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To date, Federal Mogul Tri-Way Ltd. has relied on past experience to design machinery, a system of belts or gears providing torsion and thrust to cutting tools. If a shaft within a spindle system is not properly sized, it can deflect under the action of the tangential cutting effort resulting in a poor finish of the machined component. Of even more importance, if rotation of the tool approaches a natural frequency of the shaft, deflections of the spindle under load amplify. In fact, Tri-Way has at instances replaced shafts during trials, causing delays in delivering machinery. On the other hand, over-designing spindles cost money. A literature search by the Canadian Institute for System Technologies Information did not locate tools to help Tri-Way optimize spindles. The company has turned to Windsor Industrial Development Laboratory to develop and validate a computer model to simulate the static and dynamic behavior of spindle systems.

Automobile part suppliers have always relied on trial and error in developing products and processes. Prototypes are built for testing results of which are used to alter the design of a part or the way to make it till arriving to a compromise. This approach is unfortunately not effective: it costs time and money. Further, resulting products or processes are not optimum. An alternative to the traditional trial and error product and process development is still trial and error, but on a computer. Products or ways to make them are simulated through combined materials and finite element analyses. The design of a part can be altered faster and at a low cost as can changes to materials and the manufacturing process. This paper describes some material tests necessary to building computer models that simulate the performance and processing of automobile parts. It presents studies WIDL successfully completed on behalf of suppliers to “the big three” in Canada and the United States.