The Selected Families

Initially, five different families were proposed as candidates for the study. These are listed below. These are families from the survey that met the criteria determined to be necessary for the families used in this study. The listed order was the suggested order of creation.

1. Round Rack Handles
2. MIL Panel Mount Connectors
3. Extruded Structural Members
4. Rack Panels
5. Veno Card Baskets

The first family selected was a set of round rack handles, mostly used on rack-mount equipment. The particular family used was the round, internal-thread handles made by Amatom. [Amatom] Figure 4.1 presents a reproduction of a drawing from the Amatom catalog. There are 2385 different part numbers for these handles. This resulted in 795 geometrically-distinct parts. Each of these parts can be made from three different materials, each with a different part number. Since the material information is not stored in the CAD model, each part has three different manufacturer's part numbers.

The second family created was the MIL SPEC Panel Mount Connectors. [38999/24] Figure 4.6 is a copy of the drawing from the Raytheon Preferred Standard Parts handbook. [Raytheon] This is a much smaller family, with only nine members. However, the part itself is much more complex. Also, the matching mounting nut was created at the same time, as a different family. The nut and connector have different part numbers, and can be used independently of one another. Thus, it was determined that they should be made into separate families.

Another group of families comprised the third test case. Five different families of commonly used aluminum structural members were created [Ryerson] [AND10138] [AND10139]. Whereas in the previous families, the geometric model files will be directly referenced in the users' assembly models, these parts were created as profiles that the user would copy into a separate part database and extrude as necessary.

The fourth family was not mentioned during the survey but chosen from the Raytheon standard parts catalog [RayTerm]. For the last family, it was desired to have a family where the members had variable numbers of some geometric feature. The terminal strips chosen for this family fit this perfectly, as the number of terminals changes from member to member. (See Figure 4.18.)

The fourth and fifth families from the original set of suggested families were not created as part of this project.

Last Modified: Wed Aug 28 14:41:29 EDT 1996