A Study On The Knowledge Based Trimming Process Planning Of Panels

Process planning is one of the key issue in the development of auto panels. Challenges and pressures from growing globalization of markets have forced automotive enterprises to shorten their product development cycle and reduce costs by means of increasing uses of high-tech and new processes .Now auto panel process planning and die development are undergoing a historical transition from trial-and-error-based art to math-based and technology-driven. Utilizing intelligent, integrated and systematic methods, the knowledge-driven trim-process planning system will take a huge leap leading to an innovation design system, which can increase design quality and efficiency effectively while reducing development time and costs dramatically .Due to complexity of auto panel die design, there is an increasing need for integration for artificial intelligence, such as knowledge-based systems, harmonious and the designer intelligence to speed up design process. Therefore, based on the research CAD/CAE/CAPP of auto panel dies, it is proposed to establish a knowledge-based system to fully support auto panel process planning. According to different design tasks and knowledge types, object-oriented method (OOM ) ,rule-based reasoning ,model-based reasoning are integrated and applied in the intelligent auto panel process planning system developed by the authors.The author builds an intelligent trimming process design model based on KBE. This model uses the methods of knowledge engineering to express the design procedure and rules, which is the core of the intelligent design. Reasoning is used to perform section design rules in trim process design, which reduces manual intervention and increases the intelligence degree. Based on the platform of UG, the author has set up a prototype design system of panel trim process planning. By means of feature recognition, feature definition and rule reasoning, etc., the system realizes the functions of panel trimming process planning, and is proven to be practical by several planning cases.