A similarity based reuse system for injection mold design in automotive interior industry
Injection mold design of automotive interior is knowledge intensive and time consuming; therefore, it is important to reuse previous design instead of designing from scratch. This work proposed a systematic similarity based approach to reuse design resources. With transformation of native CAD format to STEP for global and partial retrieval, the process of reuse constitutes five steps: (i) initial retrieval for candidates parts, (ii) precise retrieval for similar case based on typical surface retrieval, (iii) adaptation of similar case such as mold base, (iv) reuse forming mechanism based on partial retrieval of detailed feature similarity, and (v) instance detection and automatic locating of forming mechanism based on partial similarity. While hierarchical representation of CAD models proposed in our previous work serves as the kernel of retrieval, parametric assembly modeling and visual based automation testing are integrated in the reuse process of mold base in step (iii) A case study of the proposed reuse approach is provided, and feedback from automotive interior industry validated its feasibility.