Process Planning for a Milling Machine From a Feature-Based Design

Published

April 1, 1988

Author(s)

Thomas R. Kramer

Abstract

In the Vertical Workstation (VWS) of the NBS Automated Manufacturing Research Facility, metal parts are machined automatically from a feature-based design. A simple two-and-a- half dimensional part may be designed and machined within an hour, allowing half the time for design input. With a design already in hand, the VWS software (which is written in LISP and runs on a Sun computer) will automatically prepare a process plan for a milling machine for making a part of the given design. The heart of the process plan is a list of machining operations to be carried out. The operations are selected by the system from among it repertoire of 21 possible operations. The process plan also includes a header and a list of tool requirements. The process plans produced by the system are later used as input to an automatic NC-coding system which writes code for the milling machine''s controller.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of AMSE Manufacturing International

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

AMRF, feature-based design, metal parts, NIST, Vertical Workstation (VWS)

Citation

Kramer, T. (1988), Process Planning for a Milling Machine From a Feature-Based Design, Proceedings of AMSE Manufacturing International, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=821246 (Accessed October 21, 2025)