Representation and similarity assessment in case-based process planning and die design for manufacturing automotive panels

A geometry search approach in case-based tool reuse for mould manufacturing

“…[1]. You et al represented FFS as a flat-blend graph to retrieve process planning and die design for manufacturing automotive panels [4]. Guo et al proposed an ontologybased CBR system for mould design [13].…”

“…Extensive literatures on geometry search could be reviewed in several aspects, such as global and partial retrieval [21], geometry [22] or topology method [23], semantic feature based [24] or none-featured graph method [25,26], solid model oriented [27] or surface model [4], for rigid shape [28,29] or for non-rigid shape [30], in single resolution level [3] or in level of detail (LOD) [31], by single descriptors or by combined descriptor and learning technique [32], etc. Indeed, there is no one best solution for all cases, and when considering reuse of tool sequence for cavity machining, some property of cavity FFS could be considered.…”

“…Integral of Gaussian curvature distribution in concentric regions is proposed, but the number of regions is empirical and alignment of targeting surfaces is required. You et al [4] proposed flat-bend graph, where edges represent bend type features and nodes stand for flat faces. It is feasible for automotive panel with multiple surfaces connected by bends which can be detected, but for a highly smooth one whole surface in FFS cavity, where bend feature is not existing, variational approach needs to be explored.…”

“…Freeform surface (FFS), also called sculptured surface, is ubiquitous in these designs for visual and functional requirements. Usually, similar geometric shapes are shared by products belonging to the same product family or different generations, and reuse of similar manufacturing process is desirable [2][3][4]. Consequently, efficient production of these similar sculptured surfaces based on previous cases is essential to computer-integrated manufacturing and competitiveness of mould company.…”

“…Many case-based reasoning (CBR) systems were proposed to solve engineering problems in mould industry relying on experience [1,4,8,13], but case-based tool reuse for sculptured cavity machining has not been studied. This work tries to bridge the gap between new solution and reuse of previous successful cases.…”