A CAD tool that automatically designs fixtures and pallets
Costs associated with designing and fabricating fixtures may be a significant portion of the total costs associated with a manufacturing task. The software tool, HoldFast, designs optimal fixtures that hold a single workpiece, are easily fabricated, provide rigid constraint and deterministic location of the workpiece, are robust to workpiece shape variations, obey all associated task constraints, and are easy to load and unload. We illustrate the capabilities of HoldFast by designing fixtures for several examples. Fixtures are designed and built for finish-machining and drilling of a cast part for prototype fabrication and mass-production fabrication. A pallet fixture is designed for vertical assembly of a personal cassette player. Another pallet fixture is designed and built that will hold either the personal cassette player or a glue gun during assembly.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 168694
- Report Number(s):
- SAND--95-2546C; CONF-9511145--1; ON: DE96002474
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Automatic design of 3-D fixtures and assembly pallets
Automatic design of 3-d fixtures and assembly pallets