Clamping of the Workpiece Over a Through Hole with a Fixture Planning and Design System

The clamping of a workpiece against the cutting forces can often be solved in several different ways. The difference lies in the size, number and location of the clamping elements and their adapter elements. If a workpiece contains such openings, that form a through hole, often it can be used at the clamping of the workpiece. Such a clamping solution can result in fixture size reduction compared to those solutions where this possibility is neglected. Apart from this, the use of this clamping method increases the number of the surfaces that can be machined in the same setup, and this way sometimes the number of the needed setups can be reduced. In this article a fixture planning and design system is introduced that, among other methods, takes into consideration this kind of clamping, too. Those conditions are presented in the papers which are investigated by the system, while weighting the possibility of the clamping of a workpiece over a through hole.