Design and Evaluation of a CAD/CAM System for Progressive Dies

The objective aim of this paper is to generate design and manufacturing data of themain components of progressive dies depending on a 2D drawing ( low level entities) ofthe desired part , then the drawing data manipulated and improved to create 2 ½ Ddesign drawing of the designed progressive die in step by step manner as follows:· Geometrical checking of 2D part drawing elements.· Pressure calculation.· Part layout design.· Design of punches, punches holder, pilot, die, and stripper.· Construct a standard database.· CNC program generation for machining of the designed progressive die parts.The output data of each stage of the proposed system have been used as an input datefor the next stage in semi automated manner using Visual Basic Language forApplications [VBA].The system have been implemented for design several progressivedies of different parts to illustrate the system flexibility, then the design results have beenimplemented for manufacturing one of these dies CNC wire cut machine.