This volume contains the selected papers of the first I.D.M.M.E. conference on 'Integrated Design and Manufacturing in Mechanical Engineering', held in Nantes from 15-17 April 1996. Its objective was to discuss the questions related to the definition of the optimal design and manufacturing processes and to their integration through coherent methodologies in adapted environments. The initiative of the Conference and the organization thereof, is mainly due to the efforts of the french PRIMECA group (Pool of Computer Resources for Mechanics) started eight years ago. We were able to attract the internationru community with the support of the International Institution for Production Engineering Research (C.I.R.P.). The conference brought together two hundred and fifty specialists from around the world. About ninety papers and twenty posters were presented covering three main topics : optimization and evaluation of the product design process, optimization and evaluation of the manufacturing systems and methodological aspects.
This book is devoted to the optimization of product design and manufacturing systems. It contains selected and carefully composed articles based on presentations given at the IDMME conference held in Nantes, France in 1996. The authors are all involved in cutting-edge research in their respective fields of specialization. The integration of manufacturing constraints and their optimization in the design process is becoming more and more widespread in the development of mechanical products or systems. There is a clear industrial need for these kind of methodologies. Important - but still unsolved - problems are related to the definition of design processes, the choice of optimal manufacturing processes and their integration through coherent methodologies in adapted environments.The main topics addressed in this book are: the optimization and evaluation of the product design process (design methodology, representation and integration of design constraints, design for manufacturing, synthesis of objects with constraints, automatic modelling); the optimization and evaluation of the manufacturing systems (modelling of machining processes, modelling for control and measuring, feature-based manufacturing, CAM and off-line programming); and, some methodological aspects (computational geometry, simultaneous and concurrent engineering, integrated design and CAD/CAM systems, object modelling, feature-based modelling, design and communication, automatic solvers and optimizers).
Apart from giving a thorough theoretical background, a very important theme is the relation between research and industrial applications. The book is of interest for engineers, researchers and PhD students who are involved in the optimization of design and manufacturing processes.