Rapid Prototyping and Mold Making for Consumer Products (Misra/Kumesaran)

A coordinated “pipeline” of software tools has been developed with our previous CyberCut and MOSIS++ grants. The software can be used to design a part itself, design a mold for the part, and then machine an aluminum mold from the design. This is described in detail in our “group paper” from the CyberCut project [see Ahn et al 2001].

Our WebCAD system invited a mechanical designer to use our design tools, strongly linked to downstream manufacture. Alternatively, we also now allow the designer to use a CAD system of their choice (obviously they prefer this) and use our recently completed “feature recognition” system to analyze the shape for downstream planning and machining. This feature recognition software is described in a paper by Sundararajan and Wright [2002]. The ACIS graphics kernel facilitates the feature recognition step from the CAD file. Automated tool path planners and automated tool selection procedures then generate computer numerical controlled (CNC) machining code. The algorithms that we have developed, eliminate manual CNC programming, thus reducing significantly the mold cutting time. The paper “Handling Tool Holder Collision in Optimal Tool Sequence Selection for 2.5D Pocket Machining” describes an optimal sequencing method by finding the shortest path in a single-source single-sink directed acyclic graph. This paper, by D’Souza, Wright and Sequin, won a Best Paper Award at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Design Engineering Technical Conference (session on Computers and Information in Engineering).

Impact of CyberCut and MOSIS++ : The preceding photographs, show some of the prototypes that have been designed and prototyped at the BWRC and Intel with our software. We have also worked extensively with Dr. Liou of Ford. Some of the software from the CyberCut project was transferred to Ford, further refined by their application team, and then used by their design department.

We started as a Machining and Tooling research driven lab. And even though we are focusing on our "new" research, we are still keeping in touch with our roots.