UPDATED SUMMASSPROPS A COMPREHENSIVE EXCEL-BASED MASS PROPERTIES SOLUTION

摘要

In May 2003 at the Society of Allied Weight Engineers International Conference on Weight Engineering in New Haven Connecticut, the author presented the original release version of SumMassProps as part of SAWE Paper 3310. SumMassProps is an Excel-based add-in that provides within Microsoft Excel a comprehensive set of mass properties functions to sum component mass properties. In the intervening years, over 100 interface improvements, bug fixes, speed enhancements, and additional functionality changes have been made to this add-in. The resulting version of SumMassProps is now a fully functional mass properties database manipulator using modern programming and error prevention techniques. Many of the improvements specifically address ease-of-use and error proofing the functionality of the add-in. The present version of SumMassProps now creates the function prototypes for each of its menu-driven functions; performs full coordinate and inertia rotations; determines Principal Inertia Matrices and the corresponding Direction Cosine Matrix to arrive at the principal inertias; and incorporates the lessons of SAWE Paper 3360 depicting the correct derivation of mass property uncertainties. Additional functionality includes one click formula matrix filling; utilization of multiple mass properties formats; determination of ballast weights for dynamic balance; specific unit conversions; and the capability to undo any of SumMassProps' built-in functions. SumMassProps as it currently stands is what the author envisioned this comprehensive solution to be when this odyssey began. The functionality and user interface makes Version 9 a desirable tool in the Mass Properties Engineer's arsenal.