A novel disassembly tool with screwnail endeffectors

One of the most intriguing aspects of disassembly is that of dealing with the products not designed for disassembly. This paper presents a novel disassembly tool, wherein a screwnail is used as an endeffector. It is shown that the screwnail indentation process can well overcome the geometrical uncertainties of the products to be dismantled. A self-connection resulted from the screwnail indentation provides a reliable closure to transmit forces and torques required for various dismantling operations. Some differences between the self-connection and the assembly connection are analyzed in detail. With the screwnail endeffector integrated, a disassembly task is decomposed into a screwnail indentation process, a task execution process, and a separating process. A vivid example is given to illustrate these concepts.