Assembly design system based on engineering connection

Abstract

An assembly design system is an important part of computer-aided design systems, which are important tools for realizing product concept design. The traditional assembly design system does not record the connection information of production on the engineering layer; consequently, the upstream design idea cannot be fully used in the downstream design. An assembly design model based on the relationship of engineering connection is presented. In this model, all nodes are divided into two categories: The component and the connection. Moreover, the product is constructed on the basis of the connection relationship of the components. The model is an And/Or graph and has the ability to record all assembly schemes. This model records only the connection information that has engineering application value in the product design. In addition, this model can significantly reduce the number of combinations, and is very favorable for the assembly sequence planning in the downstream. The system contains a connection knowledge system that can be mapped to the connection node, and the connection knowledge obtained in practice can be returned to the knowledge system. Finally, VC++6.0 is used to develop a prototype system called Connect-based Assembly Planning (CAP). The relationship between the CAP system and the commercial assembly design system is also established.

Key words： product design; assembly design; engineering connection; assembly sequence planning

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51175200).

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