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 "I was given the project at 6 p.m. on a Friday.The following Monday, my associates in Los Angeles had their results. The parts were machined that morning and running on our life test robot by afternoon.”
Don Bartlett, Senior Staff Engineer
THE CHALLENGE
FANUC Robotics North America, Inc. designs, engineers and manufactures industrial robots and robotic systems. With locations throughout North America, FANUC Robotics is recognized for quality engineering, excellent customer service and cost-effective automation solutions. Since 1982 the company has been a robotics industry leader. FANUC Robotics had been using Aries for Finite Element Analysis (FEA). But designs were done in 2D, so parts had to be modeled from scratch if they required FEA. The auto mesher wasn't robust and rarely meshed on the first try. In fact, significant simplifications had to be made to the model to get it to mesh. The Aries solver was also very slow -- the analysis of a simplified version of the inner arm of a robot took 18 hours to run. It was time to get leading-edge design analysis software.
THE SOLUTION
FANUC Robotics had standardized on SolidWorks mechanical design software because its power and ease of use improved productivity. Consequently, the company chose COSMOSWorks and COSMOSMotion analysis software. These products integrated tightly with SolidWorks, so engineers wouldn’t need to learn new software and could work within one system for greater productivity in optimizing designs. With COSMOSWorks, they could easily perform analysis, find errors, and change dimensions of parts where required, allowing engineers to create better designs. For example, when the coupling on a ball screw failed during a robot life test, the COSMOSWorks simulation showed the failure point, and its design optimization features were able to create a more flexible design and verify its performance under acceptable stress levels to meet the required design life. All of this was accomplished in only two days with COSMOSWorks – instead of the one month previously required. The company also uses COSMOSMotion to understand and predict robot performance under previously untested conditions – to ensure robots work properly for their customers’ applications.
Industry: Machinery
Products: COSMOSWorks
Location: Michigan
Reseller: FISHER/UNITECH
SUMMARY & METRICS
- Reduced project time from one month to two days
- Reduced the combined stress of the coupler by more than 60%, which met the required design life
- Ensured product robustness and reliability by predicting robot performance
Visit Fanuc Robotics on the web at www.fanuc.com. |
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