CAD-Based Virtual Assembly Prototyping – A Case Study

This paper presents the methodology for quantifying the blade assembly process with the future objective of fully automated assembly planning. The proposed method is aimed at eliminating the expensive and time-consuming physical prototyping needs by analysing and evaluating the feasibility of the blade assembly process using a CAD-based virtual prototype. The virtual prototype of the entire assembly operation is created for the blade assembly from a torque converter of an automobile transmission system. This model development is implemented using ProEngineer. Owing to the modelling requirements, the design intents, pertinent parameters, and their relationships in the entire blade assembly process must be captured and integrated into the model. The virtual assembly prototyping package developed is capable of computing and offering computer animated simulations of the interference of the blade tabs with the turbine and the pump shell during the assembly process. The work focuses on quantifying the blade assembly process by expertly defining some benchmarks and indices based on the kinematic behaviour of the assemblages. The benchmarks can also be used for documenting, evaluating, and comparing the blade assembly designs in various assemblages of torque converters to improve and transfer the experiences of the designers embedded in the model, for the torque converter industry. The model developed in this work has been tested and verified to be effective with a real torque converter model built at a local company. The results of the experiments are discussed.