Association Design Methods And Their Applications In 3D Mould Design

Mould is a kind of process equipment for producing parts precisely and efficiently. It has been widely applied in light industry, electric industry, automobile industry, aero-space industry etc.. Since a set of mould has a more complex structure and contains more than 100 components, it is a real challenging job to designers and die makers. The mould CAD system, as a tool to raise the design efficiency and die quality, has been attracting more and more attentions. However, most of existing mould CAD systems have a series of obstacles in the design procedure, for example, the design information can't be shared by the related modules, the design data can't be maintained consistently, and so on. This thesis tries to solve these problems by using the association designing method based on 3D model. The purpose of associated design is to keep the consistency of design data while a mould CAD system is used to design a mould. Its essence is to maintain the relationship between objects with the design constraints, in order that while an object is updated, the others related to it can also be changed properly. After studying the structure and characteristics of moulds, the association design method, is proposed based on UG platform. Three methods are used to implement the functions of association design, namely variable-based association design, UDF-based associated design and UDO-based association design. They are respectively applied in the modules of standard part libraries and the pocket design. All the works mentioned above have been embedded in standard part and plate holes designing modules, and demonstrated that the restrictions of the existing mould CAD system could be overcome smoothly by using the association designing methods.