AUTOMATIC DESIGN OF MACHINING FIXTURES - CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

Fixtures are used in many manufacturing operations. Owing to the great variety of parts and manufacturing operations, parts may have different sets of fixturing requirements and call for different design strategies. Although there are numerous possibilities for fixture designs, a few basic configurations are clearly identifiable. Based on the belief that it would be more promising to develop one design strategy for each type of fixture than to attempt to develop a general strategy for all types of fixtures, a three-stage design process has been proposed for automatic design of fixtures: conceptual, configuration, and detail design. This paper focuses on the conceptual design stage. A methodology is presented by which the part shape, part features, and cutting force field are analysed to generate conceptual designs of fixtures.