PROPOSAL OF A METHODOLOGY FOR ASSEMBLY/DISASSEMBLYSIMULATION OF DEFORMABLE PARTS IN A VIRTUAL REALITYENVIRONMENT

摘要

It is important to consider the diversity of variousrnconstraints of mechanical design, assembly/disassembly (A/D),rnmaintenance, ergonomics, etc. during the product design. Thernuse of new techniques like Virtual Reality (VR) gives a newrndimension in terms of efficient development of complexrnsystems, e.g. products containing deformable parts. Virtualrnmanipulations of such parts have to take into account differentrnconstraints: real-time simulation, adequate modeling of flexiblernpart's behavior, particularities of the VR interfaces required,rnetc. In order to satisfy various requirements for flexible partrnmanipulation, a methodology for virtual A/D simulation ofrndeformable components during the product developmentrnprocess is proposed in this paper. Particularly, constraints duernto the fast and realistic mechanical modeling of flexible parts,rncharacterization of material properties, VR devices, CADrnmodel adequacy, use of specific metaphors, etc. are taken intornaccount in the proposed methodology. Integrating these aspectsrnallows producing realistic data: forces, deformed shapes, A/Drnpath, etc. Indeed, this information is very useful for anrnadequate and fast analysis/optimization of an A/D processrnusing various skilled points of view. An example presented inrnthis paper demonstrates the efficiency of the proposedrnapproach with regard to industrial needs.