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Standard mechanical parts, such as bolts, nuts, pins, keys and washers, are basic elements of mechanical equipment. Their geometry and dimensions are primarily based on standard specifications, thus possessing high interchangeability and becoming indispensable elements in industrial sector.
Many mechanical parts have similar geometric shapes with different dimension specifications, which causes the need for a product designer to spend a great deal of time performing repetitive drafting tasks. To overcome this problem, this thesis work uses the concept of “multi-layer parameters” to create geometric models of mechanical parts, so that the geometry of standard parts or parts with high repetition and similarity can be modeled in the first-layer by feature combination. Instances are thus created from the combination process. Subsequently, in accordance with the geometric shapes of each instance, the dimensions and their tolerances are used to create various second-layer instances with different sizes. If the parameters of the manufacturing information are further assigned to the geometric model of the final instance, the information can easily be presented in the final engineering drawing, which leads to the achievement of automatic generation of 2D drawings. By using the proposed “multi-layer parameters” approach, a designer can effectively manage the types and dimensions of various mechanical parts.
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