A Genetic Algorithm Based Optimization for Laminated Dies Manufacturing
Laminated tooling is one of the new technologies which helps companies to manufacture parts with lower costs and higher accuracy. It is base on dividing entire CAD model of the part to slices and then cutting each layer profile utilizing laser cut or other techniques. Finally the layers are stacked together to make the final product. CNC machining removes the extra material and brings the part to the specific tolerances. In order to minimize the manufacturing cost, one option is reduction in the amount of the extra material and the number of slices likewise. This is considered as an optimization problem in this research. Then a genetic algorithms (G.A.) based method is offered to solve this optimization problem. However, as a common problem in most instances of genetic algorithms, premature convergence prevents system to continue searching for a more reliable solution after finding a local optimum. To address this problem, a novel niching method is presented in this paper. Results show a significant improvement in the quality of the solution as well as a considerable reduction in processing time.