The Challenge
The goal of the Center for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS) at the University of Chicago is to develop X-ray beam lines and make them available to the faculty and staff of member universities and scientific members for frontier research. It is difficult to examine potential collisions within the specified linear and rotation motion ranges using conventional 2D CAD tools because of the complexity of the structure.
The Solution
CARS evaluated SolidWorks and Pro/ENGINEER software, and chose SolidWorks because of its ease-of-use and affordability. SolidWorks, with its interference detection capabilities, satisfied the research institution's needs to illustrate given circumstances within an experiment fully. With SolidWorks, all potential collisions were identified within an hour. Within a few hours, changes were made to show the maximum range of motions possible in five degrees of freedom, a process which would have taken a drafter several days using conventional 2D CAD.
Ease of use and affordability were two of the factors influencing our decision to purchase SolidWorks.
-John R. Shick, Design Drafter
Summary and Metrics:
Reduced experiment time from days to hours
Improved ability to detect potential collisions
Enhanced visualization of complex structures prior to prototyping
