Rapid Prototype Manufacturing Review
Tapping into the growth means working at space-age speed
, making prototypes of connectors or other wiring harness parts with a computer-guided rapid prototype machine that lays down thin layers of plastic or rubber over numerous passes, like an ink-jet printer producing a photo.
Automakers aren't quite ready to start making Jetson-type flying bubbles, but they are cramming today's vehicles with electric motors to power wheels, sensors to deploy airbags and entertainment devices to allow adults to survive a cross-country trip with children.
Connecting the electronic gadgets are as many as 2 1/2 miles of electrical wiring that, along with 600 plastic connectors and as many as 2,000 wire terminals, all weighing as much as 132 pounds - much of it coming from Delphi Packard Electric's Customer Technical Center in Champion.
''Demand will grow like crazy as we go to electric motors. That will drive the need for more connectors and wiring from Delphi. We want to be a part of that growth,'' Chris Burns, director of global innovation for Delphi Corp.'s Electrical/Electronic Architecture division, said last week.
So do Delphi Packard's hourly production workers. Tom Krolopp, shop chairman of International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America Local 717, said the tech center provides more work for his 665 members, who make plastic connectors, metal terminals and electrical cable used to assemble wiring harnesses.
''Look at the projects for all-electric cars. They need a lot of wiring and plastics,'' he said.
Since the auto supplier's exit last October after four grueling years in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Delphi Packard is counting on its patent-producing corp of engineers at Champion and five other tech centers worldwide to keep it in the forefront of an auto industry that's moving away from strictly oil-based fuel to hybrid or total electrical power.
''We can turn ideas into parts you can hold in your hand in hours,'' said Jerry Rinehart, supervisor of the rapid prototyping and CT scanning department.
It means developing thinner, lighter wiring, allowing automakers to fit harnesses into smaller vehicles, boosting fuel efficiency while still stocking them with navigational systems, computer ports and other electronic content that customers are demanding.
The division became one of 28 finalists worldwide for the prestigious 2010 PACE award for its environmentally friendly ultra-thin wiring wrapped in halogen-free coating that makes it recyclable, thus keeping it out of landfills.
The 0.13 millimeter-squared, or 26 gage, wire is the thinnest that can still be plugged by hand into connectors. Thinner wires require a special machine that Delphi Packard also has developed to make the connection.
About 200 engineers, technicians and other workers at the center on Research Parkway N.W. are welcoming the challenges.
''We're tireless here in trying to stay in the forefront of technology. We want to become the technology leader'' in automotive electrical and electronic architecture, Senior Project Engineer Bob McFall said as he showed off the center's process lab, a factory-like setting where engineers run through a complete manufacturing process, from cutting electrical cable to length to producing the final harness as fast as a 1 1/2 days.
''We don't have the traditional lead time; that's what drove Delphi to invest in this area,'' Burns said.
The lab also gives Delphi tools worldwide to develop cutting-edge wiring and sensor systems for future hybrid gasoline-electric and all-electric vehicles.
Delphi engineers have been working alongside their Chinese counterparts in Champion on prototypes of 10 wiring sets for an all-electric vehicle for CODA Automotive of Santa Monica, Calif.
The sedan, which will be built in China for sale in California later this year, is projected to have a range of 90 to 120 miles. Delphi will supply key electronic and high-voltage parts, along with a multiservice antenna.
With its six technology centers -Champion and the Wuppertal, Germany, center are the largest - Delphi can offer customers global cooperation for engineering-intensive projects, Delphi spokeswoman Rachelle Valdez said.
Some of the ideas the tech center is studying verge on the Jetson-like future. Burns said engineers are looking at ways to charge an electric vehicle's batteries wirelessly.
''There could be a mat in a restaurant parking lot where the vehicle could be charged while the people were eating in the restaurant. The cost would be added to their bill,'' he said.
A conventional approach would be to take surfaces and ideas from aerodynamicists, convert them into either rapid prototype parts or scale models of the sort of parts that you see on the race cars, and then put on a very large scale wind tunnel model and test them in a wind tunnel. In our case, our system involves taking those shapes and instead of making model parts we actually essentially mesh them and create an extremely sophisticated computer simulation, consisting of hundreds of billions of cells in a CFD model and essentially flowing digital wind, if you like, over this model in a variety of different simulations in a variety of different conditions.
by: Emma
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