A feature-based fixture design methodology for the manufacturing of aircraft structural parts

In fixture design for the manufacturing of aircraft structural parts, there are various challenges and serious problems in industry, such as difficulty in design knowledge capture and reuse, and the arbitrary or non-standard nature of design, which influence the efficiency and quality of fixture design. This paper proposes a feature-based fixture design methodology in which previous fixture design cases and design rules are described in association with features and thus the design knowledge is integrated with geometric information of aircraft structural parts, which are the main concern of this project. In this methodology, machining features of the structural parts and their associated attributes are identified by feature recognition technique from the 3 dimensional (3D) part models defined based on model-based definition (MBD) technique. The feature-based part information models are then established and are used to retrieve previous fixture design cases and design rules stored in the knowledge base. Fixture designers will choose the appropriate retrieved design cases as the starting point for new fixture design or use previous designs to assess his/her current design. In this way the process of new fixture design can be improved. In the current stage of the research, a prototype feature-based fixture design system based on CATIA for the manufacturing of aircraft structural parts has been developed and used by a large airplane manufacturer. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.