Computer-Aided Reconfigurable Manufacturing Process Planning

Reconfigurable manufacturing not only has the advantages of low cost and high efficiency of a rigid manufacturing system,but also has a rapidly changing processing capability of a flexible manufacturing system.The reconfigurable machine tool is the foundation of the reconfigurable manufacturing system.Its structural reconstruction is based on the processing scheme of the machined parts.Therefore,the processing scheme of the machined parts will directly affect the reconfiguration of the reconfigurable machine tool.This paper starts from the structural characteristics of reconfigurable machine tools and studies the computer-aided design method of the processed part family's process plan.Firstly,the processing information matrix is used to stylize and describe the relevant processing inflormation of the machined parts.Then,the processing information is reduced by the natural process unit,and the process unit is formed by the integration of the natural process units.The multi-axis box or single spindle head is used as the head unit.A different process section program,as the processing content of each reconfigurable machine tool,is formed through the reasonable combination of process units in different orientations.Finally,all the possible processing programs are obtained with a reasonable combination of the process section program on the basis of the processing sequence.The reconfigurable manufacturing process plan is obtained through the similarity comparison of the obtained part family processing process plans,which will serve as the basis of the reconfiguration solution of the reconfigurable machine tool.In order to realize the automatic generation of the manufacturing process scheme for the complex part family,the corresponding prototype software system for reconfigurable manufacturing process design prototype was developed based on the object-oriented C#language and the established reconfigurable manufacturing process design method.Firstly,processing information is imported into the software by the program,which is obtained through the processing information template established by Excel.Then,the natural process unit,process init,process section and process scheme are automatically generated.Finally,a process plan with larger similarity in the family is obtained by the similarity comparison algorithm.Taking the process scheme design of the engine cylinder head part family as an example,feasibility of the developed prototype software for reconfigurable manufacturing process design was verified.Reconstruction and transformation of reconfigurable machine structure schemes with different process plans was realized based on the established RMT module library for processing box parts.The reconfigurable manufacturing process design method established in this paper provides a basis for RMT reconstruction and RMS construction.