[Open Manufacturing] Port-compatibility and connectability based assembly design
Bryan Bishop
Port-compatibility and connectability based assembly design
J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng. -- September 2004 -- Volume 4, Issue 3,
197 (9 pages)
DOI:10.1115/1.1779659
Palwinder Singh
Michigan Technological University, Mechanical Engineering-Engineering
Mechanics, Houghton, MI 49931-1295
Bernhard Bettig, ASME member
Michigan Technological University, Mechanical Engineering-Engineering
Mechanics, Houghton, MI 49931-1295
In Computer-Aided Design, when creating the solid model of a part, the
designer knows how the part will interface with other parts, however
this information is not stored with the part model. For catalog parts,
it would be useful to be able to embed this assembly information into
the part model in order to automate the process of applying mating
constraints, to reduce the assembly designer's effort or to allow for
automated exploration of alternative configurations. This research
evaluates and compares different schemes for capturing the attributes
of assembly interfaces and appending that information to solid models.
To evaluate the various schemes, this research work introduces the
concept of assembly ports, which are defined as a group of one or more
low-level geometric entities that undergo mating constraints in order
to join parts in a CAD assembly. The schemes studied involve (i)
different combinations of ways to constitute ports and include
labeling, (ii) different bases for determining port compatibility with
respect to design intent, and (iii) different ways of evaluating
connectability with respect to part geometry. The scheme that we
conclude is best minimizes the number of ways the system will try to
put parts together at the expense of effort from the solid model
designer to provide more information.
I found myself more interested in pages 2 and 6 and after. On page 6,
the authors mention that "function" is insufficient for validating
compatibility between components. Contrast that to Stone & Wood's
"Development of a Functional Basis for Design". The paper also
mentions a company, PartSolutions, that provides a 'configuration
model' for individual parts in repositories.
http://www.part-solutions.com/
I don't know what they actually *do* because their site is just a
giant advertisement, I see no technical explanation and the paper
doesn't cite it. But otherwise it sounds interesting.
ben lipkowitz
On Sat, 24 Jan 2009, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> Port-compatibility and connectability based assembly design
apparently there was some miscommunication, i meant you should forward
this paper:
http://heybryan.org/books/Manufacturing/Designing%20effective%20step-by-step%20assembly%20instructions.pdf
an automatic step-by-step instructions generator would be really useful
for a database like SKDB where you have lots of newbies looking at
half-finished poorly documented projects.
marc fawzi
Bryan, Ben,
This reminds me of 'declarative programming' where you specify the basic truths and the constraints as rules and the scenarios are derived for you... e.g. Prolog
Awesome find. Thanks.