Morteza Sadegh Amalnik - Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Department, University of Tabriz, Tabriz Islamic Republic of Iran

This paper addresses the concept and development of a knowledge-based-system (KBS) in computer integrated manufacturing environment for electro-discharge Texturing (EDT) for sheet rolled metal. An advisory system in CIM environment based on object oriented technique is developed. The system links with A feature based CAD system in order to extract design data. Description of different size and classes of sheet rolled material is extract from CAD data base. Attributes of seventy different type of metal for wor k piece, eight different type of material for tools, and different type of dielectric, are stored in databases. The knowledge base is linked with CAD data base. The machining cycle time, cost, production rate, efficiency, effectiveness, surface roughness, peak count and other necessary variables are estimated. The system provides useful information for product designers at the conceptual stages and also advises manufacturing engineers to select optimum machining parameters.