FLEXIBLE PROCESS PLANNING FOR FINISH MACHINING BASED ON PROCESS REQUIREMENTS MODELING

Abstract

This research has developed methods to automate the generation of process plans and NC paths for finish machining in milling operations. The generated process plans are flexible and may vary with the capabilities of available manufacturing facilities and desired production criteria. Unmachinable faces of the desired part, if they exist, are also reported. A new concept-process requirement-for modelling the manufacturability of a face is proposed for generating the flexible process plans. In our definition, the process requirement of a face explicitly describes the specifications of the processes capable of machining the face. An algorithm for deriving the process requirements of a workpiece from its boundary representation was developed. With the derived process requirements of a workpiece and the available processes in a particular factory, the set of capable processes for machining the work-piece can be identified. The optimum processes for machining the workpiece are then selected by considering some economic production criteria.