Sheet metal products: Database in support of their process planning and surface development

Abstract

This article proposed a method of basic product pattern to establish a system database for sheet metal design and development specifically for thin sheet metal products. A systematic database covering the basic product pattern commonly used by the industry may be built. Such a database can simplify the design process of sheet metal products, and also accomplish automatic and accurate development to obtain the development length and illustration. As for the design of sheet metal products, this article emphasizes the concept of 'design for development'. As a result, the data of the product not only presents the geometric graphic data of the product, but also contains development information and development rules to form a complete data model. The user can obtain product data through the search and transformation function of the exchange interface developed by the system, and also obtain the accurate development length and drawing by means of the development programme. The system model for designing the basic product pattern of sheet metal uses the boundary representatioan method (B-Rep). The object-oriented programme is employed to establish a system module programme for designing and developing basic product pattern features. This system uses a personal computer as the hardware equipment under the AutoCAD environment.