Computer Aided Casting Simulation, Analysis and Pattern Cost Estimation

摘要

Casting is a major manufacturing process, which requires an understanding of a wide range of geometrical, material and process parameters. In today's market of intense competition, where the need of the hour is to develop quality products at low cost and short lead time, innovative and cost effective designs are the means to success. Early cost estimation, necessary for design-to-cost philosophy, serves as a decision making tool for the designer when a choice is to be made from a range of alternatives. In casting industry pattern cost estimation is very complex job, because there are not much tools available to estimate the exact pattern cost for the part, and in most of the industries pattern costs are estimated by experience of pattern maker, and this cost may vary from industry to industry and person to person. In addition, experience based cost is suitable only for simple patterns, as pattern complexity increases it becomes more difficult to determine the pattern cost. Through this work, an attempt has been made to cost estimation methodology, which is based on Pro-Engineering and AutoCAST software. This involves parting design and method design to arrive to one of the possible pattern design and geometrical parameters as volume ratio, thickness ratio, convex surface area ratio, concave surface area ratio, number of control dimension and quality level are calculated from the pattern design. It is perform on twenty cast part and then regression analysis is done on the data of twenty parts to obtain the equation for pattern cost estimation.