14CM Continuous Miner

Companies: Joy Mining Machinery
Industry: Manufacturing

Mining a new technology seam.
Joy Mining Machinery needed a more productive way to integrate four engineering teams in as many countries, more efficiently reuse design data, and, above all, get its new 14CM Continuous Miner to market faster.

A Single Digital Model
Joy begin working with a single content-rich 3D model for the design of the 14CM. Moving from drawings to digital models, Joy experienced improvements in engineering design, collaboration, and manufacturing. The ability to design, visualize, and simulate the 14CM’s performance before it was built helped Joy make crucial engineering decisions earlier in the process, which enabled the company to beat the competition to market.

Performance Simulation
Joy used finite element analysis (FEA) to simulate part performance under real-world stress conditions encountered by the 14CM. Knowing how component parts would perform prior to manufacturing meant that fabrication was done right the first time. In addition to utilizing the many 3D advantages of Digital Prototyping, Joy was able to automatically generate production-ready 2D engineering and manufacturing drawing views directly from the digital prototype.

Visualization
Joy used Digital Prototyping to visualize massive amounts of detailed design data; include all mechanical, electrical, and fluid systems in the same model; and accurately predict component performance in the real world. Photo-real visualizations from the digital prototype resulted in engineering decisions being made earlier in the process, saving time and reducing reliance on costly physical prototypes.