Automatic determination of parting directions, parting lines and surfaces for two-piece permanent molds

Abstract

Minimization of surface area/volume of undercuts, flatness of parting surface and minimization of draw depth play a major role to determine the best pair of parting directions for two-piece permanent molds. In most of the earlier attempts a combined effect of the three factors was not considered. Moreover with the increasing complexity of molded product geometry, heuristic and feature-based approaches may prove inefficient. In this paper the combined affect of minimized surface area of undercut, flatness of parting surface and minimized draw depth is considered for the determination of best parting direction, parting line and surface for a two-piece permanent molded component. Tessellated geometry of the component is used as input.