Bradley Schalk
← All projects CAD reconstruction

Pipe-Cleaning Agitation Machine

Built a full-scale CAD model of a large industrial cleaning machine from hand measurements taken directly off the equipment, with no existing engineering drawings to work from.

  • Full-scale CAD
  • Hand measurement
  • Assemblies
  • Structural modeling
Machine
Industrial pipe-cleaning machine that rocks and agitates piping inside a cleaning bath
Reference
The physical machine only — measured by hand, no drawings
Modeled
The main machine structure at full scale
My role
Measurement, CAD modeling, assembly
Looking down into the cleaning bath from the back of the agitation machine, between the heavy steel rocking arms toward the drive block at the centre.
The physical machine that served as the only reference for the CAD model, seen from the back.
Process

Physical machine to full-scale model

Step 01

Physical machine

A large, in-service industrial machine that holds piping and agitates it inside a cleaning bath.

Step 02

Hand measurements

Dimensions taken directly off the equipment, working around a wet, corroded, live installation.

Step 03

Full-scale CAD

The main structure rebuilt at full scale and assembled in CAD.

The engineering problem

Modeling something nobody documented

The machine holds piping and rocks it to agitate the pipe inside a cleaning bath. It works, but it exists only as hardware — there were no engineering drawings to model from, so every dimension in the CAD model came from a measurement I took by hand off the actual machine.

That is a different exercise from modeling a part on a bench. The machine is large, much of it sits over or in a bath, and surfaces are corroded and painted over. You have to decide what to measure, what to derive from symmetry, and how to check yourself as you go, because a small error at one end of a frame becomes a visible error at the other.

The resulting model covers the main machine structure at full scale. The remaining major component is the front rack, which would hold the piping placed into the bath.

Reference and result

The machine, and the model

Photographs taken from three sides, alongside the CAD reconstruction built from them.

Side of the machine, showing the frame running the length of the cleaning bath.
Front of the machine at the bath edge.
Back of the machine, looking down between the rocking arms into the bath.
Full-scale CAD reconstruction of the pipe-cleaning agitation machine.
Outcome

What I took from it

  • Measurement strategy matters more than measurement count. Establishing a few reliable datums first made everything downstream consistent.
  • Model as you measure. Building the CAD alongside the measuring exposed gaps while I was still standing at the machine, instead of after.
  • Old equipment is rarely square. Deciding when to model the nominal design intent versus the as-built condition is a judgement call you have to make deliberately.