Study of Expert System for Integrated Cupping and Punching Operation

Combination dies are used for production of sheet metal parts having two or more operations (one of them at least in 3 dimensions) in a single station. There are many sheet metal combination parts applications facing the die designer. This kind of die design considers one of the most complicated designs in the tool room. There are many classifications of sheet metal parts can be arranged under the combination die, one of them is the cupping and punching dies. In this paper, a classification of cupping and punching die types into groups and computer aided design for parametric design of combination dies are discussed. The CAD system is developed using knowledge-based system technique of artificial intelligence. The system is capable to design cupping and punching combination dies for production of sheet metal parts. The system is coded in Visual Basic application of Excel and interfaced with SolidWorks software. For each cupping and punching part shape, there is an appropriate die design shape. The system designs the part shape parametrically, storing the part dimension into database, and then design the related appropriate combination die design. The program provided with a knowledge base rule to categorize the limits for the sheet metal parts with the appropriate die design shape. The low cost of the proposed system will help die designers of small and medium scale sheet metal industries for design of combination dies for similar type of products. The proposed system is capable to reduce design time and efforts of die designers for design of combination dies.