A TWO-HOLE CLAMPING STRATEGY WITH GEOMETRIC TOLERANCING FOR SETUP PLANNING

This paper describes a method for integrating a clamping strategy with geometric tolerancing information to automate setup planning for machining prismatic parts. This procedure, referred to as a two-hole clamping strategy, uses text and graphical forms to provide individual feature and feature-related descriptions on engineering drawings. To provide more alternatives for setup planning, the two-hole clamping strategy is used instead of the traditional vice clamping strategy. Each strategy can assign a variety of priorities for the feature interactions. According to patterns on the part designs, a grid-based algorithm can be applied to find a set of pilot holes for feasible machining sequences. The clamping strategy is addressed in three ways: tolerance effect, sequence of reference surfaces and sequence of features.