Date of Award

1999

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Keywords

Engineering, Industrial.

Supervisor

El Maraghy, W.

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to find an optimal solution for the simulation and analysis of workcells for some automated production processes. Two processes were chosen for the study---assembly of a car fender, and spot welding of a front support engine/transaxle mount. In closer defining of this task certain constraints and requirements were postulated in order to make these processes economical and productive. For safety reasons an operator was foreseen to be included in the production process, and the possible collisions in the process had to be detected. To meet this objective and postulated requirements, the simulation and analysis were designed for a low-cost microcomputer, instead of expensive hardware systems often used previously. The commercial Workspace software package was used because of its flexible modeling, designing and process analyzing capabilities, including off-line programming, calibration, animation, and collision avoidance. The workcell simulation approach described in this thesis is a step forward in providing a task-oriented solution to the problem of robotic cell design and programming. It integrates off-line programming techniques with significant features of welding technology. This particular graphical simulation and layout design of spot welding and assembly proved the importance of production planning and analysis. Simulation was running in real-time and each aspect of the production could be easily tracked and analyzed. Changing throughput-setting variables could simulate various production scenarios. For simple simulation the input is only run time, and for complex simulation the input represents run time with down time. Another important feature provided by --- collision avoidance was also included into the simulation. A unique feature of this study was the introduction of an operator into the simulation, for the first time in the WorkspaceRTM software. The operator was defined as a mechanism with eighteen joints. All originally given constraints and requirements were successfully met in this simulation. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 39-02, page: 0574. Adviser: Waguih H. El Maraghy. Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1999.

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