Topological Fixture Synthesis Using Semide nite Programming

Chih-Jen Lin National Taiwan University Nestor Michelena and Romesh Saigal
University of Michigan

Topological xture synthesis is an important issue to consider for most manufacturing operations performed on solid and sheet metal workpieces. Recent work on optimal xture design has focused on determining the positions of locators and clamps to minimize workpiece deformation. These approaches restrict the locators and clamps to three mutually perpendicular planes selected according to the \3-2-1" or the \N-2-1" locating principle. In this article, mixed-integer quadratic programming is used to identify the optimal distribution and position (i.e., topology) of locators in order to minimize the mean compliance of the workpiece. We present a semide nite programming (SDP) relaxation method to solve the underlying combinatorial problem. Illustrative examples (with symmetric and asymmetric loads) validate the formulation and solution approach.

1. Abstract

2. Keywords

Fixture Synthesis, Fixture Con guration, Semide nite Programming, Combinatorial Optimization A xture is a device used for locating and holding a workpiece in a three-dimensional working space. The workpiece will typically undergo deformation due to manufacturing loads from processes such as drilling and resistance spot welding. Deformation of the workpiece may cause disastrous dimensional problems in practice, particularly, when exible sheet metal is used. Most of the work on xture design either has ignored deformation of the workpiece (e.g., the \3-2-1 principle" and kinematic analysis xture planning) or has been limited to workpiece deformation analysis. Recent work on optimal xture design has focused on determining the position of locators and clamps on prede ned workpiece surfaces to minimize a measure of workpiece deformation. These surfaces, called datums, are selected according to the \3-2-1" and the \N-2-1" locating principles, which restrict the location of locators and clamps to three mutually perpendicular planes. Locators and clamps restrict degrees of freedom (DOFs), and thus movement and deformation, of the workpiece under external loads. In these approaches, the topology of the xture is xed, i.e., the number and type of locators are speci ed in advance for the selected workpiece surfaces. A major di culty is that locator position optimization typically requires re-meshing of the workpiece every time a locator is placed at a point away from a nodal point. We refer to 1] 2] 6] for a review of xture-design research, principles, and methods. Topological xture synthesis is to locator position optimization, as structural topology optimization is to sizing optimization. In topological xture synthesis, the topology of the xture is part of the design decision. Any surface of the workpiece can be used to place locators, regardless of how intricate the geometry of the workpiece is. Although the total number of locators is speci ed in advance, the number of locators on individual surfaces is not. Topological xture synthesis may result in innovative xture con gurations that substantially reduce workpiece deformation. In this article, we present an application of semide nite programming (SDP) to solve this combinatorial manufacturing problem. We start by formulating the topological xture synthesis problem as a mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP) problem. The objective to be minimized is the overall mean compliance of the workpiece. Constraints include the linear elastic equilibrium equations, the total number of locators and clamps, and possible bounds on deformations and stresses. The equilibrium equation of the workpiece under external loads is given in the following form:

3. Introduction

4. Problem Formulation

K11 K12 u1 = f1 (1) T f2 K12 K22 u2 where u2 corresponds to displacement/rotation DOFs that are candidates to be restricted by locators or clamps, and u1 corresponds to other DOFs. Hence f2 is the load vector that corresponds to those DOFs that can be restricted by locators and clamps. The mean compliance of the workpiece is u1 u2 ] K11 K12 u1 : K T K22 u2
12

The total number of locators is speci ed in advance, so the problem is to choose locator distribution and position on workpiece surfaces so that workpiece deformation is minimized. Equation (1) can be simpli ed through the following calculation: ; u1 = K111 (f1 ; K12 u2 ) T K ;1 K12 )u2 = f2 ; K T K ;1 f1 : (K22 ; K12 11 12 11

T ; T ; T ; Let S = K22 ; K12 K111 K12 and f = f2 ; K12 K111 f1 , so the mean compliance is equal to f1 K111 f1 + uT Su2 . 2 Since f1 is known (e.g., from weight distribution and/or external forces with known location) and we want to identify the DOFs restricted in u2 , the minimization problem is min uT Su2 2 xi (Su2 ; f )i = 0 i = 1 : : : N xi (1 ; xi ) = 0 i = 1 : : : N that is, xi = 0 or 1 i = 1 : : : N PN = N ; n (n N ) i=1 xi where N is the maximum number of DOFs that could be restricted, and n is the number of DOFs that will be restricted. Note that x is a binary vector that indicates the restricted DOFs (the actual design variables). xi is 0 if the corresponding DOF is restricted by a locator otherwise, xi is 1. The derivation here shows that although a typical workpiece nite element model contains a large number of DOFs, only those DOFs (u2 ) admissible to be restricted are considered. Other DOFs (u1 ) that are generally internal to the workpiece or on \di cult" surfaces can be explicitly deleted from the model equations.

5. Semide nite Programming Relaxation

Introducing a variable w0 , the above MIQP problem is equivalent to min uT Su2 2 xi (Su2 )i ; fi xi w0 = 0 i = 1 : : : N 2 xP; xi w0 = 0 i = 1 ::: N i N x2 = N ;n i i=1 2 w0 = 1: Let yT = (xT uT w0 ) and de ne the operation of two square matrices as A B = trace(AT B ). The 2 equivalent formulation follows: min C yyT Ai yyT = 0 i = 1 ::: N Bi yyT = 0 i = 1 ::: N A0 yyT = 1 B0 yyT = N ; n where 2 3 2 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 Ui ; 2 fi C = 4 0 S 0 5 Ai = 4 1 UiT 0 0 5 2 1 0 0 0 3 02 ; 2 fiT 0 2 2 3 3 1 Di 0 ; 2 Vi 0 0 0 I 0 0 0 0 5 A0 = 4 0 0 0 5 B 0 = 4 0 0 0 5 : Bi = 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ; 1 ViT 0 0 2 T Vi w0 xi w0 , xT Di x x2 and xT Ui u2 xi (Su2 )i . Dropping the rank-one condition results Note that x i in the SDP formulation min C X Ai X = 0 i = 1 : : : N Bi X = 0 i = 1 : : : N (2) A0 X = 1 B0 X = N ; n X 0 where X 0 means that X is a positive semide nite matrix. Additional constraints (\cuts") based on engineering insight and the physics of the problem can be added to improve the lower bound provided

by the \SDP relaxation." The SDP relaxation is solved using the interior-point method described in the next section. The binary indicator vector x is then extracted from the eigenvector of X corresponding to its largest eigenvalue or, alternatively, from the diagonal elements of X . SDP relaxations have shown to provide much better bounds than traditional LP relaxations (i.e., by dropping the 0/1 requirement on the indicator vector) for solving NP-hard problems such as the max-cut, max-2sat, and quadratic assignment problems 7].

6. Interior-Point Methods for Semide nite Programming

A standard form of the semide nite programming problem is as follows: minimize C X Ai X = bi for every i = 1 X 0

(3)

where Ai, for i = 1 m, and C are n n symmetric matrices, A B = trace(AT B ), X 0 means that X is a symmetric and positive semide nite matrix, and X 0 means that X is a symmetric and positive de nite matrix. The dual of problem (3) is as follows. P maximize P m bi yi i=1 m Ai yi + S = C (4) i=1 S 0 Currently, the only e ective way to solve problem (3) or (4) is through interior point methods. One commonly used interior point methods is the infeasible start primal dual algorithm. It starts from an infeasible solution, and at each iteration a predictor system (5) and a corrector system (6) are solved: Ai Xk P = ;(Ai Xk ; bi ) i=1 m m Ai y k + (5) Sk = ;(Pm Ai yik + Sk ; C ) i i=1 i=1 Xk Sk + Xk Sk = tk I ; Xk Sk

Ai

Xk Xk Sk

Pm

= 0 i=1 Ai yik + Sk = 0 i=1 + Xk Sk = tk I ; Xk Sk

p d k

(6)

For predictor direction ( Xk yk Sk ), we nd the largest p < 1 and d < 1 such that k k and de ne
T Xk + 2k ( Xk + Xk ) 0 Sk +

Sk 0

Xk yk Sk tk
p

= = = =

T Xk + 1 0:99 p ( Xk + Xk ) k + 0299 d ky k y : k Sk + 0:99 d Sk k Xk Sk 4n

(7)

For the corrector direction ( Xk yk Sk ), we nd the largest p < 1 and d < 1 such that k k and de ne
T T Xk + 2k ( Xk + Xk + Xk + Xk ) 0 Sk + d ( Sk + Sk ) 0 k

T T 1 Xk+1 = Xk + 2 0:99 p ( Xk + Xk + Xk + Xk ) k yk+1 = yk + 0:99 d yk k (8) Sk+1 = Sk + 0:99 d ( Sk + Sk ) k Xk+1 Sk+1 : tk+1 = n Since Xk and Xk are not symmetric in linear systems (5) and (6), Xk+1 is kept symmetric by adding their transposes. This idea was rst implemented by Helmberg, Rendl, Vanderbei and Wolkowicz 3]. There are many other search directions (see the survey by Todd 5]) but since they all have similar linear algebra implementations, we restrict our attention here to only this one direction.

Solving both systems (5) and (6) is the main computational burden of interior point methods. We use the following three derived equations to solve them:
; (A(Sk 1 Xk )AT ) yk = h1 ;
m X i=1

; Ai ((h3 ; Xk h2 )Sk 1 )

(9) (10)
2

Sk = ;

m X i=1

yik Ai + h2

; Xk = (;h3 ; Xk Sk )Sk 1

where h1 h2 and h3 are the right-hand side of (5) and (6),

; (A(Sk 1 Xk )AT ) is an m by m matrix, and

vec(A1 )T 3 is the Kronecker product, A = 6 ... 7, 4 5 T vec(Am ) (12)

(11)

; Note that vec(Ai) denotes the vector formed from the columns of Ai . From (12), (A(Sk 1 Xk )AT ) is a fully dense matrix, as are Xk and Sk . This is the main computational bottleneck of interior-point methods for semide nite programming.

; ; (A(Sk 1 Xk )AT )i j = Ai (Xk Aj Sk 1 ) i j = 1 : : : m:

The code is modi ed from an early implementation in Lin and Saigal 4]. At the start, we select a large number > 0, and initial solution X1 = I , y1 = 0, and S1 = I . The barrier parameter t1 is X1nS1 = 2 .

7. Illustrative Examples

Example 1 Consider a beam with 5 nodes.

1 2 3 4 5 A force F is applied at the third node. We would like to choose two nodes from nodes 1, 2, 4, and 5 to place locators such that the mean compliance is minimized. Each node has two degrees of freedom: vertical displacement and rotation. The SDP relaxation (2) includes a 17 by 17 square matrix as the variable and 14 constraints. The diagonal elements of the solution are 0:7355 0:2781 0:2781 0:7355]. From the two smallest values of the diagonal, the locators should be placed at nodes 2 and 4. If the force is applied at node 2, the diagonal elements of the solution are 0:0148 0:1269 0:8856 0:9861]. Hence the locators should be placed at nodes 1 and 3. Example 2 Consider a plate with several shell elements (each node has 5 degrees of freedom no rotation about the normal direction). A force is applied at the center of the plate (node 18). We would like to nd the optimal location of four locators on the four edges. The solution of the SDP relaxation indicates that the locators should be placed at nodes 6, 9, 12, and 15. Consider now that the force is applied at node 20 instead of the center, and that we would like to nd the optimal location of three locators on the four edges. The solution of the SDP relaxation indicates that the locators should be placed at nodes 6, 12, and 15.

N6 N15 N20 N18 N9 N12

N1 Example 3 We now consider a plate with a larger number of N9 shell elements. As in the previous example, we would like to nd the optimal location of four N36 locators on the four edges. It is time consuming N2 to nd an optimal solution by using total enuN45 N33 meration since the number of possible locations N32 N65 is large (91,390). The corresponding SDP relax- N4 N31 N18 N30 ation is a larger problem (with 282 constraints and a 161 by 161 matrix as the variables) but N27 is solvable in a reasonable amount of time. If the force is applied at node 65, the solution of N3 the SDP relaxation indicates that the optimal locator positions are at nodes 4, 30, 31, 32, and 33. In fact, by using nodes 30, 31, 32, and 33, the corresponding objective value 0.3965 was smaller than those we were able to randomly enumerate.

We also observe that if the force is applied at the center (i.e., at node 45) the SDP relaxation returns as solution nodes 1, 2, 3, and 4. However, due to symmetry, we know that the best solution should be nodes 9, 18, 27, and 36. It seems that variables easily balanced out for such symmetric cases, so it is more di cult for SDP or other relaxations to approximate the exact solution. Example 4 A fourth example studied corresponds to a bracket subject to an external force applied to one of its vertical faces. Locators are admissible on the two horizontal surfaces and the three vertical edges (A, B, C) of the horizontal ange. The SDP relaxation problem for this case seems to be more di cult, since the SDP problem tends to become dual infeasible. That is, the primal objective tends to go to ;1, because constraints of the SDP relaxation are not strong enough to give nite optimal solutions. We can always use primal iterates after the detection of dual infeasibility to choose nodes for locators. More numerical experiments on this problem are currently being investigated and will be reported shortly. We have shown the mathematical formulation of SDP as a relaxation to approximate topological xture synthesis problems. The above SDP approach shows potential, although it has been only tested with simple workpiece geometries. As future work, on the theoretical side, we will investigate the SDP formulation to improve the approximation, for example, by adding better cuts. On the application side, we will conduct tests on more practical examples and for other manufacturing applications: namely, optimal pattern design of spot-welds and adhesive bonds. 1] W. Cai, S.J. Hu and J.X. Yuan. Deformable sheet metal xturing: Principles. algorithms, and Simulations. Trans. ASME, J Manuf. Sci. Eng., 118:318{324, 1996. 2] Y.-C. Chou, V. Chandru and M. M. Barash. Mathematical approach to automatic con guration of machining xtures: Analysis and synthesis. Trans. ASME J. Eng. Ind., 111(4):299-306, 1989. 3] C. Helmberg, F. Rendl, B. Vanderbei, and H. Wolkowicz. An interior-point method for semide nite programming. SIAM J. Optim., 6:342{361, 1996. 4] C.-J. Lin and R. Saigal. A predictor corrector method for semi-de nite linear programming. Technical report, Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2117, 1995. 5] M. J. Todd. On search directions in interior-point methods for semide nite programming. Technical Report 1205, School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1997.

8. Conclusions

9. References

6] J. C. Trappey and C. R. Liu. A literature survey of xture-design automation. Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol., 5:240{255. 1990. 7] L. Vandenberghe and S. Boyd. Semide nite programming. SIAM Rev., 38:49{95, 1996.