Disassembly path generation to verify the assemblability of mechanical products

A system for verifying assemblability is required in CAD/CAM systems for mechanical products, by which the shapes of parts can be modified to enable easy machining and assembly on the factory floor. This paper introduces a part assemblability verification system. Substituting the assemblability with disassemblability, a system that generates paths for disassembly is constructed based on a solid modeling system for mechanical products. The developed system takes contact constraint and contact transition into consideration. Algorithms to derive possible motions of parts which maintain contact states, and to calculate the positions and orientations (configurations) where contact states change are presented. An assemblability verifying method is proposed that uses tree structural data whose arcs and nodes denote possible motions, configurations respectively. The efficiency of the developed system for design verification and assembly planning is demonstrated through an example.