Computer-Aided Design for Semi-destructive Disassembly

Disassembly is a fundamental process for component reuse, remanufacturing, and material recycling of all assembled products. In the last decades, design methodologies for disassembly that simplify products’ structure, fastener, and disassembling process have been widely explored. However, the shape of components to be recycled or discarded need not be maintained in the end-of-life process. This means that we can separate valuable and/or hazardous components more rapidly by deforming or breaking surrounding components designed for the deformation or destruction process. This article proposes a computer-aided design method for such semi-destructive disassembly. In the detailed design phase of the method, linear shape features that enable to break a product into desired shape of chunks are added to the product geometric model. The semi-destructive process aims at extracting reusable, recyclable, or hazardous components more efficiently than manual disassembly with higher quality than shredding. The system supports a designer in determining the location of the linear features called split lines.