UNIFIED MODELING LANGUAGE AND OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN PATTERN BASED COMPUTER-AIDED WELDING FIXTURE DESIGN SYSTEM

Most of previous computer aided fixture design(CAFD) research has mainly concentrated on machining fixtures rather than welding fixtures, and how to face the challenges such as dynamic requirements, expansion, maintenance and management in the development of complicated computer aided welding fixture design(CAWFD) software system has received much less attention. Application of Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Object-oriented Design Pattern (OODP) for developing CAWFD software system has been discussed in this paper. CAWFD system functions like design phases, workflow and design subtasks in each design phase are introduced. How to employ UML fundamental elements such as use case diagram, class diagram and component diagram to model the CAWFD system has been demonstrated. Multiple- tier architecture of CAWFD and its benefits are also presented. OODP has been certified to be an effective and efficient method especially for class diagram creation and refinement which is the key point during system analysis and design. Due to the complexity of CAWFD, the class diagram for CAWFD is classified as conceptual class diagram and detailed class diagram. How to use Model-View-Control (M-V-C) design pattern in conceptual class diagram and the benefits of M-V-C application are discussed. For detailed class diagram, the techniques of applying Command, Observer, Factory and Template patterns to realize code reuse are articulated. As a result, the extension, reusability and maintainability of CAWFD system can be obtained by applying UML and OODP.