Reverse Engineering Based Geometry Model Of Alliance Coupler For DFM

Coupler is very important equipment for connecting two railcars. It transfers the working force and braking force form one car to another, and, relieves the severe strains during pulling and buffering action. In order to master the key connecting technique for high speed heavy haul application, the Reverse Engineering technology is used in research of coupler self-design and its manufacturing. The coupler 3D model rebuilding technique is studied for rebuilding the Alliance coupler model.Design for manufacturing (DFM) is the most important element of the study of concurrent engineering. That is, a design method of product design and process design carry out at the same time.DFM is considering the constraints (such as: manufacturability) of manufacturing-related in the early stages of the design and manufacture, comprehensive evaluation of product design and process design, and providing feedback information for improvement, improving the design timely, ensuring product design, process design and manufacture successful at a time, in order to reduce product costs, improve product quality, shorten product development cycle. Traditional reverse engineering technology focus on the 3D model reconstruction of concrete object, but the considering of manufacturability is not enough, seriously the reverse model maybe difficult to manufacture, losing the reverse meaning.The reverse engineering consists of data acquirement, data pre-processing and model reconstruction. Data acquirement can obtain the coordinates of the discrete points by the fixed measuring equipment and methods. The 6 axes CMM, Romer 2020, is used in data collecting, with the point to point method and scanning method. Data pre-processing includes the transformation of data format, data splicing, data smoothing and data cracking. The process decides whether the following CAD model reconstruction process is convenient, and whether the reconstruction model meets the application need. The goal of model reconstruction is to seek some mathematics description form, which satisfies the given precision, effectively describes the shape of physical model, and carries on the analysis, the computation, the revision and the rendering of the model itself in this foundation.By the studying on the key technique of reverse engineering for DFM, the Alliance coupler model was rebuilt. In the model reconstruction technique, the paper studying with emphasis model reconstruction method base on the feature and the restraint in Pro/E. Presenting a design method of reconstruction for DFM made by imageware and Pro/E software, on the basis of feature and the restraint in the RE design for DFM.