Research on product structure model for variant design

Rapid product variant design (RPVD) needs a logical product structure model. According to the requirement of RPVD, a product structure model was investigated based on tabular layouts of article characteristics and graphs. The part structure model was established which described the key design parameters and dimensional relationships of part. The assembly structure model was established which described the mating relationships among constituent parts. Based on these models, constraint group (CG) that captured the physical contacts and dimensional relationships among constituent parts at the manufacturing feature level were identified. Therefore, the variant design of product can be carried out. Finally, a prototypical system was developed to verify the feasibility of principle. The application results indicated that new and individual product could be obtained from the existing mature component designs rapidly.