A KBE practical study to automate the dimensioning and drafting of mechanical welds

This paper presents a research activity conceived with the aim of capturing and formalizing the knowledge used in a weld design process and automating the process itself. The problem of defining an automatic process is particularly relevant in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), where the design and production departments are not directly connected, either for management and for logistical reasons. The activities presented were developed in collaboration with M.J. Maillis Group, operating in the packaging sector, and consist in the creation of an automatic application to support the designer choices using Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) methodologies. The logic followed for the definition of the application is based on the capture and formalization of design rules, technical experiences and manual activities typically used during the design, drafting and production processes, as well as the decisional procedures. The study is related to the design step devoted to the identification of the parameters for the definition of the welding process. The typical welds definition process is firstly characterized by the selection of the weld category to be applied in the particular case; then, the designer defines the geometrical characteristics of the welds based on engineering considerations, and finally applies the information collected to the Computer Aided Design models. During the study, the knowledge has been captured reading the design manuals, the company standards and interviewing the technical experts. Then, what acquired was formalized into the KBE system in conjunction with the geometries and parameters identifying the welds, in the form of so-called “intelligent” components. These components are finally stored in a separate database and reused when requested for new projects. The expected results includes the expression of the implicit weld design know how, the formalization of the processes and the speeding up of the design activities.