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ComputerAided_Design_Engineering_amp_Manufactur.pdf

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the previously stored process plan is retrieved. The retrieved process plan can then easily be<br />

modified to suit the new part.<br />

• Interactive/menu driven models which pose a series of questions (or menus) and interactively gather<br />

the part data from the user. Studying the product range and variation is essential before designing<br />

system-user interaction. Although it seems to be simple to answer such questions, the user may<br />

not have control over the way in which the system interacts with him, and hence he is compelled<br />

to navigate through a series of redundant questions to define even a simple part. This approach<br />

is limited to only simple parts and is characterized by the absence of graphic interface.<br />

• Keywords/description languages which can provide detailed information for CAPP systems. The<br />

output format of the part data can be designed such that the process planning function can easily<br />

accomplish its task.<br />

This approach offers limited flexibility to the user in the sense that the user can exercise some<br />

control over the system, but, because of its specialized nature, it is limited to simple parts. For complex<br />

parts, the translation of the original design to input language can be very tedious. Sometimes the<br />

resultant model may not be unique and the sequence with which a part is modeled may affect the<br />

planning logic.<br />

CAD Models<br />

Although the modeling methods discussed so far provide alternate solutions for linking design to manufacture,<br />

the main problem of generating the part data from a CAD data base is still largely unresolved.<br />

The increased use of CAD and the need to integrate it with CAM has led to the use of the internal CAD<br />

model as a means of driving the process planning function.<br />

Much of the information needed in the design and manufacturing functions is directly related to the<br />

geometric shape of the part. This observation has led to the interest in geometric modeling, with the<br />

hope that a solution for the geometrical aspects of product modeling will form the basis for producing<br />

effective CAD/CAM systems. Present CAD/CAM Systems can be regarded as the logical outcome of this<br />

approach.<br />

Unfortunately, the information stored in the CAD models is in terms of points, lines, arcs, and solids;<br />

as such it is not structured to facilitate CAPP. The gap in the abstraction levels of CAD and CAM<br />

domains needs to be bridged to obtain integrated CAD/CAM systems (Wright and Hannam, 1989).<br />

CAD systems also lack suitable facilities to associate tolerance information and other applicationbased<br />

data (non-geometrical) to the part model. The information in these models is incomplete and low<br />

level in nature (Shah and Rogers, 1988b). Hence such models cannot be used directly without further<br />

processing for manufacturing applications like CAPP.<br />

Another major problem with these modelers is that they allow a very restricted set of operations on<br />

the model. All operations must be expressed as Boolean operations. The primitives customarily supported<br />

in solid models do not easily lend themselves to the specification of user-definable features. This is<br />

particularly true for compound features such as stepped holes, pockets, etc. The steps involved in<br />

describing such features may be quite complex.<br />

Sometimes the model created by the solid models may not be unique because a part constructed by<br />

subtraction of operations can also be created using the corresponding union operations (Joshi et al.,<br />

1986). Absence of such uniqueness in part representation may severely affect the subsequent process<br />

planning logic. Sometimes, a part represented in a CAD system may not be manufacturable. Hence, it<br />

is essential to have modeling systems that can check the design for manufacturability (DFM) and<br />

geometrical validity of the parts.<br />

Feature-Based Models<br />

In order to overcome the above limitations, the concept of using form features (shape elements) for part<br />

modeling received the attention of researchers. It is perhaps fair to state that the concept of features was<br />

first introduced by researchers in the process of linking design, and manufacturing.

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