E-Standards for Mass Properties Engineering

Open-source Website Intro:

The purpose of this open-source forum is to promote the development of a JAVA based
Application Programming Interface for the field of Mass Properties Engineering. This
project started as NASA LaRC Innovation Institute project in 2007 to promote the
general field of mass properties engineering and to define electronic file standards and
data object manipulations to support that field. “Weight Engineering Journal, Winter
2007” published by the Society of Allied Weight Engineers (SAWE) provides a
descriptive article, "Using MPEX as a standard file format for mass properties
engineering data" as introduction to the topic. SAWE Paper No. 3440, "E-Standards for
Mass Properties Engineering", provides additional thoughts. Please contact
jeffrey.a.cerro@nasa.gov if you desire additional information or wish to have your
thoughts and code enhancements included in this project. This is currently only the initial
code of a project which hopefully will be greatly expanded upon by expertise from
interested members in the weights engineering community.

Revision: 20100825 – Bug fixes and additional code added for sample reporting
Notes on the 2010_08_25 Release

General:
Summer student activity provided some much needed code checkout and enhancement.

mpex.java:

1) mpex.java is the initial code used to define project requirements and provide a
template document from which to discuss goals in class structure and
functionality. Currently mpex.java reads an MPEX format data file and parses its
datasets into comparable java objects of similar hierarchical nature. No attempt
has been made to handle large data files and no object functions have been coded.
2) Code updated, bug fix and variable scope changes made by NASA LaRC Summer
Student Logan Gallagher

mpexGUI.java:
1) Use this as the main executable to access mpex.java and Report.java.
2) initial GUI interface provided by Logan Gallagher

GUI screen shot:

Screen shot from “Show graph” button executed on highlighted “rocket” id item.
Report.java:
1) initial report capability, uses JFreeChart library to create Technical Performance
Measurement mass tracking vs time plots. Extract date based weight changes
from the ‘Weight Changes’ mpex Dataset. Works for any ID’d component in the
mpex file. provided by Logan Gallagher

To contribute:

contact Jeffrey.a.cerro@nasa.gov
 References
[1] Cerro, J. A.; and Fleck G. W.: “Using MPEX as a Standard Neutral File Format
for mass properties engineering Data”, Weight Engineering, International Journal
of the Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Vol. 67 Winter 2007, pp.15-19.
[2] Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Recommended Practices,
ww.sawe.org/technical/rp, March 2008.
[3] Boynton, R.; Nakai, J.; Wiener, K.; and Strom, G: “Standard” SAWE Mass
Properties Calculation Software and Algorithms”, SAWE Paper No. 3156, May
2001, www.sawe.org.
[4] Fleck, G.W.: “Mass Properties Exchange Format Recommendations for a
Standard”, SAWE Paper No. 2311, May 1996.
[5] Fleck, G.W.; “Mass Properties Exchange Format Standardization Forum,
http://i.e.-Solutions.com/mpex/, March 2008.
[6] Belt, R.: “The value of mass properties engineering”, SAWE Paper No.3300,
www.sawe.org, March 2008.