Industrialization of Reference Free Part Encapsulation Fixtures

Issues of industrialization of RFPE (Reference Free Part Encapsulation) are discussed in this paper. The issues are associated with three topics the location of the workpiece in the initial blank. problems related to material properties of the filler. supported RFPE technique. A new method called Adaptable Locating System (ALS) is presented in this paper. ALS consists of an array of pins which are controlled manually or automatically by an actuator. The actuation force comes from a Shape Memory Alloy (SMA). Material properties of filler are very important for RFPE. The experiment has shown that machining error can be reduced by using conservative cutting parameters. Based on finite element analysis, the relationship between the deformation of the workpiece, the filler and the machining parameters has been achieved. A new approach , Partial Cage with Active Side Wall (PCASW) , allows machine tools to easily access any feature of the workpiece from different directions. It is convenient for every new setup.