Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative ...
Journal of Mechanics Engineering and Automation 1 (2011) 293-297
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque Maxym Rukosuyev1, Laura Dutton2, Junghyuk Ko1 and Martin B.G. Jun1 1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada 2. Department of Visual Arts, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada
Received: August 15, 2011 / Accepted: August 29, 2011 / Published: September 25, 2011. Abstract: In this paper, design and fabrication of a commemorative plaque are described and presented. The plaque was fabricated to honour the memory of the 14 women massacred at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal. This plaque is the result of a project partnership between the Faculties of Engineering and Fine Arts, and was sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Provost. An art design was selected through a contest coordinated by the Visual Arts Departmment. The selected art design was then turned over to the Mechanical Engineering Department to be converted to a 3-dimensional (3D) solid model and then eventually fabricated on a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine. The fabricated plaque was unveiled during the December 2010 Memorial event at UVic. Key words: CNC (computer numerical control) machining, design and manufacturing, artistic plaque, machining process.
1. Introduction The Ecole Polytechniqe Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal [1]. The anniversary of the massacre has since been commemorated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Every year since December 6, 1989, members of the University of Victoria (UVic) community have gathered to recognize violence against women, and honour the memory of the 14 women (mostly Engineering students) massacred at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal. During the December 2010 Memorial event, UVic unveiled a commemorative plaque to be housed outside the Maxym Rukosuyev, undergraduate research assistant, research fields: CNC machining, nanoparticle coating. Laura Dutton, artist/MFA, research fields: artwork, artistic design, photograph. Junghyuk Ko, graduate research assistant, research fields: CNC machining, electrospinning. Corresponding author: Martin B.G. Jun, assistant professor/Ph.D., research fields: CAM, CNC machining, micro-manufacturing. E-mail: [email protected].
Engineering Laboratory Wing. This plaque is the result of a project partnership between Faculties of Engineering and Fine Arts, and was sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Provost. The Dean of Engineering at UVic proposed the idea of commissioning the plaque over a year ago to Adviser on Equity and Diversity and then took a proposal to the Faculty of Engineering Council in late 2009, whose members unanimously approved the project. After gaining approval from Ecole Polytechnique, the Advisor on Equity and Diversity at UVic facilitated a unique partnership between the faculties of engineering and fine arts. The Department of Visual Arts within the Faculty of Fine Arts coordinated a contest for the plaque design, and a judging panel chose second-year Mater of Fine Arts student’s image of vines climbing up a brick wall. The winner’s artistic image was then turned over to a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who created 3D models of the leaves, vines and brick wall using computer aided design
294
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
(CAD) software (SoildWorks). After optimizing the machining process to simulate the three-dimensional surface of real vines, the plaque was fabricated through computer numerical control (CNC) machining from aluminum 6064. This paper describes the details of the collaboration between Faculties of Engineering and Fine Arts through development of the CAD model of the plaque from the winner’s art and fabrication of the plaque through CNC machining on a milling machine tool. The paper is organized as follows: The selection of plaque design is first presented in section 2, followed by development of 3D CAD model in section 3. Then, fabrication of the plaque is described in section 4. Section 5 gives conclusion as well as unveiling of the plaque.
2. Selected Plaque Design Fig. 1 shows the plaque design selected by the judging panel for the design contest. The design was derived from a photograph taken by the winner (Laura Dutton) several years ago while studying in Montreal as an undergraduate. It consists, simply, of two vines gracefully climbing up a tall brick wall. “The symbolism here is meant to signify the tenacity and persistence of feminist thought and struggle and the enduring fight for equal rights in our society,” Dutton’s explanation for the design says. “The vines climbing up the wall are symbolic of vitality and continual growth. There are 14 sets or clusters of leaves, seven on each vine, each connected to the next. I see them representing the 14 women who lost their lives on Dec. 6, 1989.”
Fig. 1
The winner’s design.
3. Development of 3D CAD Model In order to create a 3D solid model of the design shown in Fig. 1, a sketch of the vines and leaves was drawn by Dutton and scanned as shown in Fig. 2. Initial image of the scanned sketch was supplied in a .jpeg format and had to be “cleaned” and trimmed to ensure the maximum quality for subsequent tracing in SolidWorks [2]. Next, the image was placed on a sketch plane in SolidWorks and manually traced as the outlines of the leaves too complicated for the automatic tracing tool to trace effectively. Moreover, as the traces should be created with the manufacturing in mind, some corrections to the drawing had to be made “on the fly”. Ten leaves and two vines were traced and the remaining four leaves were a transformation of some of the traces created earlier. Fig. 3 shows an example of a leaf being created into 3D model after the tracing the outline.
Fig. 2
Sketch of the vines and leaves.
Fig. 3
Creation of 3D CAD model of leaflet after tracing.
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
At the end of the tracing procedure, sixteen individual files (fourteen leaf clusters and two vines) were created, which served as the foundation for the individual solid model creation. The final goal of the modeling stage was to create a 3D CAD model of each leaf, which will simulate the natural flow of the leaf lines together with the leaf's top surface curvature in two orthogonal planes. Also, some of the leaflets of a leaf were seen to be overlapping, which added to the model complexity and led to the creation of multiple leaflets subsequently merged into a single model to create naturally looking form. Fig. 4 shows an example of the 3D model created for a leaf. The 3D model for the vines is shown in Fig. 5. As each leaf was to be machined individually on a standard 3-axis vertical machining center (Haas VF-2), minimum radii, curvatures, and fixturing provisions had to be taken into account. After all the 3D models were created, the overall attachment and assembly scheme for the leaves, the vines, and the 'wall' was developed and the corresponding attachment points were added to the solid models (e.g., seen as posts under some leaflets in Fig. 3). Circles on the vines in Fig. 5 represent the locations for mounting the leaves. These attachment points also served as fixturing points during the milling operations. Resulting 3D models were put into one assembly file and tolerances, clearances, and the overall appearance of the final plaque was evaluated and necessary corrections were made. The completed 3D model of the plaque is shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 4
Creation of 3D CAD model of a complete leaf.
Fig. 5
Creation of 3D CAD model of the vines.
Fig. 6
Completed 3D model of the assembled plaque.
Fig. 7
Tool path generation.
4. Fabrication of the Plaque Once the solid model was successfully created, machining process planning and tool path generation was done using computer aided manufacture (CAM) software (MasterCAM). To create a more naturally looking leaf model, it was chosen to machine top as well as the bottom of the leaf, thus creating a relatively thin profile which would closer resemble the actual leaf. An example of tool path generated for machining the top of a leaf using MasterCAM is shown in Fig. 7.
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296
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
To expedite the machining process, the bottom of the leaf was roughed out and no ball end mill was used. Attachment posts under some leaflets were also milled, drilled and tapped on the bottom part of the leaf, and these posts were used for fixturing when machining the top surface of the leaf. The top machining included roughing, finishing and final contouring operation. To create the radial pattern on the top surface of the leaf, the final milling operation was performed with the ball end mill with relatively large spacing of the consecutive passes. The resulting feed marks added to the appearance of the leaf and increased the overall optical quality of the whole assembly. Machining was conducted on a 3-axis vertical machining center (Haas VF-2) shown in Fig. 8. A ½” flat end mill was used for initial roughing operation during machining of both the bottom and top of the leaves. A ¼” flat end mill was used for re-roughing. Then, a ¼” ball end mill was used for finishing for the top surface. Extremely conservative cutting conditions were used during finishing operations because some of the leaflets were quite fragile. A 1/8” flat end mill was used for profiling around the leaves after the finishing operation. Figs. 9-10 show the results of the simulation for the bottom and top of a leaf, respectively. To create a life-like models of vines, these were machined from both sides (top and bottom) as to create the appearance of the vines “crawling” up the wall as one can find it in a natural setting. The “wall” background was machined from a one inch thick solid block of material. The stock was initially rough sanded and a brick pattern was machined on the top surface, with bricks having slight irregularities for closer resemblance with the natural wall. Holes were drilled at appropriate locations to mount the vines and the leaves, and lastly, all the individual parts were assembled to form a complete composition. The machined brick wall is shown in Fig. 11, and the mounting holes are also shown in the figure. Fig. 12 shows the top and bottom views of two of the
leaves completely machined. The center post with a hole is to be mounted in the hole shown in the vines (see Fig. 5). The rest of the posts sit in the holes shown in Fig. 11. The radial feed marks can be seen on the top surface as described above. Fig. 13 shows the completed vines, and Fig. 14 shows the completed plaque with the vines and leaves assembled.
Fig. 8
Haas machining center used for CNC machining.
Fig. 9
Simulated leaf bottom machining.
Fig. 10
Simulated leaf bottom machining.
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
297
Fig. 11 Machined brick wall with mounting holes.
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Completed plaque.
Fig. 15
Unveiling of the plaque at the memorial event.
Top and bottom views of two machined leaves.
Machined vines.
5. Conclusions The commemorative plaque was successfully fabricated to be unveiled during the December 2010 Memorial event at UVic. This project was considered good and meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration between two departments, which are perceived quite
different in academic nature. In fact, frequent discussions with the winner of the selected art work were required during the development of the CAD model. The unveiling of the plaque opened eyes of many people during event. The unveiling of the plaque at the event is shown in Fig. 15.
References [1] [2]
W. Buchignani, Amid the Tragedy, Micracles of Survival, the Gazette, Montreal, 1989, p. A3. S.M. Samuel, K.E. Robbins, N. Paul, Beginning to Advanced Solidworks 2011, Design Visionaries.
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque Maxym Rukosuyev1, Laura Dutton2, Junghyuk Ko1 and Martin B.G. Jun1 1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada 2. Department of Visual Arts, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada
Received: August 15, 2011 / Accepted: August 29, 2011 / Published: September 25, 2011. Abstract: In this paper, design and fabrication of a commemorative plaque are described and presented. The plaque was fabricated to honour the memory of the 14 women massacred at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal. This plaque is the result of a project partnership between the Faculties of Engineering and Fine Arts, and was sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Provost. An art design was selected through a contest coordinated by the Visual Arts Departmment. The selected art design was then turned over to the Mechanical Engineering Department to be converted to a 3-dimensional (3D) solid model and then eventually fabricated on a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine. The fabricated plaque was unveiled during the December 2010 Memorial event at UVic. Key words: CNC (computer numerical control) machining, design and manufacturing, artistic plaque, machining process.
1. Introduction The Ecole Polytechniqe Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal [1]. The anniversary of the massacre has since been commemorated as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Every year since December 6, 1989, members of the University of Victoria (UVic) community have gathered to recognize violence against women, and honour the memory of the 14 women (mostly Engineering students) massacred at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal. During the December 2010 Memorial event, UVic unveiled a commemorative plaque to be housed outside the Maxym Rukosuyev, undergraduate research assistant, research fields: CNC machining, nanoparticle coating. Laura Dutton, artist/MFA, research fields: artwork, artistic design, photograph. Junghyuk Ko, graduate research assistant, research fields: CNC machining, electrospinning. Corresponding author: Martin B.G. Jun, assistant professor/Ph.D., research fields: CAM, CNC machining, micro-manufacturing. E-mail: [email protected].
Engineering Laboratory Wing. This plaque is the result of a project partnership between Faculties of Engineering and Fine Arts, and was sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Provost. The Dean of Engineering at UVic proposed the idea of commissioning the plaque over a year ago to Adviser on Equity and Diversity and then took a proposal to the Faculty of Engineering Council in late 2009, whose members unanimously approved the project. After gaining approval from Ecole Polytechnique, the Advisor on Equity and Diversity at UVic facilitated a unique partnership between the faculties of engineering and fine arts. The Department of Visual Arts within the Faculty of Fine Arts coordinated a contest for the plaque design, and a judging panel chose second-year Mater of Fine Arts student’s image of vines climbing up a brick wall. The winner’s artistic image was then turned over to a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who created 3D models of the leaves, vines and brick wall using computer aided design
294
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
(CAD) software (SoildWorks). After optimizing the machining process to simulate the three-dimensional surface of real vines, the plaque was fabricated through computer numerical control (CNC) machining from aluminum 6064. This paper describes the details of the collaboration between Faculties of Engineering and Fine Arts through development of the CAD model of the plaque from the winner’s art and fabrication of the plaque through CNC machining on a milling machine tool. The paper is organized as follows: The selection of plaque design is first presented in section 2, followed by development of 3D CAD model in section 3. Then, fabrication of the plaque is described in section 4. Section 5 gives conclusion as well as unveiling of the plaque.
2. Selected Plaque Design Fig. 1 shows the plaque design selected by the judging panel for the design contest. The design was derived from a photograph taken by the winner (Laura Dutton) several years ago while studying in Montreal as an undergraduate. It consists, simply, of two vines gracefully climbing up a tall brick wall. “The symbolism here is meant to signify the tenacity and persistence of feminist thought and struggle and the enduring fight for equal rights in our society,” Dutton’s explanation for the design says. “The vines climbing up the wall are symbolic of vitality and continual growth. There are 14 sets or clusters of leaves, seven on each vine, each connected to the next. I see them representing the 14 women who lost their lives on Dec. 6, 1989.”
Fig. 1
The winner’s design.
3. Development of 3D CAD Model In order to create a 3D solid model of the design shown in Fig. 1, a sketch of the vines and leaves was drawn by Dutton and scanned as shown in Fig. 2. Initial image of the scanned sketch was supplied in a .jpeg format and had to be “cleaned” and trimmed to ensure the maximum quality for subsequent tracing in SolidWorks [2]. Next, the image was placed on a sketch plane in SolidWorks and manually traced as the outlines of the leaves too complicated for the automatic tracing tool to trace effectively. Moreover, as the traces should be created with the manufacturing in mind, some corrections to the drawing had to be made “on the fly”. Ten leaves and two vines were traced and the remaining four leaves were a transformation of some of the traces created earlier. Fig. 3 shows an example of a leaf being created into 3D model after the tracing the outline.
Fig. 2
Sketch of the vines and leaves.
Fig. 3
Creation of 3D CAD model of leaflet after tracing.
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
At the end of the tracing procedure, sixteen individual files (fourteen leaf clusters and two vines) were created, which served as the foundation for the individual solid model creation. The final goal of the modeling stage was to create a 3D CAD model of each leaf, which will simulate the natural flow of the leaf lines together with the leaf's top surface curvature in two orthogonal planes. Also, some of the leaflets of a leaf were seen to be overlapping, which added to the model complexity and led to the creation of multiple leaflets subsequently merged into a single model to create naturally looking form. Fig. 4 shows an example of the 3D model created for a leaf. The 3D model for the vines is shown in Fig. 5. As each leaf was to be machined individually on a standard 3-axis vertical machining center (Haas VF-2), minimum radii, curvatures, and fixturing provisions had to be taken into account. After all the 3D models were created, the overall attachment and assembly scheme for the leaves, the vines, and the 'wall' was developed and the corresponding attachment points were added to the solid models (e.g., seen as posts under some leaflets in Fig. 3). Circles on the vines in Fig. 5 represent the locations for mounting the leaves. These attachment points also served as fixturing points during the milling operations. Resulting 3D models were put into one assembly file and tolerances, clearances, and the overall appearance of the final plaque was evaluated and necessary corrections were made. The completed 3D model of the plaque is shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 4
Creation of 3D CAD model of a complete leaf.
Fig. 5
Creation of 3D CAD model of the vines.
Fig. 6
Completed 3D model of the assembled plaque.
Fig. 7
Tool path generation.
4. Fabrication of the Plaque Once the solid model was successfully created, machining process planning and tool path generation was done using computer aided manufacture (CAM) software (MasterCAM). To create a more naturally looking leaf model, it was chosen to machine top as well as the bottom of the leaf, thus creating a relatively thin profile which would closer resemble the actual leaf. An example of tool path generated for machining the top of a leaf using MasterCAM is shown in Fig. 7.
295
296
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
To expedite the machining process, the bottom of the leaf was roughed out and no ball end mill was used. Attachment posts under some leaflets were also milled, drilled and tapped on the bottom part of the leaf, and these posts were used for fixturing when machining the top surface of the leaf. The top machining included roughing, finishing and final contouring operation. To create the radial pattern on the top surface of the leaf, the final milling operation was performed with the ball end mill with relatively large spacing of the consecutive passes. The resulting feed marks added to the appearance of the leaf and increased the overall optical quality of the whole assembly. Machining was conducted on a 3-axis vertical machining center (Haas VF-2) shown in Fig. 8. A ½” flat end mill was used for initial roughing operation during machining of both the bottom and top of the leaves. A ¼” flat end mill was used for re-roughing. Then, a ¼” ball end mill was used for finishing for the top surface. Extremely conservative cutting conditions were used during finishing operations because some of the leaflets were quite fragile. A 1/8” flat end mill was used for profiling around the leaves after the finishing operation. Figs. 9-10 show the results of the simulation for the bottom and top of a leaf, respectively. To create a life-like models of vines, these were machined from both sides (top and bottom) as to create the appearance of the vines “crawling” up the wall as one can find it in a natural setting. The “wall” background was machined from a one inch thick solid block of material. The stock was initially rough sanded and a brick pattern was machined on the top surface, with bricks having slight irregularities for closer resemblance with the natural wall. Holes were drilled at appropriate locations to mount the vines and the leaves, and lastly, all the individual parts were assembled to form a complete composition. The machined brick wall is shown in Fig. 11, and the mounting holes are also shown in the figure. Fig. 12 shows the top and bottom views of two of the
leaves completely machined. The center post with a hole is to be mounted in the hole shown in the vines (see Fig. 5). The rest of the posts sit in the holes shown in Fig. 11. The radial feed marks can be seen on the top surface as described above. Fig. 13 shows the completed vines, and Fig. 14 shows the completed plaque with the vines and leaves assembled.
Fig. 8
Haas machining center used for CNC machining.
Fig. 9
Simulated leaf bottom machining.
Fig. 10
Simulated leaf bottom machining.
Design and Fabrication of a Three Dimensional Commemorative Artistic Plaque
297
Fig. 11 Machined brick wall with mounting holes.
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Completed plaque.
Fig. 15
Unveiling of the plaque at the memorial event.
Top and bottom views of two machined leaves.
Machined vines.
5. Conclusions The commemorative plaque was successfully fabricated to be unveiled during the December 2010 Memorial event at UVic. This project was considered good and meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration between two departments, which are perceived quite
different in academic nature. In fact, frequent discussions with the winner of the selected art work were required during the development of the CAD model. The unveiling of the plaque opened eyes of many people during event. The unveiling of the plaque at the event is shown in Fig. 15.
References [1] [2]
W. Buchignani, Amid the Tragedy, Micracles of Survival, the Gazette, Montreal, 1989, p. A3. S.M. Samuel, K.E. Robbins, N. Paul, Beginning to Advanced Solidworks 2011, Design Visionaries.
