Case study: CAD Utilization by a Renewable Energy SME

Partners
The euCAD project partners are drawn from six EU Member States. Each part-
ner has expertise and working knowledge relevant for promotng innovaton and
creativity and/or CAD technology. They are shown below, further information and
contact details can be found on the website shown.
University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania
MACDAC Engineering Consultancy Bureau (MECB) Ltd., Malta
INOVAFOR , Portugal
Information Technologies Institute, Lithuania
Product First Ltd, United Kingdom
Usesoft As, Estonia
www.camis.pub.ro/eucad.
Disclaimer
Leonardo da Vinci Project No: 142514-LLP-1-2008-1-RO-LEONARDO-LMP
The content in this flyer reflects the views only of the euCAD consortium partners
and the EU Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made
of the information contained therein.
Case study:
CAD Utilization by a
Renewable Energy SME
P1 Romania
University
Politehnica
of Bucharest
P2 Malta
MECB Ltd
P3 Portugal
INOVAFOR
Lda
P4 Lithuania
Information
Technologies
Institute
P5 United
Kingdom
Product First
Ltd.
P6 Estonia
Usesoft As
euCAD
Amplifying Creativity & Innovation
through Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Education and Culture DG
Lifelong Learning Programme

EXPLOITING CAD TECHNOLOGY FOR
RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM DESIGN
SME/company
Gozo Enterprises Limited a micro-SME based in Malta,
have developed and built a prime-mover machine prototype
for
an innovative water pump used for the generation of
electricity, which makes use of a new type of Renewable Energy
Source (RES) with huge upward potential of economic and
ecological benefits. This prime-mover machine
is called the
SPITERI WATER PUMP (SWP).
The concept of this technical
system
exploits the repeated up thrust of a buoyant body
submerged in water and transfers this energy into pumping
water to higher elevations (to an artificial waterfall) such that
its potential energy could then be transferred to energy
producing turbines. By inducing up thrust twice and gravity
once, the SWP is able to pump water upwards creating
an Artificial Waterfall.
From this waterfall, turbines can
be used to generate electricity around the clock, at any
site in the world where there are no natural waterfalls
or rivers and this at a very low cost, which is better
than wind power.
There is a physical prototype proving
this invention and an WIPO patent Application. In 2007,
the solution was declared the National Energy Globe Overall
Winner for Malta. Full details http://www.joespiterisargent.com/
Challenge
For many micro-SMEs, securing venture capital funding to commercialize
solution concepts conceived is an important yet challenging stage.
Business Angels and Venture Capitalists are by default interested in
investing in high-growth sectors. They thus want to also feel comfortable
that any technology they are investing in is sound and one which makes
practical and business sense. Entrepeneurs such as Engineer Joe Spiteri,
founder of Gozo Enterprises, approaching busy venture capitalists for
investing in their technical solutions thus have a challenge: they need to
explain the basic working principles of their solution and make a business
case in a relatively short time. As one knows, a picture is worth a thousand
words, yet a good video animation is worth much more as it can help
venture capitalists virtually see a solution to help them understand how
it operates and how it can be practically applied from
a commercial
perspective.
This is indeed a typical CAD application embarked upon by
Gozo Enterprises. Over time, they were realizing that it was difficult for
them to present paper-based technical drawings and technical user
manuals to venture capitalists. They needed a faster yet more understandable
way of how they can communicate to non-technical people,
the concept of their solutions and to thus make a case for investment.
Solution
To solve the above problem, Gozo Enterprises decided to develop a 3D
animated CAD model of their renewable energy solution. After meeting
with their CAD sub-contractors MECB Ltd, explaining their vision of what
‘story’ they intended to disclose to their viewers, they embarked upon a
series of meetings during which different parts of their technical system
were constructed and modeled in 3D CAD. This exercise in itself, allowed
certain details to be checked, that would otherwise have not been apparent.
After several hours invested in building up the different parts, using CAD
they virtually assembled the parts into different sub-assemblies.
Following
that, the different sub- assemblies were geometrically related and
constrained with respect to each other to form a complete technical
system. At this stage, the static 3D CAD model was complete,
meaning that movements to now create the necessary
animated steps of the agreed ‘story board’ could be developed.
Benefits of Using CAD Technology
Benefits of Using CAD Technology
“Through CAD, the different parts were given different colours, textures and
defined different degrees of movement. CAD also allowed different
parameters to be rapidly explored eg. what colours best to use, which parts
of the system could be best shown
transparent to portray how the system
works internally etc.
In addition, the virtual 3D CAD model also allowed
experimentation with how the solution can be seen
operating in practice.
Thus, by placing virtual lights to create shadows and other virtual environmental
objects (e.g. trees, buildings), a possible, real application scene started taking
shape.
Also, CAD allowed us to rapidly explore different viewing positions.
Whilst that Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology is definitely
a good
tool to help with the externalization and exploration of technical concepts,
in our case we found the tool also useful also for marketing. This is because
CAD technology allowed us to portray not only how our solution concept
operates, but we could also present a typical practical scenario of how when
fully developed, it can be exploited in the real world. In the early days, I had
painfully made a manually generated animation which was very laborious
to achieve. Having seen how such a video animation can be now performed
via 3D CAD technology, I can truly state that CAD technology is really worth
learning and exploiting as it provides a wide range of opportunities.
With
today’s applications, CAD models can be rendered and printed, converted into
video animations, used for stress analysis and if need be, used to generate
physical models using rapid prototyping (RP) technology. Clearly, the sky is
becoming the limit as to what can be achieved via CAD technology. And very
important too is that this technology is now within reach even to micro SMEs.”
Engineer Joe Spiteri Sargent