The past decade has seen an explosion in the use of computers throughout all engineering diciplines. This is particularly true in the activities that span the life cycle of discrete product development. Commercial viability of computer-based tools has occurred at either end of the product life cycle, ., in product design and in manufacturing. In product design, previously expensive CAD systems are now affordable and run on ever cheaper and more computationally powerful PCs, which makes this technology more widely accessible to an evergrowing number of users | 2 Computer-Aided Process Planning for Machining Introduction Derek Yip-Hoi What Is Computer-Aided Process Planning CAPP Review of CAPP Systems Variant Planning Generative Planning Hybrid Planning Artificial Intelligence AI Approaches Object-Oriented Approaches Part Geometry Part Specification Input Drivers of CAPP System Development Design Automation Manufacturing Automation Extension of Planning Domains New Planning Domains Market Conditions Summary of Drivers Characteristics of CAPP Systems Integrating CAD with CAPP Feature Extraction What Are Features Feature Recognition Discussion Integrating CAPP with Manufacturing NC Tool-Path Generation Manufacturing Data and Knowledge CAPP for New Domains University of Michigan Parallel Machining Conclusions Abstract This chapter presents an overview of the research work in computer-aided process planning CAPP during the past 2 decades. This has been driven primarily by the need to automate the mapping of design information and intent from computer-aided design CAD systems to instructions for driving automated manufacturing equipment. While the concept of CAPP extends over all manufacturing domains we summarize those developments primarily in the machining domain. As part of CAPP research we also discuss developments in the area of feature recognition. Features are fast becoming the mechanism through which higher level design information is embodied and manipulated within the computer-aided engineering CAE environment. Feature recognition is one mechanism by which this higher level of abstraction is constructed and related to the underlying geometry. Finally we briefly introduce a new area of research in CAPP parallel machining. 2002 by CRC Press LLC Introduction The past decade has seen an explosion in the use of computers throughout all engineering diciplines. This is particularly true in the activities that span the life cycle of discrete product development. Commercial viability .
