The Phase II objective is to design and implement an intuitive, easy to use, expandable and full functioning brake forming, stretch forming, and hydroforming tool design software based on ATMCS. The proposed system extends the application of the ATMCS to the sheet metal fabrication process with the following
Benefits: a) Producing accurate tooling which eliminates trial-and-error in tool fabrication, b) Producing the parts with minimum cost by elimination of handworking, c) Producing the parts without any variability, d) Using a uniform tool design concept, e) Minimizing the process time.Sheet metal products have made an indispensable place for themselves in our day to day lives. Lightweight, good surface finish, low finished product cost and relatively good formability are just a few of the many features that make the sheet metal products so attractive. This includes all the product lines such as automotive, aerospace, appliance, construction instruments, heating and ventilation. Foreign manufacturers are rapidly becoming more competitive and posing a threat to the existence of the U.S. sheet metal fabrication industries. A major contributing factor for losing the battle lies in the existing U.S. manufacturing infrastructure that fosters unacceptable product prototyping and production cycle time, uncontrolled process variability, unnecessary rework, and too many quality inspections.Tool design and tool fabrication are the crucial steps in manufacturing of sheet metal parts. During the process of metal forming, the blank conforms itself to the configuration of the tool. Therefore, a faulty tool will produce an unacceptable part. Ar present, the remedy for this problem is the check/straightening or handworking of the part following the forming operation. This manual rework sometimes account for 40% of the total touch labor hour in aerospace industries. In addition, handworking inevitably leads to the variability of the part which results in additional cost during sub-assembly or final assembly of the product. Majority of the metal fabricators still use the trial-and-error approach to produce tools. It is not uncommon to rework a tool, for a complex forming operation like stretch forming, five times. The challenge of this program is to resolve the problem of cost, quality, production cycle time, and time for prototyping.
Keywords: Stretch Forming Hydroforming Brake Forming Tool Design Prototyping Manufacturing Expert System
