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Alstom/Bombardier
 (Project Engineering Intern)

Highlights

  • Used CATIA V5 (part design & generative shape design) to route complex steel pipes for air intake systems that are to be installed on 20 trains under Go Transit

  • Drafted 10+ toleranced engineering drawings of pipes and complex geometries, which were successfully used in the manufacturing process

  • Sourced parts to create mockups and prototypes for conduit systems (fittings, pipes, conduit brackets etc) from hardware stores and McMaster-Car

  • Utilized project management software (Excel, PowerBI) to streamline project progress and sales forecasts; created pivot tables to reflect KPIs

  • Worked with internal customers, suppliers, and technicians by overseeing prototyping creation processes, taking meeting notes in project kickoff meetings, discussing project timelines with customers, and calling suppliers to discuss manufacturing details

  • Reviewed 20+ project initiation, engineering proposals, engineering instructions, commercial proposal, cost sheet, inventory, quality assurance, maintenance procedure, quality audits, and risk assessment documents

Design problem: reroute the transmission hot start coolant pipe (red arrow) so it doesn't interfere with the pre-cleaner box (blue arrow, it filters out snow and clumps during winter to ensure safety and reliability) and other pipes around it

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Spare transmission system

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After taking many measurements under the train (by doing acrobatics and squeezing between things), I pinpointed the areas where we had to adjust for tolerance 

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Original pipe design

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Pipe design in CATIA V5

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Prototype (white pipe) installed on spare transmission system. I sourced the abs pipes and fittings from Home Depot. When designing the pipe, important factors such as movement due to vibration, maintenance, and laminar/turbluent fluid flow due to different bend radii are taken into account.  

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Important design practice that I learned: when taking measurements of such a pipe geometry we should use the origin as the reference point and take x,y,z distance measurements from that point. This is because if we were to take measurements from different reference points (for example, initially I was taking each succeeding pipe segment's length and bend angle with respect to the previous segment - see Method 1 vs Method 2, both not to scale).  

Results/Lessons Learned

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Drawing was sent to the manufactuer and 20 pipes are expected to be installed in September 2022!

Method 1

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Method 2

Door Trim Drawing Sent to Supplier

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Pipe Drawing Sent to Supplier

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Transmission assembly in CATIA V5:

  • To familiarize myself with how a transmission works, I assembled a transmission system in CATIA V5

    • The purpose of a transmission system is to convert energy from the engine into energy for the wheels​

  • Parts include ball bearing, conic roller bearings, pinion mechanism, bevel gear, crown wheel, gear axles, etc. 

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Solidworks rendering of the transmission system

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CATIA Surface modelling:

  • I utilized CATIA surface modelling to model a sedan:

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GD&T: A tolerancing practice that tells us the function of a design, in addition to the dimensional requirements. In this way, the
manufacturer would be able to better understand the design requirements when they make the part. 

Mechanical Bill of Materials (BOMs): During my internship at Alstom, I got to review some mechanical BOMS for various projects
and perform relevant calculations.

Project Lifecycle: During a project's life cycle, we need a systematic approach to keep track of the project progress through
various documents

  • Project initiation/proposal

  • Engineering proposal

  • Project Plan

  • Engineering Instructions

  • Commercial Proposal

  • ATCWS

  • QA

  • Production

In my role, I organized all the documents into their respective folders to help close projects, and performed

material + labour calculations for various projects. In determining the actual sales vs. sales forecasts, I was able to create

pivot tables to show which projects met sales targets and which ones didn't. The most important thing I learned from this 

task was that in project management, there are always three factors at play: time, cost, and quality. In most cases,

we can only fulfill two of these three things, and forgo the third one. 

  • LinkedIn
Copyright @ 2022 Melissa Ma
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