TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter begins the second major part of the book, which deals with basic assembly processes. The chapters in this part deal with basic motions and forces between parts (Chapter 9), the physics of part mating for rigid parts (Chapter 10), and compliant parts (Chapter 11). The theory in these chapters was developed in the early 1970s to help define the requirements for robot assembly. However, it is also useful for identifying assembly processes that might be difficult for people.
Following this part of the book, the remainder will explore assembly in the large more deeply by investigating concurrent engineering of products and processes, product architecture, design for assembly, design and economic analysis of assembly systems and workstations, and a complete case study. [1]
Assembly in the small is governed by several phenomena and conditions:
Motion in space with parts in contact and not in contact
Geometry of parts
Compliance of parts or the tools, hands, or fixtures that hold and maneuver them
Friction between parts in contact
This chapter deals with motion as well as the forces that arise when parts contact each other. It presents some methods for enabling a machine to respond to these forces. It also reinforces the three- and six-dimensionality of assembly and use of matrices to represent assembly phenomena that characterized the first part of the book.
[1]The case study is on the CD-ROM that is packaged with this book.
Assembly motions can be classified into...
