An Intelligent Approach to Design Welded Machine Frame

In order to support the whole process of design activities, a hierarchical model to represent the functional and geometrical information of welded machine frame is presented. The input is a sketch of machine frame, and its functional surfaces are assigned interactively. Based on the knowledge rules of machine frame structure, orientations of frame members are determined by reasoning, and the joint type among structural elements is selected automatically. The final result is a solid model of the machine frame structure.