Design of a Parametric Driving and Model Replacement System for Product Families

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jes.202602315

Author(s)

Shikun Zhang1, Yawen Fan2,*, Jingfeng Shen1,*, Zichuan Wang1, Fangting Liu1

Affiliation(s)

1School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China 2Sino-British International College, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

Product families usually contain multiple variants derived from a common structure, but frequent changes in specifications still require considerable manual modification of CAD models and assembly relationships. In practical design processes, parameter adjustment alone cannot satisfy the requirements of some variants because certain components need to be replaced with different models. This study develops a parametric driving and component replacement system for product-family design based on CAD secondary development. The system integrates parameter-driven modeling, equation-based dimensional linkage, component substitution, and mate reconstruction within the CAD environment. A database is established to manage product parameters, component file paths, and assembly constraints, while SolidWorks API is used to realize model modification and assembly operations. With this workflow, users can generate product variants by providing design parameters and completing the required CAD operations. A CD250 hydraulic-cylinder family was selected as an example for system verification. The results show that the developed system can update related dimensions, replace specified components, and recover assembly mates during product variation. Compared with manual modification, the proposed approach reduces repeated modeling operations and improves the efficiency of variant design for mechanical products with similar structures.

Keywords

Product Family; Parametric Driving; Model Replacement; Automatic Mating; Hydraulic Cylinder; CAD Secondary Development.

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