Abstract
An important aspect in the design of a good fixture is that of imparting sufficient rigidity to all the work piece surfaces that are to be machined. Work piece deformation during fixture set‐up and process operation is the most important consideration in the fixture design process. The present work aims at studying the effect of cutting forces and clamping forces on the workpiece. Prediction of deflection of the part under cutting loads and obtaining an optimal fix ture configuration could eliminate part rejects attributed to poor fixture design. The results of an analytical study to optimize the position of locators and clamps using a three stage procedure based on the Finite Element method is presented here. In the first stage, the optimal position for the base locators is determined with the objective being that of minimizing the deflection of the work piece. In the second stage, the position of the clamps and side locators and in the third stage, the clamping forces have been optimized. The work piece has been considered as a deformable body and the fixture elements as rigid members. Contact between the fixture elements and the work piece has been modeled using surface‐ to‐ surface contact elements and Coulomb friction assumed between contact surfaces. The deflection predicted by the analysis for various configurations of the base locators has been compared with the values that have been obtained experimentally using a test fixture. The results from the analysis and experiment follow the same trend and are comparable.
Published Version
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