Research On The Strip Layout Of Progressive Dies Using KBE

Strip layout is the core to the design of progressive dies. It strongly depends on the experience of a designer, therefore the interactive method is commonly used in most of CAD system for progressive dies. Strip layout has become the bottle-neck of developing CAD system for progressive dies. The knowledge-based strip layout system, which is based on the features of strip layout and integrated with Knowledge-Based Engineering, should be developed to speed up and simplify the design procedure. According to the characteristics of stamping knowledge, a hybrid knowledge representation method is adopted. This method integrates rule-based knowledge representation, case-based knowledge representation and object-oriented knowledge representation together, and classifies the related knowledge in the knowledge base with keyword index. On this base, the graphic-based reasoning which combines feature model with the knowledge base is proposed to realize the automatic layout of stamping process features. Based on the theories and methods mentioned above and the PDW(Progressive die wizard) system developed by our Lab., an intelligent strip layout system is implemented on the UGNX platform. The system can help designer design a strip layout conveniently and shorten the design time dramatically.