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The use of modular fixtures has been widely accepted in the modern manufacturing activities. The types of modular fixture elements are increasing with the development of modular fixture systems. The selection of appropriate fixture elements becomes a serious problem. Another problem is to standardixe the fixture design. Ideally, the identical fixture design should be implemented on a workpiece for the same cutting process. However, this goal is hard to achieve due to the differences caused by human experts. To solve these two problems, we propose a fixture selection system that makes the fixture selection easy and consistent. In the research, a selection system for modular fixtures is developed to automate the selection procedure of the fixture elements. A series of criteria for selecting fixture elements are introduced and coded. A database for storing data of fixture elements is built. A graphic interface for displaying the result of fixture selection and cutting simulation for verifying the correctness of the fixture plan is implemented. Finally, an example of fixturing an exhausting pipe is presented. The fixture selection system indicates the basic requirements and shows the potential of building a practical fixture selection system. By exploring more fixturing features and adding more fixture elements, the capability of the system can be expanded to a practicl fixture selecture selection system.
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