Multi-Piece molds, which consist of more than two mold pieces, are capable of producing very complex parts—parts that cannot be produced by the traditional molds. The tooling cost is also low for multi-piece molds, which makes it an ideal candidate for pre-production prototyping and bridge tooling. However, designing multi-piece molds is a time-consuming task. This paper describes geometric algorithms for automated design of multi-piece molds. A Multi-Piece Mold Design Algorithm (MPMDA) has been developed to automate several important mold-design steps: finding parting directions, locating parting lines, creating parting surfaces, and constructing mold pieces. MPMDA constructs mold pieces based on global accessibility analysis results of the part and therefore guarantees the disassembly of the mold pieces. A software system has also been developed and successfully tested on several complex industrial parts.
Development of an Automated Design Algorithm for the Longitudinal Members of Oil Tankers based on H-CSR