Investigating the design and development of truly agile flexible fixtures based on electrorheological fluids

The significant productivity pay-offs that accrue from computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) systems have been well-documented. However, the degree of flexibility that can be achieved in the current manufacturing systems is still constrained by the absence of truly flexible fixturing. Improvements in flexible fixturing technologies could have significant economical impacts on the production cost given the fact that fixture design and fabrication accounts to 10-20% of the manufacturing cost. This paper presents the latest studies in flexible fixturing systems and fixture research. It also presents a novel concept of designing truly flexible fixtures by harnessing the power of phase-change and mechanical properties of the advanced electrorheological (ER) fluids that have been engineered recently.

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