At GGEC we use commonly:

  • Pro E

  • Solidworks

  • Auto CAD

  • Computer Aided Design CAD


"computer-assisted drafting", "computer-aided drafting", or a similar phrase. Related acronyms are CADD, which stands for "computer-aided design and drafting"; CAID, for Computer-aided Industrial Design; and CAAD, for "computer-aided architectural design". All these terms are essentially synonymous, but there are some subtle differences in meaning.

Basically CAD is not just a drafting tool; it’s a very accurate and robust design tool too. Due to the complexity of computations in our design methodology, the power of our computers is leveraged to compute solutions to complex problems like stress analysis, shear analysis, thermal analysis and fluid flow analysis. Our CAD offers very simple, easy to use, less time consuming and clean methods to study and evaluate the design process and arrive at a close-to-perfect design.

CAD is used to design, develop and optimize products, which can be goods used by end consumers or intermediate goods used in other products. CAD is also extensively used in our design of tools and machinery used in the manufacture of our components that go into your products

CAD is mainly used for detailed engineering of 3D models and/or 2D drawings of physical components, but it is also used throughout the engineering process from conceptual design and layout of products, through strength and dynamic analysis of assemblies to definition of manufacturing methods of components.

CAD has become an especially important technology, within the scope of Computer Aided technologies, with benefits such as lower product development costs and a greatly shortened design cycle. CAD enables designers to lay out and develop work on screen, print it out and save it for future editing, saving time on their drawings.

Pro/ENGINEER is the standard in 3D product design, featuring industry-leading productivity tools that promote best practices in design while ensuring compliance with your industry and company standards. Integrated, parametric, 3D CAD/CAM/CAE solutions allow you to design faster than ever, while maximizing innovation and quality to ultimately create exceptional products.

Benefits

  • Powerful, parametric design capabilities allow superior product differentiation and manufacturability

  • Fully integrated applications allow you to develop everything from concept to manufacturing within one application

  • Automatic propagation of design changes to all downstream deliverables allows you to design with confidence

  • Complete virtual simulation capabilities enable you to improve product performance and exceed product quality goals

  • Automated generation of associative tooling design and manufacturing deliverables

CAD/CAM Introduction

Mastercam offers solutions for designers and NC programmers involved in milling, turning, wire EDM, router programming, plasma cutting, lasers, and 3D design and drafting. This CNC Software is used in our tooling shop. We use this program to translate the 3-D design file into a path for tool fabrication

Traditionally, CAM has been considered as an NC programming tool wherein 3D models of components generated in CAD software are used to generate CNC code to drive numerical controlled machine tools.

Although this remains the most common CAM function, CAM functions have expanded to integrate CAM more fully with CAD/CAM/CAE PLM solutions.

As with other “Computer-Aided” technologies, CAM does not eliminate the need for skilled professionals such as our Manufacturing Engineers and NC Programmers. CAM, in fact, both leverages the value of our most skilled manufacturing professionals through advanced productivity tools, while building the skills of our new professionals through visualization, simulation and optimization tools. Integrating computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) with computer-aided design systems produces quicker and more efficient manufacturing processes. This methodology is applied in our tooling shop at GGEC.

In CNC manufacturing the CAM system is used to simplify the machining and designing process. In most cases the CAM system will work with a CAD design made in a 3D environment. The CNC programmer will just specify the machining operations and the CAM system will create the CNC program. This compatibility of CAD/CAM systems eliminates the need for redefining the work piece configuration to the CAM system. In other words: CAM software usually comes with a machine such as a lathe or mill which is controlled by the software. The entire system tends to be extremely expensive. We have made these extensive investments at GGEC. Cad/Cam systems offer the advantages of increased programming accuracy, geometric conformance to design parameters, ability to make minor and often major changes to part configuration and programming metrics within the same system. Cad/Cam systems utilize either "wireframe" or "solids" for the part feature generation necessary for post-processing intermediate code files derived from cutter tool paths into usable "nc" code readable by numerical control machines. Wireframe geometry can be either in two or three dimensional planes, while solids are in 3d.


Machining process

Most machining progresses through four stages, each of which is implemented by a variety of basic and sophisticated strategies, depending on the material and the software available. The stages are:

Roughing

This process begins with raw stock, known as billet, and cuts it very roughly to shape of the final model. In milling, the result often gives the appearance of terraces, because the strategy has taken advantage of the ability to cut the model horizontally. Common strategies are zig-zag clearing, offset clearing, and plunge roughing, rest-roughing.

Semi-finishing

This process begins with a roughed part that unevenly approximates the model and cuts to within a fixed offset distance from the model. The semi-finishing pass must leave a small amount of material so the tool can cut accurately while finishing, but not so little that the tool and material deflect instead of shearing. Common strategies are raster passes, waterline passes, constant step-over passes, pencil milling.


Finishing

Finishing involves a slow pass across the material in very fine steps to produce the finished part. In finishing, the step between one pass and another is minimal. Feed rates are low and spindle speeds are raised to produce an accurate surface.

Contour Milling

In milling applications on hardware with five or more axes, a separate finishing process called contouring can be preformed. Instead of stepping down in fine-grained increments to approximate a surface, the work piece is rotated to make the cutting surfaces of the tool tangent to the ideal part features. This produces an excellent surface finish with high dimensional accuracy.