Cargo systems benefit from digital prototypes

A Swedish producer of cargo handling systems has used digital prototyping techniques to improve its designs. Jonas Nordström, head of the project department in the RoRo division, says that many cargo parts are too large to build prototypes – so must be modelled in other ways. ”We use digital prototyping to check in advance for potential collisions and interference because almost all of our products move kinematically,” he said. An example is the design of a ship-to-ship transfer ramp, whose motion is damped by hydraulic cylinders. Understanding the likely motion of the ramp allowed Macgregor to design the hydraulic power pack with greater accuracy. The company has a number of licences for Autodesk’s Autocad Mechanical, Inventor Professional, Productstream and Vault 2008. “Inventor Professional gives us the opportunity to do a digital prototype for testing in a computer environment,” said Nordström.