A rule-based system for fixture design

Abstract

Modern market imposes stringent demands regarding the product quality/price ratio, with an ever decreasing time-to-market. Furthermore, products are increasingly manufactured in small batches and high varieties, which requires flexibility not only from manufacturing system but the entire manufacturing process. Such demands require manufacturing systems which are highly automated in the domain of preparation and realization of manufacturing activities, which include fixture design. Owing to present trends towards reduction of lead time and human effort devoted to fixture design, computer aided fixture design has gained a prominent role in computer aided environment. In this paper, a system for computer-aided fixture design is presented and verified. This system comprises methods and techniques for fixture design. The structure of this system is based on modular principle, and uses data base and knowledge base. The system allows fixtures to be designed based on geometric features of workpiece, process planning and machining information. A segment of output results is also shown. Finally, conclusions are presented with directions for future investigation. Key words: Machining fixture, rule-based systems, data base, knowledge base.