Paper ID #20385

Material and Processing Basics Through Reverse Engineering

Prof. Somnath Chattopadhyay, University at Buffalo, SUNY
Dr. Somnath Chattopadhyay teaches mechanics, materials, manufacturing and design at University at
Buffalo He has authored a text on Pressure Vessel s and till recently was an Associate Editor of the
ASME Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology. His research interests are in the areas of fatigue and
fracture of metals, carbon nanotubes, multi-scale material modeling and engineering education. He had a
very successful industrial career with Westinghouse Electric where he directed and performed structural
design of power generation equipment and is a registered professional engineer. He received his Ph.D. in
mechanics from Princeton University.

American
c Society for Engineering Education, 2017
 Material and Processing Basics through Reverse Engineering

ABSTRACT
The materials and processing issues in mechanical engineering design has been explored through

reverse engineering projects. Product dissection has become a popular way to teach engineering

concepts and design principles related to engineered products. The material and process selection

involved in consumer products chosen by students for dissection and analysis (reverse

engineering) constitute the basis of this study. These reverse engineering projects have been used

as the lab component of the sophomore engineering course “Introduction of the Mechanical

Engineering Practice.” About 160 students in the class were broken down in groups of four and

each group chose a specific product to be dissected and analyzed in detail. A number of lecture

classes was devoted to material and manufacturing process selection in mechanical design where

the Ashby charts were introduced. The students used the common design criterion of minimizing

cost or weight. Depending on how the structural components in their products are loaded

(namely tension, compression, bending or shear), they came up with the materials using the

Ashby charts and ranked them in terms of their performance. The students were made aware of

the fact that a material and the process for making it must be chosen in concert. This paper

summarizes the overall experience of the mechanical engineering sophomore students on

material and process selection for a wide range of consumer products chosen by them.

INTRODUCTION

Product dissection (teardown) process has become a popular way to teach students about

engineering concepts and design principles associated with engineered products around them.

This process of reverse engineering helps the student design teams learn how the product
functions and how the parts or subassemblies interact with one another. The reverse engineering

projects have been incorporated as a laboratory component of a sophomore course entitled

“Introduction to Mechanical Engineering Practice,” and is a required course for mechanical

engineering majors. The course comprised of three hour-long lectures every week along with a

group project in reverse engineering. The lecture classes were devoted to the basic elements of

mechanical engineering practice which came from a text entitled “An Introduction to

Mechanical Engineering.” [1] This text introduced the students to the vocabulary, skills, and

applications associated with the mechanical engineering profession. Chapter 1 of the text

introduces the profession of mechanical engineering, and the next seven chapters talk about the

various disciplines within mechanical engineering with intent to develop useful design, analysis

and technical problem solving skills in students. In addition to the topics presented in the text,

Engineering Ethics and Material Selection were introduced as separate lectures.

The reverse engineering project involved dissecting a product that the students chose and then

put it back together. 160 students in the class were broken into groups of four students and each

group chose a specific product to be dissected and analyzed in detail. In this process the students

got a broader perspective on engineering decisions. For the product dissected the responsible

group investigated the design, answering questions about functionality, aesthetics, manufacturing

and other engineering decisions. In doing so, the students explored the global, societal,

environmental, and economic factors that shaped the final design of the product. This process of

reconstructing the lifecycle of the product – the customer requirements, the design specifications

(including material selection) and the manufacturing processes used to produce it – to understand

the decisions that led to its development is known as product archaeology [2] In this work only the
material selection process has been examined in detail. Although the students at this level have

very little background on materials, it is believed that the students gain a fresh perspective as to

how and why a material is selected for a specific component of the product as they are

introduced to a rational way of selecting materials.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The projects that the students worked on were broken into four stages or Gates. For each Gate,

the groups completed a set of product archaeology and project management tasks. Before the

gates began, each group submitted a project proposal identifying what products they as a group

would investigate. The individual gates are identified below and were pursued for all projects.

Gate 1 was the preparation and initial assessment phase, where the students researched the

background of the product and performed a preliminary evaluation. At this Gate, the students

hypothesized the inner working of the product before it was dissected.

Gate 2 involved the process of dissection (or excavation using the language of product

archaeology). In this Gate, the students dissected the product to collect additional detailed

information about how the products were manufactured, how do the various components within a

particular product interacted, and so on.

Gate 3 was the evaluation phase, where the students analyzed the information already obtained

in Gate 2. Here the students performed basic analyses and tests to establish the design of the

components within the product, and also the overall product design.

Gate 4 was the explanation phase, where the students synthesize the information obtained to

make large conclusions about the design decisions.

For each Gate, all the groups completed and submitted individual Gate reports. Upon the

completion of all four Gates, the students documented their findings in the final report that they

prepared for critical review by the instructor with the help of two teaching assistants. Gates were

submitted throughout the semester, evaluated, and returned to the students. The reports contained

the required discussion, figures, tables, videos or any other supporting information.

The individual Gate reports together with the final report, constituted the project grade, which

accounted for 30% of the course grade. The rest of the course grade came from the mid-semester

examinations and homework based on lecture topics. A project of this magnitude was a big

challenge for students. The students got access to all the facilities and resources of the university.

There was a dissection laboratory which was equipped with power tools, hand tools, and

measurement devices. In addition, the facilities of the Engineering Machine Shop were

accessible for difficult disassembly and assembly tasks.

MATERIALS SCIENCE PERSPECTIVES

The work reported here provided the material science perspectives of the product archaeology.

Typically, this originated in Gate 3 and evaluated in detail in Gate 4. The background of the

early engineering students in materials science was grossly inadequate. Therefore, they were

provided some basics on materials in the lecture classes. A total of five lectures were devoted for

that purpose. The variety of materials, namely metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites was

discussed. The key concepts introduced were stress, strain, elastic modulus, yield strength, etc. In

addition, they were exposed to the different failure modes, namely those of tension, bending, and

torsion, along with buckling. The students were presented with the concepts of normal and shear

stresses and warned that they are separate entities and could not be added as such. The stresses
due to tension and bending were to be evaluated against the material yield strength, while shear

stresses were to be evaluated against the material shear strength (typically one half of the tensile

yield strength). The equations for tensile/compressive stresses were presented in terms of the

applied load divided by area, the equation for bending stress in terms of the applied moment and

cross sectional properties, and the one for torsional stress in terms of applied torque and sectional

properties.

Some practice problems on these topics were done in the class and supplemented by homework

problems. The individual groups were assisted by identifying loads that are applied on the

components of their product and how to calculate the stresses due to applied loadings and assure

structural adequacy through comparison with the corresponding allowable stresses.

Separate lectures were presented on materials selection. The students were made aware of the

fact that a designer had to choose the material best suited for the specific situation from a vast

menu of materials. The material selection decision could be effectively performed using

Ashby’s book [3] and elements from the Cambridge Engineering Selector [4]. Reference [3]

discusses a wide range of situations involving a variety of loadings. They were expected to find

the material properties of the various components of their products from literature. The specific

properties were the density, ρ, the elastic modulus E, and the yield strength, σy. Typical loading

cases are shown in Figures 1, 2, and 3. These have been extracted from Reference [2]. The

appropriate charts are shown in figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 and have been obtained from Reference

[3].and associated software comes from Reference [4]. Figure 8 is a summary chart extracted

from Reference [2].

Figure 1: Material Selection for a Strong and Light Tie Rod

Figure 2: Material Selection for a Stiff and Light Beam (Ashby 2010)
Figure 3: Material Selection for a Stiff, Light Panel (Ashby 2010)
 Figure 4 Modulus vs Density (Ashby 2010)

Figure 5 Strength vs Density (Ashby 2010)

 Figure 6 Modulus vs Density (Ashby 2010)

Figure 7 Strength vs. Relative Cost (Ashby 2010)

 Figure 8 Commonly Used Material Indices (Ashby 2010)

The following set of guidelines were provided the students an overview of how their products

were loaded and how the stresses are to be calculated:

Shafts in Rotating Products: Check the torsional stress and deflection occurring in egg beater,

pencil sharpener, electric drill, fans, leaf blower, pepper grinder etc.

Pressurized Containers: Check hoop stresses in Nerf gun, air soft gun, paint ball gun, pistol,

pellet gun

Blades in Fans: Check bending stresses and centrifugal normal stresses, also shear stresses due

to twisting of blades.

Skateboard: Check bending stress and direct shear stress

Fishing reel, stapler, etc.: Check bending stress and deflection

Bolts and Screws: Check stresses due to tightening (preload) and operating loads.
Springs: Check for torsional stress and deflection, and check whether the spring have minimum

mass for a given energy storage.

ASSESSMENTS OF STUDENT PROJECTS IN TERMS OF MATERIALS SELECTION

A large number of products comprised the student projects. Some of these are reported here from

the standpoint of material selection. Radio controlled cars and helicopters were analyzed by a

number of groups. Most of the components were made out of plastic; one group however

concluded that some sort of steel could be used for added strength. Specifically, one group

working on RC helicopter wanted to change the material for the landing gear to aluminum from

plastic, and that of the main shaft to stainless steel. Nerf Guns were the products of choice for a

large number of groups. Almost all these groups concluded that plastic was the adequate material

for the product, although one group felt some metal and rubber parts could be used as well.

A few groups worked on electric drills where the shafts and gears were made out of steel, which

they felt was the adequate material because of large stresses which resulted from torques they

calculated from the power and rpm specifications. The housing and the insulation plate were

made out of plastic because they were not load-bearing. One group working on Hitachi Drill

mentioned that cast aluminum gear housing adds durability and dissipates heat efficiently.

The groups that worked on leaf blower and runaway alarm clock likewise felt that plastic was the

adequate material for their products. The group that worked on vacuum brush roll, found a

combination of metal and plastic parts, the metal parts bearing the large torsional shear stresses

arising from their calculated values of torque from the wattage and rpm information.
The students were asked to treat the materials aspect the same way as is presented here. The

loadings should be clearly understood and appropriate model should be used to derive the

material indices. The students were expected to know how to use the material selection charts.

Table 1 summarizes the assessment for randomly selected 25 projects in terms of how the project

teams used the various materials science perspectives in terms of (a) material properties, (b)

material allowable, (c) structural adequacy in terms of factor of safety and (d) a rational process

of material selection using Ashby charts. It should be mentioned here that the software CES

EduPack was not used. Only the charts were used. Selection aspect was correctly considered by

only 6 of the 25 groups

 TABLE 1

Assessment in terms of material properties, allowable, adequacy, and selection

PRODUCT Mat. Prop Allowable Adequacy Selection
Pepper Grinder * * * *
RC Helicopter * * *
RC Car * * *
HT-900 Deck Fan * * *
18 V Flashlight * * *
Oil Filter Wrench * * *
Ford RC Car * *
Nail Gun * *
Architectural Lamp * *
747 Stapler * * *
Desk Fan * * * *
Toaster *
Coffee Maker * *
NERF Gun *
Dead Bolt * * * *
Leaf Blower * * *
Fishing Reel * * * *
Spinning Reel * * *
Elite Force Pistol * * *
NERF Vulcan * * *
Standing Fan * * * *
Mixer * * *
Power Drill * * *
Swingline Stapler * *
Pellet Gun * * * *

However, the most important objective of this activity was to develop a better appreciation of

materials as it appears in the design process. Students were exposed to the software [3] which led

to a rationalized process of materials selection. Furthermore, this activity also helped them

visualize how important is the materials selection in the overall design of a product.
DICUSSION

The activity mentioned in is work was to predict the material response to loads as well as

selection of the materials in projects dealing with reverse engineering. These projects constituted

the laboratory component for an introductory course on mechanical engineering practice, where

the students successfully disassembled and reassembled their products. Introducing the feature

of material response in the reverse engineering projects presented a big challenge, primarily due

to grossly inadequate materials background of the students at this level. A better treatment of the

materials selection procedure needs to be instituted. That requires a better materials background

for students which needs to be incorporated in the ME curriculum. In the opinion of the author,

the ME students should be encouraged to use the CES EduPack software for rational materials

selection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Wickert, J., and Lewis, K., An Introduction to Mechanical Design, Third Edition, Cengage Learning, 2010.

[2] Ashby, M. F., Materials Selection in Mechanical Design, Butterworth Heinemann, Fourth Edition, 2010.

[3] Cambridge Engineering Selector CES EduPack, Granta Design Limited, Cambridge, UK, 2017.