Concurrent design for constraint-oriented permanent assembly
Abstract
Concurrent design can be viewed as the simultaneous design of a product and its required manufacturing processes. At the early design stage, the designer cannot always foresee the constraints which occur in the downstream development cycle. Tools are required to represent the manufacturing constraints in CAD to allow the designer to anticipate design for manufacture. Permanent assembly is a design-manufacturing function which joins two (or more) elements together permanently by treating their joining edges through a dedicated process, such as welding. A number of computer tools are available to support welding design, planning and fabrication, including geometric models, finite element techniques, expert systems, robot motion planning software. However, there are few tools in CAD to assist the designer in optimizing the design solutions by providing downstream constraints. This thesis describes research in modeling manufacturing constraints for weld design and planning. The goal of the research is to develop representations and methodologies which (1) model a weld path by using a mating operation in a solid model, (2) allow the designer to manipulate knowledge-based computerized labels on a 3-D geometric model to replace the engineering drawing as a medium between design and manufacture, (3) extract motion constraints for motion planning in a deep-pocket assembled workpiece, and (4) generate a weld assembly plan based on the feasibility of the weld path. A CAD system called CAWAD (Computer-Aided Welded Assembly Design) has been established. By investigating the manufacturing features and modeling the manufacturing constraints, the system forms the basis for a concurrent design environment to assist the designer in the product design phase.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Barash, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Industrial engineering
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