Feature-based metal stamping part and process design. Part I: stampability evaluation

It is essential to devise a representation scheme for the metal stamping part design which allows the designer to capture and reason the design information, and ultimately, to take various considerations into account and make evaluation decisions. In our research, the feature-based approach is used to represent the metal stamping part, and feature-based metal stamping part and process design has been studied and presented in a two-part paper. This is the first of a two-part paper focusing on stampability evaluation. In Part II a feature-based stamping process planning approach is investigated. This paper presents a feature- and knowledge-based stampability evaluation system. Tasks of this research include identification of the aims, criteria, and procedure of stampability evaluation, as well as the formalization of the stampability evaluation knowledge. Stampability evaluation is classified into stampability verification and stampability measurement. Stampability verification is used to determine whether a part design is stampable or not. Stampability measurement can be employed to select a best design from stampable candidate designs. Based on the stamping design feature definition, a stampability-coding scheme with incorporated knowledge has been developed to enable comprehensive stampability evaluation. Finally, a case study demonstrates the feasibility of such stampability evaluation system.