Northrop Grumman Corporation/College of Aeronautics Industrial Associate Program
By Dr. George Kizner

Northrop Grumman Corporation and the College of Aeronautics are pleased to announce another successful year of their Industry Associate Program.  For several years the Engineering Technologies department worked with Mr. James Pavlica, E-2C Vehicle Design Project Engineer and his group, the Integrated Systems Sector at Plant 15 in Bethpage, NY in a series of projects using CATIA V4 and CATIA V5.

Most recently, in the fall of 2002 the project focused on the creation of a CATIA 3D Standard Library.  “Our goal is to create a 3-D Standards Library in which the user may enter a standard part number, and a solid part would appear for use as a detail.  A notification message would appear if an incorrect part number was entered if no solid model exists”, says James Pavlica.

NGC currently has CATIA V4 and a 3D Parameters functionality.  College of Aeronautics has CATIA V5 capabilities along with a parametric modeler.  “Our students would use parametric data tables, according to NGC standards.  Information such as bolt diameters, part numbers and grip lengths were established in a spreadsheet and linked to the parameters of a part,” said Donald O’Keefe, Associate Professor of the Engineering Technologies department. Their parameters can be linked to a column in a spreadsheet or any tabular document (e.g. MS Word, notepad). Using Design Table functionality in CATIA V5 allows rapid modeling of numerous washer, nut bolt configuration. These parts can later be cataloged and/or converted into CATIA V4 for testing and analysis.

NGC suggested threads not be modeled as this would make the part files too large and cumbersome to work with and therefore defeat the whole objective. To accomplish this task the new Tap/Thread Analysis features were used. This allows a part with interior or exterior threads to be represented using symbolic geometry. Thus moving the mouse over the part would tell the user the diameter, depth and pitch of the threaded area. These values can be standardized to the user’s specifications and also retrieved from any tabular document thereby streamlining the creation process.

To confer on what was transferred to V4, the IT professionals at NGC made the submission and revision process effortless through electronic transfer.

“This project was a great experience for our students. All of them were new to the idea of working as a team and there were varying opinions as to how to solve the problems. But by setting up rules and objectives, they all came together to accomplish the task. When they begin their careers, I feel this experience will help them in their future endeavors”, Donald O’Keefe said.

Mr. Gerry Yurchison, Engineering Specialist of NGC and Dr. George Kizner, Engineering Technologies Chairman of the college saw the value in forming Industrial/Academic Partnerships founded the IAP program. Looking back, this is our third project under this program and it is great to note its accomplishments from what was an informal first acquaintance in the hotel lobby during the St. Louis COE.  We hope to present our findings at a later session.

For further information about the "HEAT Program", contact information is listed below:

Q. W. (Buz) Nowicki
CATIA Higher Education an Training (HEAT) Program Manager
Product Lifecycle Management Solutions
18000 West Nine Mile Road
Southfield, MI 48075
(248) 552-5981 IBM Tie Line 896-5981 Fax (248) 552-6886
e-mail qnowicki@us.ibm.com