Knowledge-Based Engineering Approach to Select Standard Parts and Design Automation for Flange Coupling

Computer Aided Design software is widely used in the product development phase. It helps in reducing design time with high level of accuracy. Generally, cost of product development and manufacturing is identified in design phase, so it is important to focus on the design phase to reduce the total cost of the product. Use of standard parts readily available in the market saves manufacturing efforts and cost associated with the same. So, it is beneficial to use such standard parts in the new design of the product. Another important point in the design phase is that any mistakes done by the designer can lead to high losses associated with design, manufacturing, and operational phases. Most of the industries rely on expert’s knowledge to avoid such losses. To avoid these losses and to make the use of standard parts, this paper proposes a knowledge-based design automation-based approach for selecting standard components in new design of the product. Developed system uses application programming interface to automate the modeling activities and to capture the design knowledge. The system is developed in CATIA software by using visual basic application.