennett used SolidWorks to design a machine that will replace the external wire after testing is completed. The machine consists of two ring assemblies that wrap around the 600 millimeter diameter cable. One ring winds the wire around the cable and another compresses the wire to prevent corrosion and ensure the bridge maintains its integrity from the spot where the sample was taken. Bennett also used SolidWorks to design platforms for inspecting and sampling work on the cables 100 meters above the deck's surface.
“SolidWorks' assembly capabilities played a significant role in successfully designing this machine,” Wade said. “The software allowed us to conduct physical simulations of the ring movements to ensure nothing interfered with the cable application and compaction. It also allowed us to check mass properties so we could minimize weight, yet perform the task at hand. Designing this in 2D would have taken a very long time because we could only look at one view at a time.”
For Bennett, SolidWorks also played a crucial role in developing the massive 40-ton bearing blocks that will support most of the weight of the new Wembley Stadium roof. The brackets are designed to carry a load of 3,000 tons each when the 133-meter high arch supporting the entire north roof and 60 percent of the retractable south roof is put in place. Wade and his team used SolidWorks to convert the customer's 2D drawings of the brackets into 3D models that Bennett could easily refine and analyze for load testing.
--RSN
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