Fixturing analysis for stability consideration in an automated fixture design system

Stability analysis plays a critical role in determining the applicability of a fixture design. This paper reports the development of a computational methodology for quantitatively analyzing the workpiece's stability in the automated fixture design (AFD) environment. In stability analysis, the virtual disturbance which is expressed as a wrench in the screw coordinates and has the same tendency as those fixturing and machining forces to destabilize the workpiece is adopted in the study, and the stability of the workpiece is characterized based on its capability to overcome the virtual disturbance. The stability characteristics for each fixturing configuration (i.e., positions for fixturing components of supporters, locators and clamps) itself are obtained from the stability analysis and used in the re-design process to determine the better design of fixturing configuration.