Computer‐Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM)

Abstract

Design has a long history but computer‐aided design (CAD) offers a new, modern connotation. With the exception of the physical processes, such as cutting, forging, and mixing used to a manufacture items, the commonly discussed topics in computer‐aided manufacturing (CAM), such as material planning, process and procedure designs, numerical control, and scheduling, can also be considered CAD because design is involved. This article reviews the history of computer‐aided design beginning with ENIAC, the first electronic computer, which was developed for the army during World War II, through the recent introduction of a computer that has a speed of 100–250 million floating‐point operations per second (flops). In automating chemical processes and computations, companies must decide whether to use commercial software packages or to develop in‐house CAD/CAM programs. Many of the underlying principles employed in the design of the prevailing commercial software packages are discussed. These principles can also guide the development of in‐house programs. The topics covered include absorption to waste management, and range from drafting isometric pipeline systems and the interactive manipulation of block diagrams involved in chemical processes to the solid modeling of molecular structures.