PROTRUSION-FEATURES HANDLING IN THE DESIGN OF INTEGRATION-ORIENTED PROCESS

A mechanical part may be designed with both protrusion and depression features. Since depression features correspond to machining process, they are easy to handle during process planning and NC cutter-path generation. However, it is difficult for protrusion features. This paper describes a method which translates the protrusion features to depression features based on an algorithm of geometric reasoning in the design of integration-oriented process.