The importance and foundation for attachment-level design of integral snap-fit assemblies was first pointed out by Bonenberger at General Motors [1–3]. Based on that work, a method was developed and tested and is presented here to identify and address important issues at the conceptual stage in a systematic way and generate alternative attachment concepts. The method starts by exploring the design space to generate as many concepts as possible [4]. Alternative concepts are generated by considering variations in attachment interface geometry, assembly procedures, actual snap-fit features, and options for fully constraining all parts of the assembly using locators beyond locks. In the last step, alternatives are evaluated using a quantitative tool, and a “best” attachment concept is selected based on design objectives for a particular application. Applying the method to case studies has confirmed that it is a useful design aid for efficiently generating, and evaluating, or simply checking attachment concepts. [S1050-0472(00)01003-5]
Issue Section:
Technical Papers
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3.
Bonenberger
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7.
Boothroyd, G., Dewhurst, P., and Knight, W., 1994, Product Design for Manufacture and Assembly, Marcel Dekker, New York, NY.
8.
Luscher, A. F., Gabriele, G. A., Bonenberger, P. R. and Messler, R. W., Jr., 1995, “A classification scheme for integral attachment features”, ANTEC ’95 Conference of the Society of Plastics Engineers, Boston, MA, May 7–11, 1995, pp. 3783–3787.
9.
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12.
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13.
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14.
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15.
Genc, S., Messler, R. W., Jr., and Gabriele, G. A., 1997b, “Generating alternative attachment concepts in integral snap-fit assemblies,” Proceedings of ICED ’97, the 11th International Conference on Engineering Design, Tampere, Finland, August 19–21, 1997, pp. 749–752.
16.
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20.
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21.
Luscher, A. F., and Bonenberger, P., 1997, “Part Nesting as a Plastic Snap-fit Attachment Strategy,” Proceedings of ASME’97 DETC/DTM, the 9th Design Theory and Methodology Conference, Sacramento, CA, September 14–17, 1997.
22.
Genc
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.Copyright © 2000
by ASME
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