Parting direction selection and evaluation using an extension of fuzzy MCDM method

Parting direction selection and evaluation plays an important role in injection mold design. In order to select suitable parting direction, several criteria need to be taken into account including undercut feature, parting line complexity, draw depth, project area, and flatness. This paper proposes an extension of fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach to support parting direction selection and evaluation process. In proposed approach, the rating of alternatives and important weight of criteria are expressed linguistic terms. We then develop the membership functions for the final fuzzy evaluation values of alternatives by the interval arithmetic of fuzzy numbers. Next, this paper uses the new left and right indices ranking approach to defuzzify the normalized weighted ratings into crisp values to determine the ranking order of alternatives. Finally, a numerical example is used to illustrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed method.