Research On The Application Of CAD/CAM Technology To Large Nuclear Power Head

As one of the key components of the nuclear equipments, the complicated large power head is difficult to be forged and machined successfully. Currently, there is no domestic capability to make an ideal large blank with a similar shape of a final power head. Being limited to current poor research on the key technologies of the power head's design and manufacturing and being short of the special machining equipment for the power head, it's difficult to deduce the machining allowance, which is now quite large, and to improve the machining process effectively during the pilot production. As a series production, the larger size power heads have similar dimensions and constructions. Aiming at reducing the amount of labor in R&D process, making it easier for designers to establish and modify the models, generating the NC programs automatically, improving the machining efficiency, a CAD/CAM system of the power head, which is based on the development environment of Visual C++ and the software platform of UG, was developed. Therefore, the subsequent machining process and technical preparation were provided by this power head CAD/CAM system. The research routine and main focuses of this paper are presented as follows:(?) Based on the analysis of the parameter set of features of a power head and its geometric constraints, a parametric model of the power head was built. Furthermore, a special CAD system of the power head was established with the secondary development method of UG Open.(?) Explored the machining process and designed processing line of a power head. Basing on the optimized parametric models, the Genetic Algorithm was utilized to find out the best cutting parameter group in machining process.(?) Taking a certain kind of power head as an example, the NC program was developed in terms of the characteristics of the construction and the control system of the selected milling machining center. After that, a special postprocessor was customized and the identifiable NC codes are obtained. Moreover, the NC codes were verified to be correct on the Vericut platform.(?) A UG-based CAM system of the power head was set up. In this CAM system, feature identification in machining process was resolved by the attribution settings in CAD system. Two kinds of machining process re-using methods, the machining template and the successful machining process recording, are applied for simplifying the program settings and improving the program efficiency.This study is useful in resolving the relative technical problems on manufacturing process of a large power head. It is also meaningful for improving the working efficiency of a power head. The conclusions of this paper are also beneficial to the process of utilizing, popularizing and exploring other relative CAD/CAM systems.