Article
Computer-Aided Design of Traditional Jigs and Fixtures
Abdullah D. Ibrahim
1
, Hussein M. A. Hussein
2,3
, Ibrahim Ahmed
4
, Emad Abouel Nasr
5
, Ali Kamrani
6
and Sabreen A. Abdelwahab
7,
*
Citation: Ibrahim, A.D.; Hussein,
H.M.A.; Ahmed, I.; Nasr, E.A.;
Kamrani, A.; Abdelwahab, S.A.
Computer-Aided Design of
Traditional Jigs and Fixtures. Appl.
Sci. 2022, 12, 3. https://doi.org/
10.3390/app12010003
Academic Editors: Paolo Renna and
Arkadiusz Gola
Received: 8 October 2021
Accepted: 25 November 2021
Published: 21 December 2021
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affil-
iations.
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
1
Senior Lab Engineer, Process and Product Development Unit, American University in Cairo,
Cairo 11835, Egypt; Abdullah.Hassanin@aucegypt.edu
2
Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Helwan University, Cairo 11732, Egypt;
hussein@h-eng.helwan.edu.eg
3
Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ahram Canadian University, Giza 12451, Egypt
4
Automotive Technology Department, Faculty of Technology and Education, Helwan University,
Cairo 11732, Egypt; ilmahmed1968@yahoo.co.uk
5
Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud University,
Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia; eabdelghany@ksu.edu.sa
6
Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA;
akamrani@uh.edu
7
Production Technology Department, Faculty of Technology and Education, Helwan University,
Cairo 11732, Egypt
* Correspondence: Engsabreenabdallah@gmail.com
Abstract:
Conventional design of jigs and fixtures has become unsuitable given the requirements of
modern technology and complexity and diversity in the production with the rapid update of products.
Computer-aided design (CAD) of jigs and fixtures is an effective solution in this direction. The current
paper focuses on a computer-aided design of the traditional jigs and fixtures and developed a system
containing tailor-made software, created using the Visual Basic programming language and installed
on it the viewer screen to show the part. The developed system has been built by connecting Visual
Basic programming language to the SolidWorks software on which the part is drawn and saved
as STEP AP-203 file format, and the system reads and extracts the data from the STEP AP-203 file.
Heuristic rules of feature recognition are pre-prepared for checking the extracted geometric data
and deciding which data shape will represent the machining feature; then, the system provides the
optimum design of the traditional jigs and fixtures for a group of hollow cylindrical parts that contain
a group of cross-holes on the cylinder body, whether perpendicular or offset from the cylinder’s
axis, (inclined or inclined offset, or blind or through, by applying pre-prepared heuristic rules for the
design of traditional jigs and fixtures.
Keywords:
traditional fixtures; jig and fixture design; cross-hole; data extraction; feature recognition;
STEP AP-203 file
1. Introduction
Jigs and fixtures are devices which are widely used in manufacture; they provide
guidance for the tool and supporting, locating, and holding for the workpiece during
manufacturing process. Moreover, they are used for assembling a big number of parts [
1
].
Jigs and fixtures help in eliminating the individual marking, adjusting the position, and
repeating the checking and getting a better quality of manufacturing process. This increases
productivity and reduces the time of the operation. The efficient and reliable design and
manufacture of jigs and fixtures became more required with the application of computer-
aided manufacture (CAM) technology. The manual designing of the jigs and fixtures is
considered time-consuming in manufacturing process, and the designer’s experience and
skill play an important role in the designing of jigs and fixtures [2].
Jigs and fixtures are helping devices which deal with cutting machines such as milling
machines, turning machines, drilling machines, grinding machines, and broaching ma-
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/app12010003 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci
