Automated Contact and Non-Contact Constraint Generation for Disassembly Feasibility and Planning

Abstract

Disassembly is an essential step for value recovery processes, but it is typically manually performed, which is time-consuming. Design for disassembly and automated disassembly methods can improve efficiency. However, critical disassembly information, such as disassembly precedence and direction must be easily and rapidly accessible. Previous research has evaluated contact constraints for product disassembly from a CAD assembly STEP file in order to determine if a disassembly operation is feasible, but efficient extraction of disassembly information and non-contact disassembly constraints is an ongoing area of study. Disassembly feasibility and direction for contact and non-contact interferences can be expressed as an interference matrix after disassembly information is extracted from CAD assembly designs. In this paper, a STEP file format is used as a source for part geometry to evaluate disassembly feasibility and direction for contact and non-contact disassembly interferences. The method proposed in this paper extracts geometrical data from STEP file to test collision relationships when removing assembled components. Non-contact and contact disassembly feasibility are presented as a weighted liaison graph. In future work, the approach will be implemented iteratively to determine disassembly precedence and direction at each stage of disassembly, and identify potential destructive disassembly opportunities.