Abstract:

To address the limitation of current research on the design of adaptable-function mechanical products, a functional design method and its implementation steps are proposed, followed by an investigation on the functional similarity of the adaptable-function mechanical products. As an adaptable-function mechanical product, it is imperative to disassemble and assemble the relevant components in order to realize function switching. Hence, it is indispensable to investigate the disassembly-assembly sequence planning for an adaptable-function mechanical product. To this end, it categorizes the components of an adaptable-function mechanical product into the shared parts and non-shared parts, and as such it attempts to address the disassembly-assembly sequence planning for the latter. By taking into account of all necessary parts of each adaptable function, a relation table is built up based on the relationship between the functions and the parts. To simplify the conventional interference matrix, an aggregated interference matrix (AIM), which is used to express the interference of parts in the individual direction, is established. In addition, a new method for generating AIM quickly and exactly is presented, where a bounding-box detection coupled with projection method is proposed. Subsequently, a genetic algorithm (GA) method is employed to optimize the disassembly-assembly sequences. Finally, a case study of the disassembly-assembly sequence planning of a micro tillage machine is provided to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed methodology.

Key words: disassembly-assembly sequence, function switching, functional design, adaptable-function mechanical product