Support tool for material and process combinations during early design

The aim of this research is to develop an Expert System (ES) that is linked into a 3D design package, which will provide comparison data for various material and manufacturing process combinations to produce a design. The early design stage is the optimum time to ensure that the material and manufacturing process chosen will realize a design's requirements.

This paper focuses on the steps within the process to create the Expert System and provides an example of its use. The CAD package chosen is AutoCAD 2004. A recognition module has been developed to recognize a 3D model and to segregate the model into that of the quadratic and polyhedron primitives within a database. A generic material and manufacturing database has been designed. This has established a basic platform from which the different material and manufacturing processes can be compared. As each manufacturing process has process-specific rules, it is necessary to examine the 3D model for the suitability of the processing method chosen within the ES.

This ES aims to increase the knowledge available to the designer to aid in the decision-making process, through the comparison reports generated and the web link and specific documentation facility within the software package.