Research Initiation: Automated Process Planning from a Feature Graph

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This research addresses the integration of CAD and CAM through the automatic generation of a manufacturing process plan from a 3-D CAD part description. The objectives of this project are four-fold. First, a method will be developed to define form-features important to manufacturing (such as holes, threads, etc.) that enables automatic recognition of features from a CAD database. Second, researchers will implement previously developed algorithms to separate joined form-features in a part cavity and store their descriptions in a data structure called a feature node. Third, the detailed structure of a feature node will be defined according to the necessary information required to manufacture each feature. These feature nodes will be linked into a larger global structure called a feature graph. The links represent relationships among the features in the part. Fourth, and most important, a method will be developed to automatically generate a generative process plan for the part by traversing the feature graph. This final step will involve interfacing an expert system for process planning with a solid modeler to calculate optimal machining parameters and machine tool sequencing. Evaluation of the software will be through extensive testing with industry supplied part descriptions and comments from industrial users.