mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...
, an envelope is a solid representing all positions which may be occupied by an object during its normal range of motion.
Another (
jargon
Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...
) word for this is a "flop".
Wheel envelope
In
automobile design
Automotive design is the process of developing the appearance (and to some extent the ergonomics) of motor vehicles, including automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, buses, Coach (vehicle), coaches, and vans.
The functional design and development o ...
, a wheel envelope may be used to model all positions a
wheel
A wheel is a rotating component (typically circular in shape) that is intended to turn on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machin ...
and
tire
A tire (North American English) or tyre (Commonwealth English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineeri ...
combo may be expected to occupy during driving. This will take into account the maximum jounce and rebound allowed by the suspension system and the maximum turn and tilt allowed by the
steering
Steering is the control of the direction of motion or the components that enable its control. Steering is achieved through various arrangements, among them ailerons for airplanes, rudders for boats, cylic tilting of rotors for helicopters, ...
mechanism. Minimum and maximum tire inflation pressures and wear conditions may also be considered when generating the envelope.
This envelope is then compared with the wheel housing and other components in the area to perform an interference/collision analysis. The results of this analysis tell the engineers whether that wheel/tire combo will strike the housing and components under normal driving conditions. If so, either a redesign is in order, or that wheel/tire combo will not be recommended.
A different wheel envelope must be generated for each wheel/tire combo for which the vehicle is rated. Much of this analysis is done using CAD/ CAE systems running on computers. Of course, high speed collisions, during an accident, are not considered "normal driving conditions", so the wheel and tire may very well contact other parts of the vehicle at that time.
Robot's working envelope
In robotics, the working envelope or work area is the volume of working or reaching space. Some factors of a robot's design (configurations,
axe
An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...
s or
degrees of freedom
In many scientific fields, the degrees of freedom of a system is the number of parameters of the system that may vary independently. For example, a point in the plane has two degrees of freedom for translation: its two coordinates; a non-infinite ...