Project 1

AIM:

To Route the Wiring harness on Given Engine and Prepare flattened view drawing in CATIA V5. Apply Protection coverings as required. Application of all Packaging rules, Industry best practices studied in this course shall be demonstrated in design.

INTRODUCTION:

A wire harness, also commonly referred to as a wiring harness, is an exterior sheath used to cover some types of electronic wires. Generally, wiring harnesses are made of thermoplastic or thermoset materials that can help protect the cables from the environment.

ENIGNE WIRING HARNESS:

• An engine wiring harness is constricted wires, cables, terminals, and connectors controlling a vehicle’s electrical system. It relays electrical power and control information to components such as batteries, alternators, fuel injectors, fuses, audio systems, blower motors, fuel injectors, and computers. Wire harness companies customize it for every location, application, and design it interconnects. Also known as a cable harness, it is more than just a collection of multiple wires put together.
• It manages the key functions around the engine including engine controller, oil controller gate, transmission plug housing, air pipe sensors, pressure sensors, and water temperature sensors.
• An engine wiring harness is how each part of your vehicle gets electricity. It is crucial to help the vehicle run and it’s usually made of a heat-resistant rubber to handle the high and low temperatures that vehicles often experience. The vehicle needs more than the engine, and it requires a lot of electricity for certain things to function, like the radio or lights. Beyond that, battery, starter, and even alternator run on power, which is provided by the engine. Without an engine wiring harness, we couldn’t start your vehicle.

WORKING OF ENIGNE WIRING HARNESS:

• It works by using these cables and a fuse box. They wire the electricity produced by the engine to the various parts and sensors. It is created using high-temperature plastic or rubber because the engine heats up a lot. That could cause the engine wiring harness to melt over time. And while this is a rare occurrence, it does happen.
• Think of this part of the vehicle like the brain. Without it, it wouldn’t be possible to get the information your vehicle needs. It’s always working overtime to relay the data your vehicle needs to function correctly. Whenever a sensor goes off, it’s because the engine wiring harness alerted the sensor of the problem.
• The exciting thing is that as vehicles get more advanced, the engine wiring harness grows. Some say that new cars have over 100 pounds of wires, so imagine how many things could go wrong with that. In the past, there may not have been many issues. However, as things advance, there are more to go wrong.

PROTECTION OF ENIGNE WIRING HARNESS:

• Protecting the wires is crucial to the safety of the vehicle. Wires exposed to high temperatures, erosive chemicals and projectiles will be damaged leading to fires, brake failures and critical malfunctions. To prevent these issues, wires need to be bundled and covered.
• install wiring insulation or heat shield sleeve material that can withstand direct contact with high-temperature surfaces and is flameproof. It needs to be a material built specifically for under hood automotive applications and withstand constant temperatures up to 125°C, or 257°F.
• There are many options for protecting the wires in a vehicle’s harness. Zip ties securely bundle wire together but offer little protection or insulation. Plastic conduits offer protection from rough surfaces, although they can add weight and are not as flexible as other options. Heat-shrink tubing provides protection from heat, moisture and chemicals. However, the application is time-consuming.
• Tape is another option for bundling and protecting wires. Tapes are more flexible and cost-effective than other bundling options because they can be used for protective wrapping, bundling and sealing. With a wide variety of backings and adhesives, tape can offer sound dampening, thermal and electrical insulation and abrasion protection of the same quality of the other methods. Additionally, tapes are more flexible, lighter and easier to apply than tubing or plastic conduit.

OBJECTIVE:

• Define all mechanical connectors electrically and store them in the Catalogue.
• Position the connectors correctly on the provided engine 3D CAD model.
• Install P-Clamps and Fir Tree clips according to packaging guidelines.
• Establish Wiring Harness Routing with all defined connectors and mounting hardware.
• Implement branching points at specified locations to form sub-branches and connect to various connectors in the physical bundle.
• Apply protective coverings as needed.
• Generate Wiring Harness Flattening for the final physical bundle.
• Utilize the drafting workbench to produce a drawing sheet displaying the flattened wiring harness.

DESIGN APPROACH:

Download the engine CAD data and required connectors CAD data from the given source.

Download the required Connectors from the source and convert the mechanical connectors electrically by using the electrical part design work bench by following below steps.

• First download the connectors and mounting clip from the given link source.
• Get into the mechanical part workbench to create required geometrical parameters. Create connector connection point and bundle connection point on the required sides of the CAD part.
• Create axis system on the connector connection point such a way that the Y coordinate facing normal to the connector face, X coordinate facing towards the locking mechanism and Z coordinate facing to the top.
• Create cavity connection point for connectors having the cavity for mounting clips.

After create the geometric parameters on the connector. we have to define the connector as electrical by creating:

• Define part as electrical connector.
• Define bundle connection point.
• Define connector connection point.
• Define cavity connection point.

Connector image mention below one by one:

c-1563689-1:

c-282080-1:

c-173090-2:

Interconnection Connector:

After that add the all connector into the catalog

Download and Define the P-clamp, L-clamp, guiding channel and cavity clip electrically.

• Define the Channel electrically.
• Establish bundle entry and exit points.
• Form a curved line between the main entry and exit points to allow for multiple branches within the channel.
• Set up 8 bundle entry points on the openings to accommodate the injector connectors.
• Utilize geometrical parameters to electrically define the channel by employing the "define mounting equipment" option.
• Establish bundle connection points using the "define bundle connection point" option.

P-CLAMP:

GUIDING CHANNEL BOTTOM:

GUIDING CHANNEL TOP:

L-CLAMP:

CAVITY CLIP:

FIR TREE CLIP:

GENERATING THE CONTEXT ASSEMBLY:

Context assembly is nothing but the product file which contains the engine 3D-CAD data and the engine harness geometrical bundle. Here the geometrical bundle product contains all the connectors and other mounting equipments, clips and clamps which are electrically defined for the assembly. Sheet metal L-clamp are added in the main context assembly. image mention below.

The Given V16 engine 3D-CAD model requires a total of 23 connectors to be placed on it and an inter connection connector for the engine wiring harness assy. The connectors used in this engine are as follows:

8 numbers of connectors are required on the fuel injector sensors on each cylinder head, i.e.; total 16 fuel injector sensor connectors are needed.

Total 4 numbers of cam-shaft sensor connectors are needed. Adding all the other connectors for sensors like coolant heat sensor, neutral position sensor, speed sensors.

1 neutral position sensor connector and 1 speed sensor connector on the gear box housing. and 1 engine coolant temperature sensor placed at the center of engine.

However, situation of interconnection connectors are not similar to device connectors. Interconnection connectors are not parked with any device but should be pared with the help of clips/clamps/sheet metal brackets etc. possible to the packaging conditions.

Assume the bundle connection from the chassis is coming from right side of the engine and therefore L-clamp is provided on the right side of the engine which provide proper support for the interconnection connector. Here the cavity clip is inserted into the hole provided on the L-clamp.

Additional slack should be provided to the chassis bundle connecting to the engine harness interconnection connector to protect the wiring harness from vibrations caused during the vehicle operation.

Add P-clamps for proper Routing of the harness bundle.

P - Clamp and the Fir Tree clips can be placed at required locations to ensure best possible routing for the harness bundles.

The p – Clamps can be mounted to the holes provided on the Engine block in which the screws to tighten the Engine block.

The Fir tree clips are positioned according to the requirement during the wire harness routing.

After finalization of the routing, we can request the Engine design team to provide the holes for the Fir tree clips as per their location.

Adding supporting components like p-clamps and firtree clip can help the harness bundle provide proper routing and also help to prevent the harness bundles fouling from unwanted mechanical components.

After assemble it in Geometrical bundle productand the we need to switch into the electrical harness assembly workbench and Geometrical bundle product file should be electrically defined using the Define Geometrical bundle option after adding any parts into it. 

Placement of Channels at the required Locations:

Use of plastic guiding channels are recommended to meet the clearances in critical areas if it is difficult to achieve by use of clamps.

And symmetry the guiding channel to the other side of the engine.

After we proceed to the routing the wires before that we have to we have to know about the importants of packing rules. 

IMPORTANT PACKAGING RULES:

• Distance between two clamps on a straight branch should be minimum of 200mm.
• The minimum branch length should be 50mm.
• Minimum distance between clip and nearest branching point should be 25mm.
• The minimum distance between two straight connection points should be 200mm.
• The minimum distance between two breakout points should be 50mm.
• To limit the number of branches from a single branch point to 4.
• Avoid routing wiring harness near the exhaust manifold and its components and also from other unshielded heat sources. If re routing is not possible then maintain a minimum distance of 200mm.
• Try to avoid use of too many metal brackets on engine. Try to use the available threaded bosses on engine or demand for it.
• Enough clamps shall be provided to ensure positive clearance with surroundings and safety of wiring harness.
• P - Clamps, Fir tree clips and other clips can be added to the Geometric bundle as they are electrically defined and are part of the Wire harness routing and should be provided with the Wire bundle package.
• Enough slack should be provided to the wiring harness which help not to get damaged during the Engine rocking or starting condition.
• The wire harness routing should be done in such a way that it is easy in manufacturing and serviceability.
• The wire routing should be done keeping in mind the cost effectiveness of the bundle package.
• To avoid the harness routing and clipping in blind zones of the operator during the assembly and the service.
• To provide proper slack at end connectors so that there will be no tension on the wire bundle.
• To avoid sharp edges on the sheet metal parts and if it is not possible then provide protection parts to prevent damage of the wire bundle.
• To provide separate branch points for separate connectors to ensure Poka-Yoke.

Keeping all the above packaging rules we can start the routing of the wire and provide clipping and clamping wherever necessary during the routing process.

Engine with all the components for wiring harness routing. image mention below.

WIRING HARNESS ROUTING:

Then we will create the branches to connect the different connectors with one another by selecting the Multi-Branchable Document option from the toolbars and the giving the values of branch diameter, bent radius, and slack% in the dialog box. image mention below.

ELECTRICAL BUNDEL CONTINUITY CHECK:

• We need to ensure that the entire bundle is fully connected.
• Go to edit and then click on search command.
• Go to advanced
• Select workbench as electrical, type as bundle segment and attribute as Fully connected
• The select result should be as TRUE or FALSE and the click search to see the connectivity analysis result.

Edit>Search>Workbench-Electrical>Type-Bundle segment>Attribute-fully connected.

Selecting the "TRUE" option will show all the connected bundle segments while the selecting "FALSE" will show all the non-connected bundle segments. 

For now, we will select "TRUE" and search for results. All the bundle segments are highlighted and found showing that all the bundle segments are electrically connected.

After finally completing the wire harness routing by following the packaging rules we need to provide protection parts wherever necessary.

Slit- COT tubes, cotton tapes are added on the wiring harness bundle. The top part of the plastic guiding channel will also be added at this stage.

We will then add protective covering on all the branches connected to the connectors by selecting the  Protective Covering option from the toolbars and then selecting the branch on which we want to add the covering and then browse for the required covering from the catalog browser option and then adding it to the branch. 

FINAL PRODUCT:

WIRING HARNESS FLATTENING:

From this assembly we have to do the bundle flattening.

• Create a new product file in Catia.
• Start the Electrical Harness Flattening Workbench and select the Harness Flattening Parameters option from the toolbars.
• A Harness Flattening Parameters dialog-box will appear and we have to set out our required parameters.

Update the setting as mention in the above image.

After that,

create the product > Switch to Electrical Flattening Workbench > Create the flattening Parameter

By using windows vertically > Extract command > to extract the Geometrical Bundle in to the Flattening Product.

Then we have to open our previous product file of the Wiring Harness Assembly and then go to the Electrical Harness Flattening Workbench.

Select the Extract option from the toolbars and then if our assembly is fully connected then the file gets extracted to the second product file. If our file fails to extract then that means that our assembly is not fully connected then in that case we have to check our connections bundle continuity again.

After that we have to select the Flatten option from the toolbars and then select any face of our assembly with respect to which we want to flatten our assembly and then select all oue wire bundles and click ok. Our harness assembly then gets converted into a flattening.

The bundles can be rotated and rolled with a proper radius in order to fit the drawing sheet.

FLATTENED HARNESS VIEW ON THE DRAWING SHEET:

First, we need to make sure that in the flatten parameter settings bundles and protective coverings have different graphical representation which are,

• Bundle Segments    – Single line representation
• Protective coverings    – Double line representation.

Create a new drawing file in the drafting workbench.

And create a Bill Of Material also.

Now, in this step we have to convert final harness assembly file into .Catpart format. So for that we need to follow below steps.

Mechanical Assembly Design workbench>Tools>Generate CAT Part from product.

Once the CAT part is created, the whole product file is converted into a single part.

Now, whole file is converted into the .Catpart format and we can see all the harness assembly is looking in grey color.

If we need to change color as before in green, we can go back and give green color to each bundle segment.

After save as the part as the .igs file.

CONCLUSION:

In this project We have successfully routed the  wiring harness for the V16 Engine assembly and the flatten-view drawing was prepared in CATIA V5. Various packaging rules and constraints were considered while routing the harness.

I can't upload the zip file in the given box it shows only under 20MB file will be applicable so, my file is above 20MB its around like 80MB. so, I provided the google drive link below.

google drive link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gapq_KW37YzI-6oJTU8Ku3SDfjqI34IG/view?usp=drive_link