Concurrent product and process design in hot forging

The long and costly lead times necessary in developing new forged products motivate the application of concurrent engineering principles and knowledge-based computer software systems in hot forging. Design engineers can benefit significantly from such systems, particularly if they incorporate both product and manufacturability knowledge. An Automated Concurrent Engineering Software (ACES) for part design and manufacturing has been developed at the Design and Manufacturing Institute (DMI) at Stevens Institute of Technology. This system combines deterministic and empirical knowledge about a variety of aspects of product design and manufacturing, and thus, it provides potent reasoning and decision-making power that enables the engineer to reduce drastically the time between product conception and final production. This paper reports on the development of the prototype of a knowledge-based module for hot forging processes.