A concurrent approach to automated manufacturing process planning

textWith the increasing demand of fast-paced and hybrid manufacturing processes in modern industry, it is desirable to expedite the iterations between design and manufacturing through intelligent computational techniques. In this research, we propose a concurrent approach of this kind to streamline the design and manufacturing processes. With this approach, a CAD design is automatically analyzed in terms of its manufacturability in the early design stage. If the part is manufacturable, a set of process plans optimized in time, cost, fixture quality and tolerance satisfaction are reported in real time. If the part is not manufacturable, the potential design changes are provided for better manufacturing. In the approach, the geometric information of 3D models and the empirical knowledge in manufacturing processes, fixtures, and tolerances are combined and encapsulated into a graph-grammar based reasoning. The reasoning systematically extracts meaningful manufacturing details that later constitute complete process plans for any given solid model. The plans are then evaluated and optimized using a specially designed multi-objective best first search technique. The complete approach enables a concurrent and efficient manufacturability analysis tool that closely resembles real manufacturing planning practice. Numerous case studies with real engineering parts are presented to characterize the novelty and contributions of this approach. The optimality of the suggested plans is verified through computational comparisons, and the practicality of the plans is validated with hands-on implementations on the shop floor.Mechanical Engineerin

Knowledge-based automatic tolerance analysis system

Tolerance measure is an important part of engineering, however, to date the system of applying this important technology has been left to the assessment of the engineer using appropriate guidelines. This work offers a major departure from the trial and error or random number generation techniques that have been used previously by using a knowledge-based system to ensure the intelligent optimisation within the manufacturing system. A system to optimise manufacturing tolerance allocation to a part known as Knowledge-based Automatic Tolerance Analysis (KATA) has been developed. KATA is a knowledge-based system shell built within AutoCAD. It has the ability for geometry creation in CAD and the capability to optimise the tolerance heuristically as an expert system. Besides the worst-case tolerancing equation to optimise the tolerance allocation, KATA's algorithm is supported by actual production information such as machine capability, types of cutting tools, materials, process capabilities etc. KATA's prototype is currently able to analyse a cylindrical shape workpiece and a simple prismatic part. Analyses of tolerance include dimensional tolerance and geometrical tolerance. KATA is also able to do angular cuts such as tapers and chamfers. The investigation has also led to the significant development of the single tolerance reference technique. This method departs from the common practice of multiple tolerance referencing technique to optimise tolerance allocation. Utilisation of this new technique has eradicated the error of tolerance stackup. The retests have been undertaken, two of which are cylindrical parts meant to test dimensional tolerance and an angular cut. The third is a simple prismatic part to experiment with the geometrical tolerance analysis. The ability to optimise tolerance allocation is based on real production data and not imaginary or random number generation and has improved the accuracy of the expected result after manufacturing. Any failure caused by machining parameters is cautioned at an early stage before an actual production run has commenced. Thus, the manufacturer is assured that the product manufactured will be within the required tolerance limits. Being the central database for all production capability information enables KATA to opt for several approaches and techniques of processing. Hence, giving the user flexibility of selecting the process plan best suited for any required situation

Allocation of geometric tolerances in one-dimensional stackup problems

Many tolerancing problems on mechanical assemblies involve a functional requirement depending on a chain of parallel dimensions on individual parts. In these one-dimensional cases, simple methods are available for the analysis and the allocation of dimensional tolerances. However, they are difficult to extend to geometric tolerances, which must be translated into equivalent dimensional tolerances; this allows the analysis but makes the allocation generally impossible without Monte Carlo simulation and complex search strategies. To overcome this difficulty, the paper proposes a way of dealing directly with geometric tolerances in the allocation problem. This consists in expressing the functional requirement as a linear model of geometric tolerances rather than equivalent dimensional tolerances; the coefficients of the model (sensitivities) are calculated considering both the dimension chain and the standard definition of the geometric tolerances. The approach can be combined with any constrained optimization method based on sensitivities. The optimal scaling method, previously proposed for dimensional tolerances, is extended to geometric tolerances and used in two examples to demonstrate the simplicity of the overall workflow and the quality of the optimal solution

Enriching Step-Based Product Information Models to Support Product Life-Cycle Activities

The representation and management of product information in its life-cycle requires standardized data exchange protocols. Standard for Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP) is such a standard that has been used widely by the industries. Even though STEP-based product models are well defined and syntactically correct, populating product data according to these models is not easy because they are too big and disorganized. Data exchange specifications (DEXs) and templates provide re-organized information models required in data exchange of specific activities for various businesses. DEXs show us it would be possible to organize STEP-based product models in order to support different engineering activities at various stages of product life-cycle. In this study, STEP-based models are enriched and organized to support two engineering activities: materials information declaration and tolerance analysis. Due to new environmental regulations, the substance and materials information in products have to be screened closely by manufacturing industries. This requires a fast, unambiguous and complete product information exchange between the members of a supply chain. Tolerance analysis activity, on the other hand, is used to verify the functional requirements of an assembly considering the worst case (i.e., maximum and minimum) conditions for the part/assembly dimensions. Another issue with STEP-based product models is that the semantics of product data are represented implicitly. Hence, it is difficult to interpret the semantics of data for different product life-cycle phases for various application domains. OntoSTEP, developed at NIST, provides semantically enriched product models in OWL. In this thesis, we would like to present how to interpret the GD & T specifications in STEP for tolerance analysis by utilizing OntoSTEP

A new approach to tolerance analysis

Journal ArticleTolerance analysis is seen as part of a more general problem, namely handling data with uncertainty. Uncertain geometric data arises when interpreting measured data, but also in solid modeling where floating point approximations are common, when representing design tolerances, or when dealing with limited manufacturing precision. The common question is whether parts with uncertain shape fulfill certain functional specification. The question is expressed as geometrical relationship between toleranced objects. Unfortunately, tolerance based relations are often inconsistent, unlike relations between exactly represented objects. In this paper we survey current tolerance representation and analysis methods. We then derive our method of intuitionistic tolerance handling from a method developed for robust solid modeling. A new representational framework is proposed, which serves as the basis for robust geometric modeling and tolerance analysis. We illustrate the framework with examples of assembly design