A Grammar-Based Approach to Sheet Metal Design

This paper involves the development, implementation and testing of a geometric representation scheme for building feasible sheet metal components. The approach taken here is based on prior shape grammar methods for engineering design. A series of seventeen grammar rules have been developed to represent a variety of cutting and bending operations that can be applied to sheet metal to construct feasible shapes. The implemented system has benefits as both a user interaction tool or as the basis for a computational design synthesis approach for designing sheet metal components. An example of a real component is shown as well as the method for invoking the sheet metal grammar to create this component.Copyright © 2002 by ASME