Graph Based Feature Recognition Used In Injection Mold Manufacturing

In the injection mould industry, there are a lot of CAD/CAPP systems developed from bottom or those existent software which have improved the efficiency of injection mould design greatly, shortened marketing period a lot and made substantial profit for injection mould enterprises. CAPP knowledge is a key concern in the injection mould design. Different companies may use different CAD systems. So the features of the parts of injection mould base may be lost in the process of datum transferring. It is necessary to make a intelligent joint of CAD system and CAPP system by recognizing the features of parts of the injection mold base. The design and manufacturing of mould base hold the prominent proportion during the course of mould design and manufacture. There are varieties of holes, including setting, fastness, harness, tip-pole and cooling holes, in the mould base templates and the hole numbers may be as high as hundreds. The above holes are often arranged to different procedures and the process drawing are generated correspondingly, this is named drawing disparting. Drawing disparting manually is not only low efficient but also apt to produce quality conflicts. In the paper, a mould base intelligent drawing disparting system was developed which can recognize the features of the mould base parts effectively. The features of the parts of the injection mould base are classified and expressed by the graph based method. To improve the design and manufacturing efficiency and quality of mould base, the main features of the parts are recognized by the graph based method and exported according to the need of manufacturing. Then, NC code that will be used in manufacturing is generated according to the features. The BOM list can be generated automatically and the BOM list will be used in the company.