KBS-aided design of tube bending processes

Cold bending of metal tube products is a metal forming process widely used in industry. With today's demand on high quality tube-dependent products, bending of tubing parts has become a precision metalworking operation that requires sophisticated knowledge and experience. In this work, a knowledge-based system (KBS) has been developed to aid the design of tube bending processes, including bending methods selection, tool/die design, and process parameters setup. The object-oriented programming techniques and the goal-driven search mechanism, featured by an interactive graphic user interface, have been applied in development of the proposed KBS. The system developed has shown effective in tube parts production with significantly reduced number of potential defects and failures, such as inaccuracy of bend angles or linear dimensions, wall thinning, flattening, wrinkling, twisting, dents or cracks, etc. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.