Expert System for Dfm of Die Cast Components

Design and manufacturing are two very fundamental engineering processes in mechanical related fields. Traditionally design has been a manual process separated from manufacturing but concept of Concurrent Engineering with Design For Manufacture (DFM) and Design For Assembly (DFA) not only coupled both these but also increased complexity of design and thus brought about the application of computers. Expert systems have enabled designers to incorporate huge knowledge bases in a rule base system for domain specific problems thereby helping to automate the process of design. Keeping this in view it was decided to develop a software which can automate the design process along with manufacturing consideration. The work aims for development of such software as an expert system for DFM with specific application to die cast components. The software is developed in two modules namely feature based modelling and expert system. The features identified are section/wall thickness, ribs, bosses, cores, fillets/radii, drafts etc.