CHARACTERIZATION OF SHEARING FEATURES FOR SHEET-METAL COMPONENTS IN 2-D LAYOUT

This paper presents a new classification system for shearing operation s and concepts are developed for extracting entity groups, recognizing them, and characterizing shearing features for sheet metal components in two dimensional (2-D) layout. Features are recognized by studying the wireframe representation of the layout and a set of principles are derived to relate the features geometrically and topologically. Featu res which form potential candidates for CAPP systems are determined ba sed on the new classification system. This helps in the development of many alternative process plans in general and selection of an optimum process plan based on constraints in particular. Features recognized along with geometrical information can be used in codification of part s, optimization of tool path, for mapping the features for tools to ma nufacture, inspection, etc. The methodology has been implemented in PC /AT using ANSI C programming language, and the system has been tested for several real parts nested layouts.