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ComputerAided_Design_Engineering_amp_Manufactur.pdf

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In dimension driven or parametric design systems (Lin, 1983; Serrano, 1984), dimensions are registered<br />

along with modeling operations. The design revision process is to override existing dimension<br />

value, and then remodel by repeating modeling operations with the new dimension value. This revision<br />

method requires recorded modeling history. Dimensions and parameters in parametric design are<br />

determined by designers during the component construction stage. These dimensions or parameters<br />

may not meet design constraints, so the modeling construction dimensions will be different from the<br />

dimensions shown on final drawings. This is also a burden for automatic revision, which requires manual<br />

interpretation of the relation between design constraints and model construction dimensions and<br />

parameters.<br />

In the next section, we will explain how design with spatial relationships can be used for connectivity<br />

design and followed by 3-D variational geometry, an assembly-based, constraints-modeling system. In<br />

this system, the parametric dimensions used for geometry revision are derived from design specifications<br />

so that the revision processes are independent of modeling history. This will allow design or manufacturing<br />

engineers to add constraints with specific considerations to the product, to modify design without<br />

violating existing constraints, and, thus, to communicate the designer’s intent through constraints.<br />

9.4 <strong>Design</strong> with Spatial Relationships<br />

Today, researchers focus on bridging the gap between product design and manufacturing. The major<br />

obstacle to this is the lack of communication among designers, process planners, and inspectors. It is<br />

impractical to require that designers possess knowledge of both design and manufacturing. <strong>Design</strong><br />

engineers tend to ignore the manufacturing and other product life-cycle requirements. <strong>Manufactur</strong>ing<br />

engineers are sometimes forced into modifying a design or the manufacturing environment because their<br />

requirements were not captured as constraints in the design. In order to link design and manufacturing<br />

processes automatically, a common product’s specifications must be carried from the beginning of design<br />

to the final stage of inspection. For ex<strong>amp</strong>le, Figure 9.2(a) shows a product with two parts: one is a plate<br />

P,<br />

with two holes, and the other one is a bent shaft, S.<br />

Figure 9.2(b) shows the features of the two parts<br />

in Figure 9.2(a). The features of part P are extracted and classified as a Cvex_block_base,<br />

C_hole1,<br />

C_hole2,<br />

Fillet1,<br />

and Fillet2.<br />

We have C_shaft1,<br />

C_shaft2,<br />

and Elbow features for part S.<br />

In Figure 9.2(c)<br />

and (d), the product is made by snapping C_shaft1 of S into the C_hole1 of P.<br />

Traditionally, these mating<br />

criteria are annotated in engineering drawings, but this requires trained humans to create and interpret<br />

the notes. Also, certain questions arise here, such as<br />

1. How are the specifications of components precisely determined from the product specifications?<br />

2. Can these specifications be represented efficiently?<br />

3. Can existing design procedures be simplified and automated?<br />

In Figure 9.2(c), the plate and bent shaft are assembled with the geometric constraint that the shaft<br />

is inserted, not completely, but with Da � ta offset from the tip of the shaft to the bottom of the plate<br />

and with the other side of the shaft having Db � tb offset with the plate. There are three general stumbling<br />

blocks to assembly evident in this assembly process that involve snapping two components together:<br />

1. It is difficult to specify how deep the C_shaft1 should go along the length of C_hole1 during<br />

individual part modeling.<br />

2. The tolerance specification of �tb<br />

has to be manually distributed to tolerance of �tc<br />

of part P<br />

and �td<br />

of part S as shown in Figure 9.2(d).<br />

3. The resultant tolerance �tc<br />

and �td<br />

should be equal to �tb.<br />

These issues are the drawbacks of conventional modeling systems that are made for design and<br />

machining of individual parts and do not consider the general specifications of a product.<br />

In this chapter, we apply the fact that an assembly model can represent more information than an<br />

individual part model and product specifications can be captured during the stage of assembly. Once<br />

© 2001 by CRC Press LLC

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