Performing DFM Analysis in Multiple Domains Using Interchangeable Manufacturable Entities

Abstract An integrated design for manufacture system that performs manufacturability analysis simultaneously in two domains using interchangeable process specific entities is presented. This new approach is illustrated by an integrated system that creates and evaluates parts for manufacture by injection molding using a C-entity, and simultaneously creates and evaluates its mold for manufacture by milling using the fundamental manufacturing entity for milling. The entity for the part manufacturing process is chosen as the complement of the entity for the mold manufacturing process. This obviates the need for converting features from one manufacturing domain to another, and also permits a single uniform data structure to capture the shape characteristics of parts made in the two manufacturing domains. Since all the shapes are represented in the same way, the manufacturability evaluation of the part and the mold is reduced to a small set of algorithms based on an evaluation of the entity’s profile. It is demonstrated that by using process specific entities one can perform manufacturability evaluation of a part without either feature extraction or designing with features. The advantages of using the process specific entities approach for design and manufacturability evaluation over the feature recognition and the design by features approach are enumerated.