The Design And Development Of Torque Converter Based On Virtual Manufacturing

Today, the competition between the manufactures in the world becomes severer in the trend of the globalizing economy, the free trade and the informational society. The manufacture must produce the salable Product in the shortest development Time, the classic Quality, the lowest Cost, the comprehensive technical Support and full-life-cycle Service, the best Environment and the fastest Flexibility named TQCSEFP to enter, to occupy and to lead the market. This paper takes the implementing of the technique of virtual manufacture as the subject and expounds the design and development of the torque converter based on the virtual manufacture technique.Firstly, the resource and the meaning of the subject, the developing history and the structure of the torque converter -the referred product and the last research and the problem of the development of the torque converter are introduced. The technical intension of virtual manufacture and the method of using virtual manufacture technique in the design and development of the torque converter also are introduced. In addition to the naissance and the technical future of the 3-D CAD software-C ATI A V5 are mentioned, too.Secondly, the paper is expanded from follow three aspects: the virtual design, the virtual process and the product data management (PDM) during the developing the torque converter. Applying the key technique of concurrent engineering-design for function (DFF) , design for assembly (DFA) and design for manufacture (DFM) of the method of design for "X", the virtual design of the torque converter is accomplished in CATIA V5. Then the model constitution and the simulation of virtual process of the torque converter is done in CATIA V5, including the model constitution and the simulation of 5-aixe NC virtual process of the vane, the model constitution (material :PVC) of the idler pulley rapid prototyping (RP) and the virtual assembly and the motion simulation of the torque converter, etc. 3-D data exchange between various CAD systems is realized by using STEP standard. The lever of classing the character model of the torque converter is given. And the access authorization is set up and given to manage the partners' reading/writing the product data.Finally, the sum-up and the innovation of the paper are pointed out. The prospect of the farther research is given, too.