What The Tech?! Computer-Aided Design
If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ve probably realised that this particular author has a giant soft spot for high-performance aircraft. And while there’s been plenty of writing done in the past regarding these platforms, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned was just how reliant these platforms were on the pencil, paper and good old slide rule.
The SR-71, B-58 and even some of the first spacecraft were developed and designed by teams of engineers, by hand. But one tool would change this process, and it would happen fast, changing the rules and laws of design and becoming a “must-have” tool for design.
So, computer-aided design is the star of this What The Tech, and it’s one helluva story. Let’s check it out!
Background
If you weren’t there, it’s hard to understand just how dramatic this shift was and the impact that it would have on design. Before CAD, computers crunched numbers. After CAD, they’d help us to visualise and design the future, including not just vehicles, aircraft and ships but even the small electronics and devices we would use every day.
It would be the 1950s, the early era of computing, when the first graphics packages began to show how easily designers could apply their craft. This was like many things in the design phase, though, early, rudimentary and with no real form of standardisation.
However, it would offer plenty of potential. With the initial development focusing on 2D design, it wouldn’t take long for full, 3-dimensional images to be displayed.
The early work would be carried out at MIT, but the real development would come in the 60s when the first computer-aided software package would be released. This would be a little different to how we use our computers today.
Known as Sketchpad and designed by Ivan Sutherland, also at MIT, the user interface was simple to the point of being rudimentary. The program would allow users to draw directly on their screen using a light pen. Interestingly enough, despite being one of the first, Sketchpad introduced several features that remain relevant today, including constraints, object hierarchies and real-time editing.
This was just the beginning, though.
The more modern design of the Northrop B-2 would be angular, curved and far more refined than the Nighthawk. Show here in a “dirty” configuration, it’s nowhere near as blocky as the Nighthawk. Source: Wikipedia.
Impact on Aviation
To best understand the impact of CAD, it’s helpful to look at aviation, or more specifically, some of the first iterations of stealth fighter designs.
Lockheed’s F-117A Nighthawk would be based on the Have Blue prototype, which would earn the nickname Hopeless Diamond thanks to its square, boxy shape. The first stealth aircraft to be designed by a computer, it would see the platform be very effective, albeit with a few specific limitations, thanks to the raw computing power available at the time.
Its square, angular structure, which would become part of the aircraft's iconic look, would actually come from technological limitations.
Using a Lockheed-designed program called ECHO-1 to validate the theory of stealth, the program would run computational mathematics to calculate the effectiveness of the stealth prototype. However, the limitation was that it was simply unable to render and calculate the radar cross-section of panels that had a curve. The solution? Keep it brick-shaped, of course!
This meant that the Nighthawk would be forever tied to its now iconic shape. Form over function every time, right? And yes, while a Nighthawk was lost on a combat mission in the early 90s (VEGA-31, 82–0806), reports of F-117s operating over Nevada post-retirement persist, leading us to draw only one conclusion.
It sure does look strange, but it works all right.
However, when we leap forward and look at the next generation of stealth aircraft like the Lockheed F-22A Raptor and Northrop’s B-2A Spirit, designed just over a decade later, things again look very, very different. While the structural curves of the F-22 are noticeable but minimal, the Spirit is all curves.
There’s no denying that the Raptor is a much more modern-looking platform than the Nighthawk, and CAD improvements were responsible for much of this. Source: Wikipedia.
This would allow designers to deal with one of the early problems faced by the F-117, namely the giant, radar-reflective curve of the engines. While the Nighthawk was notable for its lack of rear stealth thanks to the engine nozzles, the B-2 would use recessed engines and an improved nozzle design to achieve an all-aspect reduction in radar signature with a subsequent increase in survivability.
The Proliferation
The aviation companies weren’t the only ones working on implementing CAD into their overall manufacturing plans. Railway designers and even automobile manufacturers would all scramble to implement CAD, hoping to bring in more modern designs along with a subsequent reduction in manpower during the design process. This would also allow manufacturers to focus on more complex, modern designs that couldn’t be drafted by hand, and this would also improve the overall quality of the average automobile.
With the potential on offer, though industrial manufacturers weren’t going to be able to hold on to this forever, and it would be less than ten years after the first release of Sketchpad that the software would proliferate…well…everywhere really.
It was able to do this thanks to the ability to mass commercialise. While the first packages would run on mainframes and timeshare supercomputers, the looming development of the Personal Computer, as well as the increase in productivity that it would bring, offered to change this.
From the launch of Sketchpad in the sixties, through to commercialisation in the seventies and finally, the personal computer in the eighties, it would take just three decades for design to be turned on its head and changed forever.
Much of the modern technology prior to this shift would be manufactured with the slide rule. Thanks to even early personal computers, the slide rule was basically obsolete.
While the Hardware would come first, the Software wasn't far behind, and products like AutoCAD would go out of their way to make the entire design process smooth, user-friendly and for the most part, trouble-free.
Now, CAD wasn’t an industrialised process that would have to run on a machine costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thanks to technological improvements, even your local high-school students now have CAD.
Into The Future
If you're wondering what future technology has to offer computer-aided design, then wonder no more because the implementation of several new pieces of tech aims to reshape the field, just like AutoCAD did in the early 1980s.
While artificial intelligence is a logical place to start, there’s also hybrid and cloud computing and don’t forget about Virtual Reality either.
The internet made it easier than ever to connect for both work and leisure systems and future technology aims to make it even easier to design and build. We can now work globally thanks to collaborative designs, and if you fancy a walk-through of your freshly designed component or system, then VR can probably help with that too.
There’s also the concept of a “digital twin”. Here, virtual models will use sensors and other inputs in a bit to mimic real-world activities and behaviours. This can help generate predictive maintenance cycles, lifecycle optimisation and other important metrics that aim to get the most out of an operational system.
We can now design, prototype, build AND push to production or manufacturing easier than ever before.
What a time to be alive.
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