Assembly design system based on engineering connection

An assembly design system is an importantpart of computer-aided design systems, which areimportant tools for realizing product concept design. Thetraditional assembly design system does not record theconnection information of production on the engineeringlayer; consequently, the upstream design idea cannot befully used in the downstream design. An assembly designmodel based on the relationship of engineering connectionis presented. In this model, all nodes are divided into twocategories： The component and the connection. Moreover,the product is constructed on the basis of the connectionrelationship of the components. The model is an And/Orgraph and has the ability to record all assembly schemes.This model records only the connection information thathas engineering application value in the product design. Inaddition, this model can significantly reduce the number ofcombinations, and is very favorable for the assemblysequence planning in the downstream. The system containsa connection knowledge system that can be mapped to theconnection node, and the connection knowledge obtainedin practice can be returned to the knowledge system.Finally, VC＋＋ 6.0 is used to develop a prototype systemcalled Connect-based Assembly Planning （CAP）. Therelationship between the CAP system and the commercialassembly design system is also established.