64. Design and Analysis of Hydraulic Fixture for WABCO Body Housing

In order to have interchangeable parts in mass production, jigs and fixtures play a vital role in manufacturing process. A fixture is a special tool designed for specific purpose and specific component for operation. The present work deals with the design of machining fixture for milling and drilling operations for a Wabco body housing. The cutting forces involved in the operations are taken into consideration for designing the fixture. The present fixture designed is hydraulic operated and used for operation like face milling, drilling and boring of the body housing. Design standards are taken from Makino for designing this machining fixture. In the design process based on the geometry of the component to be machined, the machine, the table layout and corresponding clamping slot positions are then selected. Since the final component cannot be produced by a single operation, it is necessary to plan for various operations to get the final shape. The fixture is then designed by considering all the clamping forces from various cutting operations. An emphasis was also made to optimize the manufacturing cycle with respect to the original design and it was possible to successfully improve the cycle time involved in the manufacturing process while still meeting all the required standards.