Vehicle Design, Simplifying the CAD Process

It is a feature of several courses that students undertake a military vehicle design and costing exercise. Many of the students do not have engineering or technical backgrounds and are unfamiliar with conventional engineering techniques of graphical representation. Learning a complex CAD package solely for this exercise is inappropriate, it would require considerable time to be found in the timetable and it is highly unlikely that the student would use this skill again. As a result Cranfield University has developed a user friendly design package which allows the students to design and build their vehicle by selecting suitable vehicle components from a drop down menu and arranging them on the workspace. In summary, this design package has greatly reduced the design time. It has helped students to appreciate the problems related to accommodating major subassemblies and their packaging and has allowed compromises and trade-offs to be understood and addressed rapidly.