Mechanical assembly and its role in product development

This MIT OpenCourseWare offers selected lecture notes and details of assignments and projects taken from the graduate course Mechanical assembly and its role in product development taught in the autumn of 2004.

The course presents a systematic approach to design and assembly of mechanical assemblies, which should be of interest to engineering professionals, as well as post-baccalaureate students of mechanical, manufacturing and industrial engineering. It introduces mechanical and economic models of assemblies and assembly automation at two levels. “Assembly in the small” includes basic engineering models of part mating, and an explanation of the Remote Center Compliance. “Assembly in the large” takes a system view of assembly, including the notion of product architecture, feature-based design, and computer models of assemblies, analysis of mechanical constraint, assembly sequence analysis, tolerances, system-level design for assembly and JIT methods, and economics of assembly automation. Class exercises and homework include analyses of real assemblies, the mechanics of part mating, and a semester long project. Case studies and current research are included.

Specific objectives for students include: understanding a systematic approach to analyzing assembly problems; appreciating the many ways assembly influences product development and manufacturing; see a complete approach that includes technology, systems engineering, and economic analysis; and get a feeling for what is technologically feasible.

[Description and screenshot taken from MIT OCW page for this course. (c) MIT used under the terms of their CC-NC-SA license.]

Link: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanical-engineering/2-875-mechanical-assembly-and-its-role-in-product-development-fall-2004/
Author: Daniel E. Whitney
Publication Date: 2004-12
Source: http://ocw.mit.edu/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
Rights: Copyright MIT. Use subject to a Creative Commons non-commercial share-alike License and other terms of use. For full details see http://ocw.mit.edu/terms/