subject: Benefits Of Computer-aided Drafting Design [print this page] In the process of product development, usually substantial costs are spent on the testing procedure of new products. CAD design is the initial step for the product to undergo a measure of physical test, to ensure that it not only adhere to the minimum safety standards but also functions successfully under a range of expected conditions. With the 2D or 3D designs as references, the testing process can be smoothened. For instance, the airplanes wings will have to undergo demonstration and testing to see if it can retain its integrity even during bad conditions like turbulence, before being commercially used.
Nevertheless, the testing process may consume extensively much time and cost. Take the airplane wings for example. If the aeronautical company has to construct numerous wings for testing for each new design employed, then the time scale and cost involved would be stretch far away from what is budgeted. With the CAD applications, developers are not subjected to the procedure of testing every design they introduce. With the CAD software, they can run virtual stress testing, replacing the real model with a wind tunnel for similar conditions.
The benefits gained from using the CAD design are seemingly advantageous. Besides contributing to the reduction of cost for the product development process and time interval for testing, the designs also aid in reducing the trouble for product modification. The conceptual designs, if found to have defects during the testing progress, can be modified immediately via the software hence saving additional time, cost and hassles. Instead of leaping straight to manufacturing a single model of a design for testing, the virtual stress tests done by computational means proves that technology is a rewarding resort to seek into.
Of how massively can the CAD applications help in the designing, development and testing of a product, its versatility is apparently seen through the design of airplane wings. Like what has been mentioned, the aerodynamics science is too complicated to produce every design model to test them physically. There are countless wing shapes to be tested for awful conditions and it is believed that the identification of problems could be a challenge during the physical test because it is too difficult to detect in a split second. On the other hand, the virtual test can be done again and again, and can be slowed down to track where the problem lies for alterations to be done.
