Collaborating Mechanical Design Phases Across A Grid

Traditional mechanical design process faces three major challenges: (1) the need for rapid and repeated numerous time-consuming simulations, such as finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics; (2) the need for dataset management; (3) the lack of an integrated and easy-to-use collaborative mechanical design environment. This paper presents a grid-enabled solution for mechanical engineering design, which integrates three traditional design phases (preliminary design, structure verification, and performance evaluation) into one workflow, utilizing grid resources for calculations. This solution aims to accelerate each phase in design process, accommodate more models, and prevent the best results being discarded during the early design stages as it may happen in the conventional design procedures. The applicability of this solutions shown by a case study.