A design advisor for sheet metal fabrication

Abstract

Abstract Using data gathered over many years, people working in sheet metal fabrication have compiled lists of errors that are frequently made by designers in the field. These errors (or violations) are common to the design of sheet metal components used in a wide variety of products from computer chassis to automobiles. This paper outlines the efforts to use this information to aid in the development of a rule-based design advisor for sheet metal fabrication. The design advisor is a module of Promod-S, a concurrently engineered, application-orientated product modeler that is being developed by researchers at the Automation and Robotics Laboratory of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The paper presents algorithms for both the identification and correction of design violations. The correction approach includes methods for updating an entire part after a feature has been modified.