Mechanical Component Design Via The Internet

This paper reports initial progress to implement a new paradigm for students in a typical Machine Components Design course in Mechanical Engineering curricula. The basic idea is to have design algorithms for various mechanical components (springs, gears, power transmission shafts, cams, etc.) available to students as Applets on the Internet. The students are then focused on the constraints and functional requirements associated with the particular design problem, and the algorithms attempt to design the specific component using industrial strength design algorithms. The tedium of iterative calculations is placed on the algorithms, allowing the students to concentrate on the parameters appropriate to their specific design application.