An Automatic Approach To Evaluate Locating Plan For Dowel-pin Modular Fixture System

A systematic methodology for automatic approach to evaluate the locating quality of locating plans of modular fixture for dowel-pin system is presented in this paper. The locating error of the combination of the side-locating surfaces and locating elements is the important study. A method of how to evaluate the quality of locating plan is emphasized below: Firstly, the type of the combination of side-locating surfaces and locating elements is conformed; Secondly, the locating error of the combination is analyzed, and the locating error is made out; Lastly, the weights for evaluating index are setted up, and these weights are arranged. The method of evaluating the locating quality of locating plan can be found. A prototype system is developed with ACIS 7.0 and Visual C++6.0. Some samples have proved the idea involved in this paper.