A design advisor for sheet metal fabrication

Abstract

Using data gathered over many years, people working in sheet metal fabrication have compiled lists of errors that are frequently made by designers in the field. These errors (or violations) are common to the design of sheet metal components used in a wide variety of products from computer chassis to automobiles. This paper outlines the efforts to use this information to aid in the development of a rule-based design advisor for sheet metal fabrication. The design advisor is a module of Promod-S, a concurrently engineered, application-orientated product modeler that is being developed by researchers at the Automation and Robotics Laboratory of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.The paper presents algorithms for both the identification and correction of design violations. The correction approach includes methods for updating an entire part after a feature has been modified.

Automated manufacturability evaluation system for sheet metal components in mass production

“…Summary of work Shpitalni (1993) Developed a system for 3D model generation from nominal layout of bent sheet metal parts Lin and Peing (1994) Studied a rule-based system to aid in the design of sheet metal bending and to alter the design whenever the design result is not satisfactory Mantripragada et al (1996) Developed a system for sheet metal forming that enables to perform formability analysis and output required design changes Meerkamm (1995) Developed a system that can detect design violations concerning manufacturability of sheet metal and other parts and advice for correction, and can carry out production cost assessments Yeh et al (1996) Developed a rule-based design advisor for sheet metal components that identifies design violations, suggests solution alternatives and estimates cost Arimoto et al (1993) Developed a producibility evaluation method for various processes including sheet metal for manufacturing cost estimation using processing time and shop rate and producibility score evaluation Cuesta et al (1998) Developed a detailed time and cost analysis module for process-planning of sheet metal operations Schmitz and Desa (1994) Established and implemented a methodology for manufacturing of stamped products for process plan generation, deriving punches and dies and manufacturing cost estimation Raggenbass and Reissner (1991) Described a system for punching or laser cutting or punching-laser combination for collision considerations, tool selection and path optimization Tisza (1995) Developed a system for sheet and bulk metal forming for feature recognition, material selection, blank determination, optimum sequencing of operations, tool and machine selection Ong et al (1997) Described a methodology to determine the optimal set-up and bending sequences for the brake forming of sheet metal components Tilley (1992) Dealt with manufacturing and production of sheet metal components for selection of machines, tools and methods, minimization of set-up, production time and cost Shpitalni and Saddan (1994) Formulated automatic tool selection and bending sequence determination to find an optimum path in terms of time and cost Gupta et al (1998) Described a process planning system for sheet metal parts for generation of possible bending sequences and manufacturing costs, selection of punches and dies, interference checking, gripper selection and robot motion plan, near optimal plan development and feedback to improve the plan on operation by operation basis Xie et al (2001) Presented a real time process planning module for compound cutting and punching for cost optimization and feedback to designer De Vries et al (1994) Focused on the integration of design and process planning using the functionalities of FROOM (Feature and Relation based Object Oriented Modelling), a design support system and PART-S (Planning of Activities, Resources and Technology-Sheet metal), a CAPP system as the b...…”

A manufacturability advisor for spun and rollformed sheet metal components

“…Most of the these papers covered manufacturability by machining processes and only a few dealt with sheet metal components [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Further, papers which have been published on automated manufacturability evaluation of sheet metal components are often restricted to parts manufactured by bending and other forming processes [12][13][14][15][16][17].…”