ProcessUniverse

ProcessUniverse contains detailed information for shaping, surface treatment, and joining processes, enabling systematic selection of the most appropriate processes to make a given component.

The economics of manufacturing depend critically on the choice of processes. ProcessUniverse guides this choice, helping you to make selection choices based on design specifications such as component size, shape, material, required precision and finish, and economic criteria such as planned production volume.

The Joining record subset contains manufacturing processes that join materials, based on the required joint loading, geometry, and service environment.

The Shaping record subset contains manufacturing processes that form materials to near net shape, based on mass, dimensions, tolerance, and cost.

The Surface treatments record subset contains manufacturing processes that change the surface properties of materials.

The variable nature of processes means that the following cautions should be considered when using the ProcessUniverse Table:

Approximate Nature of the Attributes

There are difficulties in creating a database of this sort, of which the greatest arise from the sparsity and poor quality of the input data, and the challenge of making sensible comparisons between processes which are very different in character. The physical attributes of processes can, in principle, be established, but their economic and environmental attributes are more elusive. The way forward here is one of incremental refinement, using case studies to seek and correct weaknesses in the database, thereby gradually enhancing its value. The current database has been refined in this way.

Generic Processes

Although the database contains a large number of processes, the record for any one of them is 'generic' in the sense that the attribute-range stored in it spans that for the many variants of the process. Thus the ranges in the record for 'CO2-Sand Casting' contain those for small and large casters, and for those capable of making complex shapes as well as those limited to simpler ones - they describe what can be done by CO2-Sand Casting as a general technique, not merely what can be done by a particular model of CO2-Sand Caster. For this reason the ranges are wide, particularly those for economic attributes. Despite this, the data are sufficiently discriminating to allow the selection of a subset of processes, as demonstrated below.

Interaction Between Process and Material Properties

A difficulty which is not addressed due to the breadth of the material and process databases, is that process changes the properties of the materials itself, to a greater or lesser degree, so that a material processed to a given shape by one route differs from that processed by another. Rather than incorporating these variabilities, the function of Granta Selector is to provide guidance in the early stage of design when material and process routes are first under consideration, to prompt the user so that potential process routes are not overlooked, and to provide a brief description of the process and its attributes quickly and intelligibly. That is what the ProcessUniverse table seeks to do.