Web-Based Design and Manufacturing System for Micro Machining

摘要

A web-based micro machining system named SmartFab was developed. To provide both design freedom and improved manufacturability, a commercial Computer Aided Design (CAD) software with additional assistant modules was used as its user interfaces. To integrate distributed software resources, the 3-tier architecture was used in communication between client and server. Throughout this system, the concept of Design for Manufacturing (DFM) was implemented by providing the fabrication knowledge of micro machining to the designers. Databases were constructed to store the information of materials and tools for micro machining. A designed part geometry may be uploaded to the web server as a Stereo Lithography (STL) format along with process parameters for 3-axis micro milling. The STL-based Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) module was developed in order to automatically provide Numerical Control (NC) codes to the designer via the web, and the cost estimation module calculated micro machining cost for the designed part. To test the integrated system, a micro fluidic channel was fabricated using this system with micro endmills. The plug-in modules of this system were available from http://fab.snu.ac.kr/webtools/SmartFab.