1 - Principles of Engineering Drawing

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of engineering drawing from the standpoint of the relevant International Standards Organization (ISO) standards, where the emphasis is on producing engineering drawings of products for eventual manufacturing. The basic objective of engineering drawing is to communicate product design and manufacturing information in a reliable and unambiguous manner because engineering drawing needs to be language-independent so that a designer in one country can specify a product that is made in another country. The language of engineering is defined by the rules that are embodied in the publications of standards organizations. Each country has its own standards organization, such as the United Kingdom has the British Standards Institution (BSI), the United States has the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and Germany has the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN). The standard dealing with the sizes and layout of drawing sheets is called “ISO 5457:1999.” If hard copies of drawings are required, the first-choice standard sizes of drawings are the conventional “A” sizes of drawing papers. The basic “A” size is the zero size or 0, known as “A0.” This has a surface area of 1 m2 but follows the 1:√2 ratio. Per this standard, a blank drawing sheet should contain the title block, frame for limiting the drawing space, centering marks, orientation marks, metric reference graduation, grid reference system, and trimming marks.