Application Recommendation: Drive Configurations (M-CAD aspects)
How the mechanical side of a drive configuration, meaning the motor, the transmissions, the mechanism that turns rotation into useful movement, the load being moved and the movement itself, is modelled in AutomationML so that it can be handed from a mechanical CAD tool to a drive capacity selection tool and back again.
The document
| Type | Application Recommendation (AR) |
| Identifier | AR DRIVE MCAD, V1.0.0 |
| Version | 1.0.0 |
| State | April 2020 |
| Publisher | AutomationML e.V., Magdeburg, Germany |
| Language | English |
| Extent | 89 pages, plus two AutomationML class libraries |
| Complements | IEC 62714, Engineering data exchange format for use in industrial automation systems engineering |
| Access | Free of charge, no registration |
Download
The download package contains the document and the class libraries it defines.
- AR_Drive_Configurations_v1_0_0.pdf
- DriveConfigurationsLibrary_v1_0_0.aml the classes on their own
- DriveConfigurationsLibrary_v1_0_0 – incl Examples.aml the same classes plus seven worked instance hierarchies
Abstract
Selecting the capacity of a drive is a task that recurs constantly in factory and process automation. It requires information from the mechanical design of the machine to reach the capacity selection software, and it is still commonly done by passing a paper form on which a mechanical engineer enters the parameters and the desired motion pattern so that an application engineer can calculate the required capacity. Every change to the design, its parameters or the motion pattern restarts the process, and the drive selected for one axis can change what is needed on another.
This Application Recommendation proposes a modelling method for the mechanical aspects of drive configurations by means of the engineering data format AutomationML. It describes the recommended use of role and interface classes, and the structures to be used within the instance hierarchy of an AutomationML project. The capacity selection use case is the one it follows most closely, but the model is not limited to it.
Keywords: AutomationML, IEC 62714, CAEX, drive configuration, power train, motor capacity selection, load mechanism, transmission, motion pattern, M-CAD, mechanical engineering data exchange
Scope
A drive configuration can be looked at from several sides, depending on the engineering discipline. This document covers the mechanical and functional aspects. The electrical side, meaning the components and their wiring, is covered by the Application Recommendation Extension: Drives for Automation Project Configuration (ARE APC DRIVE), which extends AR Automation Project Configuration. Clause 6 of this document describes how the two models are linked.
The separation is deliberate. Different disciplines need different data and should not have to carry what they do not use; the models are meant to work both standalone and interleaved; and each has to be able to change without waiting for the other.
Use cases behind the model
Motor capacity selection
Physical parameters and the motion pattern travel from the M-CAD tool to the capacity selection tool, and the result travels back, so the loop can be started from either end and repeated as the design is refined.
Component selection across vendors
A power train usually mixes vendors: the ball screw from one, the gear box from another, the motor from a third. The model has to be able to carry the result of one calculation on to the next tool.
Linking mechanical to electrical
Once a motor has been chosen it becomes an electrical component. The inverter, sensors and controllers around it, and their wiring, are then handed to an E-CAD tool through ARE APC Drives.
What the recommendation defines
Four class libraries, 44 role classes and 17 interface classes in total. They ship as AutomationML files in the download package, so a model built on them opens in the AutomationML Editor with no missing classes.
| DriveConfigurationRoleClassLib | 36 role classes. The base model: motors, transmissions, load mechanisms, loads, motion patterns and their sections. |
| DriveConfigurationExtensionRoleClassLib | 8 role classes. The extended model: virtual dial gauges and stored time series data. |
| DriveConfigurationInterfaceClassLib | 11 interface classes. The connection points along the power train, and the assignment of loads and motion patterns. |
| DriveConfigurationExtensionInterfaceClassLib | 6 interface classes. Dial gauge attachment and references into CSV data. |
The vocabulary in one paragraph
Twelve load mechanisms (ball screw, rack and pinion, roll feed, rotary table, cart, elevator, conveyor, fan, pump, generic rotary, generic linear, linear servo), five transmissions (generic, coupling, gear box, V-belt and pulley, timing belt or chain and sprocket), two motors (rotary and linear), four kinds of load (solid, guided, air, liquid) each attachable either as a base load for the whole cycle or as an additional load for part of it, a motion pattern built from indexed sections, virtual dial gauges that record what a calculation produced at a given point in the train, and time series data referenced out into CSV files.
Read it, or try it
Three browser pages built directly on the class libraries in the package. Nothing to install, nothing to fill in, and everything you assemble can be downloaded as a conformant AutomationML file that opens in the AutomationML Editor. They are a companion to the document, not a replacement for it: where the two differ, the document is what counts.
Contents of the document
| 1 | Introduction. Basics, scope, references. |
| 2 | Different aspects of drive configurations. What is covered here and what belongs to ARE APC Drives. |
| 3 | Use cases. Motor capacity selection, power train component selection across vendors, linking mechanical to electrical aspects. |
| 4 | Drive configuration data structures. The neutral data model, base and extended model, the specialised load mechanisms, transmissions and loads, motion patterns and sections, virtual dial gauges, time series data. |
| 5 | Modelling of the data with AutomationML. Every role and interface class, with its attributes, symbols and units. |
| 6 | Combination with other Application Recommendations. |
| 7 | Practical example. A single axis worked through from the base model to a complete model with actual components, and its linkage to ARE APC Drives. |
37 figures and 23 tables.
Referenced and related documents
The documents below are referenced by this recommendation and are indispensable for its application. For dated references only the edition cited applies.
- IEC 62714, Engineering data exchange format for use in industrial automation systems engineering, Parts 1 to 4
- IEC 62424:2008, Representation of process control engineering, requests in P&I diagrams and data exchange between P&ID tools and PCE-CAE tools
- Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0:2004, W3C Recommendation
- Whitepaper AutomationML Part 1, AutomationML Architecture, October 2014
- Whitepaper AutomationML Part 2, AutomationML Role Libraries, October 2014
- Whitepaper AutomationML Part 4, AutomationML Logic, January 2017
- Whitepaper AutomationML, AutomationML Communication, September 2014
- Whitepaper AutomationML, AutomationML and eCl@ss Integration, November 2015
- AR APC V1.2.0, Application Recommendation: Automation Project Configuration, November 2019
- ARE APC DRIVE V1.2.0, Application Recommendation Extension: Drives for Automation Project Configuration, November 2019
- BPR EDRef V1.0.0, Best Practice Recommendation: External Data Reference, July 2016
- BPR Units V1.0.0, Best Practice Recommendation: Units in AutomationML, August 2018
- Best Practice Recommendation: Naming of Related Documents and their Versions, December 2016
- Application Recommendation: Component Description, under creation, April 2019
How to cite
AutomationML e.V.: Application Recommendation: Drive Configurations (M-CAD aspects). AR DRIVE MCAD, Version 1.0.0, April 2020. AutomationML e.V., Magdeburg, Germany. https://www.automationml.org/about-automationml/specifications/ar-drive-configurations/
BibTeX
@techreport{automationml2020driveconfigurations,
author = {{AutomationML e.V.}},
title = {Application Recommendation: Drive Configurations (M-CAD aspects)},
type = {Application Recommendation},
number = {AR DRIVE MCAD, Version 1.0.0},
institution = {AutomationML e.V.},
address = {Magdeburg, Germany},
year = {2020},
month = apr,
pages = {89},
url = {https://www.automationml.org/about-automationml/specifications/ar-drive-configurations/}
}
This page is the citable landing page for version 1.0.0 of the document. Later versions will get their own page, and this one will stay where it is so that existing citations keep resolving.