Designing mechanical systems for efficient disassembly improves their maintainability. Issues related to design disassembly for maintainability analysis of an evolving mechanical system design are discussed. Procedures and methodologies for the identification of disassembly sequence, animation of human technicians in performing the disassembly sequence, tool selection. time and cost analysis. and human factors analysis of the disassembly sequence are presented. Their software implementation in a maintainability analysis workspace is described and illustrated using a maintenance task example.
Selection of hand tools for cost-effective assembly and maintenance of a mechanical system has a significant impact on its life-cycle cost. A knowledge-based automated procedure for the selection of hand tools needed to efficiently carry out fastening operations in a mechanical assembly is presented. The objective is to select a tool that is applicable to a particular fastening operation, minimizes time and cost of the fastening operation, and satisfies accessibility requirements, and to provide design assistance to the design engineer. The role of the tool selection procedure in the concurrent design of mechanical systems is described.
This paper describes a methodology to support concurrent engineering in a simulated process evaluation environment (SPREE) for path- directed robot (PDR) applications, such as gas metal arc welding, spray painting, and adhesive applications. Such an environment makes it possible to program PDR applications off-line more accurately. The methodology includes consideration of the process variables and their constraints, design constraints, and robot specifications. SPREE allows the user to evaluate the process plan against process constraints and robot specifications, perform robot motion analysis, and evaluate the performance of the robot; thus, the user is able to complete the front-end preparations in SPREE, so that the off-line program for the selected robot can be generated in an environmental external to SPREE.
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