A CAD-interactive software package for the synthesis of planar disk cams

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to provide an interactive system for the graphical design and analysis of planar disk cams.

The software written for this thesis, the Cam Design System, operates as an add-on application that runs within the CADKEY® graphical environment and inherits all the CADKEY® software functions. It allows the user to specify different follower and motion curve parameters to synthesize a cam, and will analyze the cam for pressure angle flaws. It will also produce output in a numerical data format, as CAD drawings, as a detailed design report, or as NC data.

This thesis first discusses what software is already available to perform similar synthesis and analysis, and the extent of documentation of cain design and the use of conjugate geometry theory in literature. Next, it describes how the C-code integrates with the CADKEY® graphical system. The next sections describe all the design theory used in the software, including all the conjugate geometry theory and full descriptions of each of the motion curve characteristics used in the software. The subsequent section describes the software itself and how it is structured, and provides a few examples of designing a cam. The last section sums up the work of this thesis, and provides some recommendations for future work in this area.