Engineer Saves Time by Automating Analysis Process with EAGLE

EAGLE was used to automate the process of analyzing vessel linings made from special ceramic materials for metallurgical process plants. These graphics were captured electronically and are part of an animation created with the help of EAGLE. Textual information supplements the impact of animated graphics.

Dom Colavito, a group manager in project and technical development at Minteq, Inc. in Easton, Pennsylvania, was like many other engineers until recently. He had more work to do than time available. Much of his time was spent building models and applying a reliable analysis procedure to each model. Then, Mr. Colavito began developing EAGLE programs that automate the analysis process. Now, a series of analyses that used to take days, or even a week of Mr. Colavito's time, is completed in hours by EAGLE without manual intervention. Now, Mr. Colavito is free to devote his time to other activities.

Testing Materials that Can Take the Heat

Minteq, Inc. produces specialized, multi-layer, refractory materials that are used to line metallurgical process vessels. The materials have well-defined physical properties designed to withstand and contain the intense heat of molten metals. Sometimes, customized materials are created for a specific case. Most of the time, the right combination of proven materials is chosen to suit the client's specific needs.

For each case, Mr. Colavito models the vessel lining with the Minteq materials. He then conducts nonlinear transient heat transfer analyses that simulate time-dependent temperatures and temperature-dependent properties to assure that a design meets both safety and client requirements. Mr. Colavito's eagle programs accomplish iterative analyses in hours that used to take up to a week to do manually.

Automating the Analysis Process with EAGLE

The analysis process takes many iterations due to the extreme nonlinearity of the system, in this case radiation. Mr. Colavito has written an EAGLE program along with several subroutines which link various Algor analysis programs to take a model through the analysis process.

For each model, Mr. Colavito's EAGLE programs are modified to suit the case. However, at least 90% of the programming remains the same from case to case. Mr. Colavito's EAGLE programs automate the entire analysis process without further need for keyboard input or process monitoring.

"If I had to do the series of analyses manually," said Mr. Colavito, "I might be working on a single model for up to a week or even more. With EAGLE, I have the process down to several hours. Those are hours that I don't even have to be in front of my computer. Automation also reduces errors."

The Secrets of Success

To learn how to use EAGLE, Mr. Colavito arranged an individualized training session at the Algor World Headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There, he was able to talk to EAGLE and Algor experts about the issues of his analysis scenario.

"The technical staff at Algor provided major assistance," said Mr. Colavito. "In a day and a half of individualized training, I worked on EAGLE code with a developer and discussed how to use Algor programs with an application engineer. The training was wonderful, and I have since been able to modify the programs we worked on and use them successfully."

Learning to automate the analysis process is one reason Mr. Colavito has realized such impressive time savings. However, using memory management techniques has also contributed to Mr. Colavito's success.

"I created a RAM drive as suggested in the Algor documentation. Memory management is pretty easy and you don't have to be a computer programmer to take advantage of it," Mr. Colavito said modestly. "By loading all of the EAGLE and Algor analysis programs onto a RAM drive, hard disk read/write were minimized and processing speed more than doubled."

Making Time to Create Animated Presentations

While his computer is working on an analysis, Mr. Colavito concentrates on providing technical information and materials for customer proposals. He has begun to integrate EAGLE into this process as well.

EAGLE is used to create bitmaps at various stages of analysis and animate them. The resulting animation shows how Minteq materials respond to heat transfer over time.

"The graphical impact of an animation is very powerful," said Mr. Colavito. "Currently, I'm working on using EAGLE to add textual information, such as titles and captions."

As Mr. Colavito is discovering, EAGLE is a useful and time-saving tool in a variety of scenarios, from performing a series of analyses to creating an animated, informational presentation. With EAGLE skills in hand, Mr. Colavito can write programs to save time in many of his engineering duties.