COMPUTER-AIDED FEATURE-BASED DESIGN FOR NET SHAPE MANUFACTURING

Contemporary computer-based design tools are not suitable for concurre nt engineering oriented product design due to (a) their particular and stand-alone functionality, (b) the lack of a capability to support in teractive decision-making, and (c) the heavy involvement of designer e xpertise and experience, This paper presents a feature-based design fo r a manufacturing framework which is able to support the practice of c oncurrent engineering by providing functions designed specifically for net shape product design and on-line design guidance, Knowledge-based and object-oriented modeling technologies are employed to develop des ign evaluation facilities, An object-oriented product model, embedded with product design and process knowledge, is constructed and used for design evaluation, Geometric reasoning is performed on features, feat ure interactions, and overall shape to identify areas that may conflic t with design principles, This paper concentrates on design for net sh ape manufacturing with an emphasis on die casting and injection moldin g processes, However, the proposed framework is general enough for oth er net shape processes by customizing process specific features and en coding process design rules. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.