Classification, representation and automatic

extraction of adhesively bonded

assembly features
Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, IIT Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to present the classification, representation and extraction of adhesively bonded assembly features (ABAFs) from the
computer-aided design (CAD) model.
Design/methodology/approach – The ABAFs are represented as a set of faces with a characteristic arrangement among the faces among parts in
proximity suitable for adhesive bonding. The characteristics combination of the faying surfaces and their topological relationships help in
classification of ABAFs. The ABAFs are classified into elementary and compound types based on the number of assembly features exist at the joint
location.
Findings – A set of algorithms is developed to extract and identify the ABAFs from CAD model. Typical automotive and aerospace CAD assembly
models have been used to illustrate and validate the proposed approach.
Originality/value – New classification and extraction methods for ABAFs are proposed, which are useful for variant design.
Keywords Representation, Extraction, Assembly feature, Adhesive bonding, Variant design
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction product definition for variant design (Yin et al., 2017) and
many other downstream activity such as analysis,
Adhesive joining has wide application in automotive, manufacturing and assembly (Kim et al., 2004). Moreover, in
aerospace, electrical and electronics industry, and marine most of the assembly features, the attention has been directed
industry (Adams, 2005; da Silva et al., 2011; Arenas et al., toward features associated with welding and riveting process
2013). Adhesive bonded assembly features (ABAFs) are now (Swain et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2008). Therefore, a formal
attracting considerable interest from the perspective of design
representation of ABAF is required for capturing assembly
and manufacturing of light weight and fuel efficient vehicles for
process related information for variant design.
automotive and aerospace (Arenas et al., 2013), designing of
Several studies have been conducted on assembly features
complex joint (Adams, 2005) and variant design (Sambhoos
over the past few decades (Swain et al., 2014; Mathew and Rao,
et al., 2009; Das and Swain, 2016). In the past, several authors
2010; Van Holland and Bronsvoort, 2000; Kim et al., 2008).
have used different terms such as port (Singh and Bettig,
For example, assembly features are represented as relationship
2004), liaison (Swain et al., 2014), mating feature (Mathew and
between two groups of parts to solve design problems (Deneux,
Rao, 2010) and connection interface (Popescu and Iacob,
1999). All the definitions and representation are focusing on
2013) to capture mating relation between component to study
relation between the components. Even though relations
assembly features in assembly planning (Van Holland and
between the components are important, more detail
Bronsvoort, 2000), assembly sequence planning (Mathew and
information about the interface between the components is
Rao, 2010; Bahubalendruni and Biswal, 2016), collaborative
required. Van Holland and Bronsvoort (2000) defined
product design (Kim et al., 2008). In most of the studies in
assembly features as a carrier of assembly specific information
assembly features, the representation of the available
and addresses few elementary and compound ABAF. The
information are partial and lacks of detail geometric
assembly specific information is primarily handling information
information about interfaces between components. Assembly
called handling features and connection-specific information
features having partial information or lack of information will
called connection features. Though recently few literature
not be useful in capturing information related to assembly
provide little information about ABAF, in most of the cases
process (Swain et al., 2014), behavior simulations at the
assembly level in CAE analysis (Foucault and Léon, 2010),
The authors thank Ministry of Human Resources and Development
(MHRD), Government of India for the financial support provided to carry
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
out this research.
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-5154.htm
Received 2 July 2018
Revised 7 October 2018
Assembly Automation
14 November 2018
39/4 (2019) 607–623 19 December 2018
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0144-5154] 21 January 2019
[DOI 10.1108/AA-07-2018-095] Accepted 13 February 2019

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either the connection type is known or explicitly specified. Kim
et al. (2008) represented adhesive joints using mereotopology
and the presence of additional entities such as adhesives
between the faying surfaces to differentiate from other types of
joining process. This type of representation of assembly joint
for various processes using additional entities will not be
possible to represent and classify ABAFs because the
information available(entity adhesives) for all joints associated
with adhesive bonding are same. Recently, Swain et al. (2014)
extended the concept of liaison to capture assembly processes,
such as riveting, welding, bolt fastening, screw fastening,
adhesive bonding (gluing) and blind fastening processes.
Although this approach is interesting, many interesting ABAF
has been overlooked. Moreover, they have represented and
extracted assembly features associated with riveting and
welding process. Several approaches have been proposed to
extract assembly features from computer-aided design (CAD)
model (Sambhoos et al., 2009; Swain et al., 2014). Sung et al.
(2001) used octree-based method of feature recognition to
identify contact faces of some elementary assembly features
which are commonly available in riveting, welding and adhesive
bonding, etc. Sambhoos et al. (2009) used assembly mating
graphs to identify the mating between the components as direct
mating relationships using geometric method. Recently, graph
based matching algorithm has been used to recognize the
ABAF like tongue and groove from user-defined feature library
(Xiao et al., 2014; Vemulapalli et al., 2014). Swain et al. (2014)
developed algorithms which automatically extract some of the
elementary liaison from CAD model using SolidWorks API.
However, these approaches have some own disadvantages and
are inappropriate to identify and extract ABAFs. Those
algorithms have restriction to certain type of input. Therefore, a
new and modified algorithm is required to automatically extract
the ABAFs from CAD model.
The ABAFs exist in most industrial product are classified
into the following categories:
1.1 Elementary adhesive bonded assembly feature
The ABAFs which are involved between two form features, i.e.
commonly used connection feature available on the surface of
the components are called elementary ABAFs. The elementary
ABAFs are further classified into single-faceted and multi-
faceted type based on the number of faying surfaces exist at the
joint location. The various examples of single-faceted
elementary ABAFs are plain lap, flange angle lap, offset lap,
butt, hybrid joint, corner, T-joint, scarf joint and multi-faceted
ABAFs are single step, plain tongue and groove, tapered tongue
and groove, circular tongue and groove and plain dovetail.
Some of these elementary ABAF are shown in the Figure 1.
Xiao et al. (2014) defined conjugated mating relation between
form features as an assembly feature and used the graph
matching algorithm for recognition of elementary ABAFs like
plain tongue and groove and plain dovetail feature. Some of the
elementary assembly features such as plain lap, butt, corner, T-
joint are extracted mostly for the welding and riveting process
by Swain et al. (2014).
1.2 Compound adhesive bonded assembly feature
These are the ABAFs which are produced from the
combination of more than one elementary ABAF (Van Holland
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Figure 1 Elementary ABAFs
and Bronsvoort, 2000; Chan and Tan, 2003) which are at the
same location or at different region as shown in the Figure 2.
Based on the representation (Xiao et al., 2014), there is three
elementary ABAFs (tongue and groove) exist in the Figure 2(d)
which will give inexact process plan in case of adhesive bonding
because once the adhesive is applied to one feature considering
it as independent elementary features, it cannot be applied to
other features due to obstruction of path during assembly
process planning. This can be resolved by capturing it as a
compound ABAF (tongue and groove) where adhesive can be
applied to all the faying surfaces of a feature before the
formation of joint. The representation and extraction of
compound ABAFs are very rarely addressed in the literature.
Compound ABAF may occur in one part and elementary
ABAF features occur in other parts as shown in Figure 1(c). In
this paper, it is referred as elementary ABAF, and it is the
common region associated with adhesive bonding considered
between a pair of parts.
A formal classification of ABAF and its extraction from CAD
model helps in better integration of design information with
assembly process planning and other application such as cost
estimation, sustainability evaluation due to assembly process
and variant design. Presently in industry, manufactures are
providing great efforts to reduce the product development cycle
by introducing mass customization technique like variant
design. The mixing and matching or modification of existing
components make the changes in the assembly feature
information at joint location during variant design which intern
affect the existing process plan. Moreover, as mentioned in the
previous paragraph industries are using large number of
adhesive joints in their product. These information are
explicitly not available either in the part model or in the
assembly model. The focus of the paper is the representation,
classification and extraction of both elementary and compound
ABAFs capturing assembly process related information for
variant design of a product. Towards this objective the
following contributions of this paper include:

generic classification of both elementary and compound
joint features based on the combination of Euler angle and
faying surface;

representation and extraction of various process
parameters related to ABAFs like bondline thickness,
width of adherend, and adherend thickness, which have
significant effect on the selection of adhesive bonding
process; and
 Adhesively bonded assembly features
Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
Figure 2 Compound ABAFs

development of algorithms for the extraction of both
elementary and compound ABAF types and their associated
attributes.
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews
various literature related to proposed work. A data structure is
developed for ABAF in Section 3 where various definition,
representation and classification of ABAF and its attributes are
described. The automatic extraction of ABAFs and its detail
procedures are defined in Section 4. The implementation of the
developed algorithms with results and discussions and an
application of ABAFs in variant design are explained in Section
5. The paper concludes with the discussion of contributions of
ABAF and its various future applications in concurrent
evolution of design of product family and corresponding
assembly system in Section 6.
2. State of the art
The representation and extraction of ABAFs have not received
much attention in the literature. A growing body of literature
has studied in the field of assembly features in general (Swain
et al., 2014; Mathew and Rao, 2010; Popescu and Iacob, 2013;
Van Holland and Bronsvoort, 2000); however, a few studies
have been published for the representation (Swain et al., 2014;
Van Holland and Bronsvoort, 2000; Kim et al., 2008) and
extraction of elementary ABAFs (Swain et al., 2014; Sung et al.,
2001; Xiao et al., 2014). In this section, various literature
pertained to the representation and extraction of ABAFs are
reviewed.
2.1 Representation of adhesive bonded assembly feature
There is a considerable amount of literature available on
assembly features primarily addressed the mating between the
components. These mating between the components are
represented in terms of distinct forms as port (Singh and Bettig,
2004), liaison (Swain et al., 2014), mating feature (Mathew and
Rao, 2010), connection interface (Popescu and Iacob, 2013)
and joint design type (Kim et al., 2008). These types of mating
are available in most of the assembly process and in this
research it is basically referred as elementary ABAF.
Van Holland and Bronsvoort (2000) developed a feature-
based product model for assembly modeling and planning
using the assembly feature information which includes both the
handling-specific and connection-specific assembly feature
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information. The ABAFs like dovetail, tongue and groove,
compound tongue and groove, and compound circular pattern
are addressed in this connection-specific assembly feature
which carries the information about involved form feature type,
final position, insertion position, insertion path, tolerances,
contact areas, internal freedom of motion and geometric
refinements. The connection feature class provides methods to
store and retrieve information for a specific connection where
the connection type is known. However, the connection type is
not explicitly available in the CAD model. Rachuri et al. (2006)
have developed an open assembly model (OAM) which
represents various product assembly information. In this OAM
model, various artifacts, features and their associations are
defined and also some additional classes were added in this
model. The particular focus is given to the connection between
artifacts (i.e. fixed, movable or intermittent). Though, the
ABAFs are fixed connection between artifacts, there is no
representation of attributes in this OAM model which can
capture the ABAF types and its process parameters.
Kim et al. (2008) used the mereotopological axioms, definitions,
theorems and operators to represent and differentiate the adhesive
bonding from other topologically and geometrically similar
mechanical joints. These mereotopological representations of
adhesive bonding carry joining entity glue along with part relations
such as straddle, tangent and boundary to differentiate from other
joining process. The different assembly features associated with
the adhesive bonding process such as dovetail, tongue and groove
cannot be differentiated only using this joining entity and the part
relations. Moreover, this glue information is not available in the
CAD model and available in the process sheet. Most of the
geometrical information used in the mereotopological
representation is supplied interactively by the designer. Swain et al.
(2014) defined liaison as a collection of geometric entities, i.e.
associated with one or more assembly process and used it as an
interface between product and process model. They have
represented assembly features like lap, butt, corner, T-joint which
are commonly available in welding, riveting and adhesive bonding
used in the industry. In liaison representation, they have
represented butt joint with zig-zag root faces, butt joint with slot
and corner joint with slot. Those liaisons are also available in
ABAF. Though their claim seems some attempt to represent
elementary ABAF, there are many interesting elementary and
compound ABAF used in the industry has not been considered in
their representation.
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2.2 Extraction of adhesive bonded assembly feature representation of liaison. Graph-based technique is used for
Sung et al. (2001) identified the contact adjacency feature identifying some of the multi-faceted elementary ABAFs (Xiao
(clearance fit) using octree-based representation of B-rep model et al., 2014; Vemulapalli et al., 2014), but it has its own
for generation of disassembly sequence. The contact adjacency disadvantage. The extraction of compound ABAFs are rarely
feature gives information about the components in the assembly addressed in the literature.
that are in physical contact. Sambhoos et al. (2009) extracted
the assembly mating graphs and classified various mating 3. Adhesively bonded assembly features
relationships as direct, indirect and interference relationships.
The direct mating relationship which is extracted using Due to geometric and topological variation among the faces of a
geometric method and classified further as direct fit and direct component, many assembly features are evolved in the adhesive
against type. But these developed algorithms are only applicable bonding process. These adhesive bonded assembly features are
to find out the mating relationship. Swain et al. (2014) classified and represented in terms of faying surfaces and
implemented algorithms to automatically extract liaison from topological relation between faying surfaces (adjacency
CAD model mostly available in welding and riveting joints. The relation). Various definitions, classification of these ABAFs
proposed methods are only able to extract some of the attributes are described in the below sub-sections.
elementary features like plain lap, butt, T-joint, corner joint
which are commonly available in all most all assembly process. 3.1 Terminology
Though their claim seems some attempt to represent and A number of attributes are required to capture the ABAFs type
extract elementary ABAF, they have not reported in their and its associated process parameter. The definitions of these
algorithm about the extraction of elementary ABAF mentioned attributes are described in the below section. The diagrammatic
in the representation of liaison. Moreover, there are many representations of these attributes are shown in Figure 3.
interesting elementary and compound ABAF like tapered

Contact faces: Pair of faces in proximity that are less than
tongue and groove, dovetail, single step, single scarf, multi-step, specified distance apart, belong to two different parts
multi-scarf, multi-lap, flange angle lap, compound tongue and having anti-parallel normals. These faces are facing to
groove and compound dovetail, used in the industry that has each other which can be accomplished by checking if a ray
not considered in their representation and extraction. Also, their along the oriented normal intersects the other face. The
algorithm can only process SolidWorks native file.
Graph-based matching algorithms have recently evolved in Figure 3 Pictorial representation of ABAFs attributes
the field of feature recognition and used in several literature.
Xiao et al. (2014) implemented the conjugated sub-graph
matching technique based on the improved subgraph
isomorphism algorithm for the recognition of tongue and
groove and applied it for preserving the feature during
simplification of CAD model. Vemulapalli et al. (2014)
developed an algorithm to automatically identify user-defined
assembly features based on graph matching from a STEP file.
An interactive system has been developed for the recognition of
tab and slot (in this research referred as tongue and groove)
based on the multi graph matching algorithm from the user-
defined feature library. However, this graph matching
technique of feature recognition is not applicable to identify the
assembly features that differ only geometrically. Jourdes et al.
(2014) extracted the components interfaces in complex
assemblies using ray-casting technique with graph based curve
extraction algorithm. But, the developed algorithm is only
applicable to identify the contact faces without addressing the
different types of assembly feature involved in a product.
Most of the ABAFs representation and extraction available
in the literature has only applicable to identify the contact faces
without any joint information (Sambhoos et al., 2009; Jourdes
et al., 2014). The representation of ABAFs addressed in the
literatures are mostly applicable to elementary ABAFs (Swain
et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2008) and the primary focus of the
representation is riveting and welding process (Swain et al.,
2014). Also, the information used in these representation of
ABAFs are supplied interactively by the designer (Van Holland
and Bronsvoort, 2000; Kim et al., 2008; Rachuri et al., 2006).
In literature, some of the elementary ABAFs are captured
(Swain et al., 2014), but it is not reported in their algorithm
about the extraction of elementary ABAF mentioned in the

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contact faces of both the parts are assumed to be lie on the
same type of surface as shown in Figure 3(a).

Faying surface: Common surface of contact between two
contact faces. In other word, it is the region of contact
between two contact faces as in Figure 3(a).

Bondline thickness: Distance between two contact faces is
called bondline thickness as shown in Figure 3(b). In
other word, it is the value of thickness of adhesive between
two contact faces as illustrated in Figure 3(b). This
bondline thickness can be constant or varying in nature.
This varying bondline thickness has a minimum and
maximum value which is evaluated by measuring the
minimum and maximum distance between the contact
faces. For adhesive joint, the optimum bondline thickness
is 0.5 mm and the maximum bondline thickness between
the contact faces is 0.8 mm (Davies et al., 2009).

Overlap length: It is the length of the faying surface as
shown in Figure 3(f). The overlap length is computed by
measuring the length of the oriented bounding box of the
faying surface.

Width of adherend: It is the width of faying surface as shown
in Figure 3(f). The width of the adherend computed by
measuring the width of the oriented bounding box of the
faying surface. The width has a significant effect on the
strength of the joint (Adams, 2005).

Adherend thickness: It is the thickness of the adherend as
illustrated in Figure 3(f) which has a significant effect on
adhesive selection. The ratio of adherend thickness and
overlap length is called as joint factor which helps in
determining the load carrying capacity of overlap joints
(Adams, 2005). The adherend thickness is measured by
adapting the algorithm from the literature (Gupta and
Gurumoorthy, 2013).

Joint feature: The characteristics combination of faying
surfaces generate a form feature at the joint location is
defined as joint feature as shown in Figure 3(d). These
joint features are classified into elementary and compound
types based on the number of form features exist between
two mating components. The joint features having single
form feature with minimum number of faying surface is
called as elementary type. The repetition of similar type of
elementary joint feature or the mixing of two different
types of elementary joint feature produce a compound
joint features.

Euler angle: It is the maximum value of angle between the
unit normal of the respective faying surfaces. The angle
between the unit normals of faying surfaces are measured
in anticlockwise direction from right to left as shown in
Figure 3(e). The notion of Euler angle of joint feature
entitles to determine arrangement of the faying surfaces.
For example, the Euler angle of plain tongue and groove
joint, and dovetail joint is 180°, whereas for dovetail joint
it is greater than 180°.

Relative orientation: It is the orientation between the one
part with respect to another part at the joint location
which can be parallel and non-coplanar, perpendicular,
coplanar and or inclined in nature as illustrated in
Figure 3(a).

Relative overlap: It is an attribute which helps in
identifying the type of overlap of one contact face with
the other at the joint location which may be both partial,

Figure 4 Types of faying surfaces based on topology

Figure 6 Hierarchical classification of faying surfaces

Faying surfaces

Wall surfaces Base surfaces Distant faying surfaces

Figure 5 Types of distant faying surfaces CWS OPWS PDBFS IDBFS

SDBFS RDBFS

Figure 7 Hierarchical classification of ABAFs

ABAFs

Elementary Compound

Single Multi-
faceted faceted

Sequential Mixed

Open Closed

Open Closed Open Closed

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both complete and one partial & one complete as
illustrated in Figure 3(c).

Relative location of part: This attribute helps in identifying
the location of faying surface with respect to contact faces
between two parts as in Figure 3(c). The relative location
of faying surface is determined by calculating distance
between the centroid of faying surface and the contact
face. This attribute is applicable to only identifying the
corner and T-joint feature.

Plane type at contact face: It is the attribute which captures
the plane type exist at contact face which may be inclined or
upright in nature as shown in Figure 3(b). This attribute is
only applicable to capture the plain scarf feature.
The attributes of ABAFs defined above will be useful to capture
all ABAFs types. Relative location of part is applicable to
identifying the corner and T-joint feature, whereas plane type
at contact face is applicable to capture the plain scarf feature.
The classification of ABAFs based on the taxonomy of faying
surfaces and joint feature is described in below section.
3.2 Classification of faying surfaces for adhesive bonded
assembly feature
The faying surfaces in each component that forms the adhesive
joint are classified as follows:
3.2.1 Base surface
The faying surface which is completely accessible from its all
normal directions and contiguous in nature (i.e. connected
with) with other adjacent faying surfaces are called as base
surface as shown in Figure 4.
3.2.2 Wall surfaces
These are the faying surfaces which are adjacent to the base
surface as shown in Figure 4. If there is no base surface in
the joint feature, then all the faying surface are taken as wall
surface and the number of wall surfaces adjacent to the base
surface should be always greater than equal to two. Those wall
surfaces are connected in a closed loop manner, they are called
as closed wall surfaces (CWS) otherwise they are called as open
wall surfaces (OPWS).

Table I Classification of single-faceted elementary ABAFs

Attributes
Joint single-faceted elementary Faying Bondline Relative Plane type at Relative Nature of
ABAFs surface thickness Relative overlap orientation contact face location of part contact
Butt joint [Figure 8(a)] 1 >0 Both complete Coplanar Upright Irregular Planar
Corner joint [Figure 8(b)] 1 >0 One partial and one Perpendicular Upright Corner Planar
complete
Cylindrical joint [Figure 8(c)] 1 >0 Both partial or one Coaxial Upright Irregular Cylindrical
partial and one
complete
Lap joint (plain [Figure 8(d)], 1 >0 Both partial or one Parallel Upright Irregular Planar
offset partial and one and non-coplanar
[Figure 8(e)], flange angle complete or both
[Figure 8(f)]) complete
T-joint 1 >0 One partial and one Perpendicular Upright Middle Planar
[Figure 8(g)] complete
Single scarf joint [Figure 8(h)] 1 >0 Both complete Coplanar or Inclined Irregular Planar
perpendicular or
inclined

Figure 8 Examples of elementary ABAFs (a) butt joint; (b) corner joint; (c) cylindrical joint; (d) plain lap joint; (e) flange angle lap joint; (f) offset lap
joint; (g) T-joint joint; (h) single scarf joint

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3.2.3 Distant faying surfaces Figure 9 Classification of multi-faceted elementary ABAFs (open)
Faying surfaces of a particular joint which do not share a
common edge are called distant faying surfaces (DFS). The
faying surfaces sweep through space in a specified direction
with other non-adjacent faying surfaces and the collision with
the other surfaces are checked. If there is collision and the
surfaces are parallel then those pairs are called parallel
directional blocking faying surfaces (PDBFS), and if the
faying surfaces are inclined then the surface pair is called
inclined directional blocking faying surfaces (IDBFS). If the
faying surface is collided with more than one non-coplanar
surface along a specified direction, then the faying surface is
called as repeated directional blocked faying surfaces
(RDBFS); otherwise, it is called as single directional blocked
faying surfaces (SDBFS). The hierarchical classification of
DFS and its pictorial representation are shown in Figure 5
and Figure 6.
The faying surfaces are classified into wall surfaces, base
surface and distant faying surfaces. The wall surface is further
classified as OPWS and CWS, and distant faying surfaces are
further classified as PDBFS, IDBFS, SDBFS and RDBFS
types. These two types of wall surfaces, four types of distant
faying surfaces and the base surface help in classifying the joint
features as defined below.

3.3 Classification of adhesive bonded assembly features

The approach proposed here to classify the ABAFs
distinguishes between generic features and non-generic
features (Shah and Mäntylä, 1995). The parameterized
description of ABAFs is called the generic definition. By
specifying various values of the parameters, different
instances of the generic features are created. A systematic
classification of ABAFs is shown in Figure 7. The generic
type of single faceted elementary ABAFs are defined with the
help of basic parameters such as relative overlap, relative
orientation, relative location of part, plane type at contact
face and nature of contact as shown in Table I with some
examples as given in Figure 8. The generic types of multi-
faceted elementary and compound ABAFs are defined with
the help of basic parameters such as Euler angle, number of
faying surfaces and its characteristics.
The ABAFs are associated with several geometric
attributes as defined above. Based on these attributes, ABAFs
are classified into elementary and compound ABAFs. There
are several elementary joint features evolved due to many
combinations of faying surfaces. These joint features are
classified based on two attributes, i.e. Euler angle and faying
surface and its different characteristics, which help in
capturing the joint feature. The elementary joint features
are classified as given in the Figures 9 and 10 with some
illustrative example. The compound joint features are
classified as given in the Figures 11 to 14 with some one liaison exist between every two contact faces (i.e. for one
illustrative example. These joint features along with faying surface). But, in case of adhesive bonding, there are
the bondline thickness (always greater than zero in case of many assembly features exist which are having more than one
adhesive bonding) help in classification of complete ABAFs. faying surfaces. Based on this classification, it will show many
All these ABAFs having holes on any of the faying surface is numbers of liaison for a single assembly feature, and it will
called as hybrid joints (rivet/bolted bonded joints). obstruct the assembly process planning in case of adhesive
Earlier Swain et al. (2014) classified some of the elementary bonding. So, in this paper, a new and modified classification
liaison like lap, butt, corner, T-joint mostly useful for riveting is developed to capture the ABAFs type and its associated
and welding purpose. Based on this representation, there is attributes.

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Figure 10 Classification of multi-faceted elementary ABAFs (closed) Input: Parts Pi, Pj

Output: Contact face pair (Fi,Fj), Faying
surface(FS)
1. for each face Fi 2 Pi
2. if (distance(Fi, Pj)  TOL)
3. Face-list(FL1)=faces 2
distance(Fi, Pj)  TOL
4. for each face Fj 2 Pj
5. if (distance(Fj, Pi)  TOL)
6. Face-list(FL2)=faces 2 distance
(Fj, Pi)  TOL
7. for each face Fi 2 FL1
8. for each face Fj 2 FL2
9. if(distance(Fi, Fj) > 0)
10. if(facing-each-other
(Fi, Fj)=true)
11. if(Isparallel
(Fi, Fj)=true)
12. Offset the face Fi in the normal
direction up to a distance of Dstm
13. Compute the common surface i.e.
faying surface between the offset
face and Fj
Add each faying surface to the face
list Ffs
14. End if
4. Extraction of adhesive bonded assembly 15. Else if(Isparallel
features (Fi, Fj)=false)
16. If(Area(Fi) > Area(Fj))
Flowchart for the extraction of ABAFs is shown in Figure 15. 17. Project the edges of Fi on
The detail procedures for the extraction of ABAFs are Fj and make a wire(Wj)
explained in the following steps. from the projected edges
18. Project the edges of Fj on
4.1 Extraction of contact faces and faying surfaces Fi and make a wire(Wi)
In this step, the contact faces and faying surfaces involved in an from the projected edges
ABAF are determined as given in Algorithm 1. First, the STEP 19. Project the wire(Wi) on
Fj and make a wire(Wf) by
file of a CAD assembly model is processed to extract the
adding the edges of wire
required geometric information (i.e. vertices, faces, edges,
(Wj)
solids, etc.) using open cascade geometric library (Cascade, 20. Make a faying surface from
2012). Then, these information are used for the determination wire(Wf) and add it to the
of root parts between which the assembly feature exist by face list Ffs
checking the distance between the parts which is less than 21. Else if(Area(Fj) > Area(Fi))
0.8 mm, i.e. the maximum bondline thickness (Davies et al., 22. Project the edges of Fj on
2009). The contact faces are determined by finding the Fi and make a wire(Wi) from
distance between all the faces of one part with the other part the projected edges
and if the distance is less than a specific value, then those faces 23. Project the edges of Fi on
are stored for further processing. The same procedure is Fj and make a wire(Wj) from
the projected edges
followed to find out the faces near joint location of another part.
24. Project the wire(Wj) on Fi
Then, one of these face of a part is offsetted having distance and make a wire(Wf) by
equal to bondline thickness along the normal against another adding the edges of wire (Wi)
face of other part. The common region between the offsetted 25. Make a faying surface from
face and face of other part is computed and if the area of the wire(Wf) and add it to the
common region is greater than zero, then these faces are stored face list Ffs
as contact faces. The common region between two parallel 26. End if
contact faces is called as the faying surface. In case of non- 27. End if
parallel contact faces, the faying surface is computed by 28. End if
projecting the edges of one contact face onto another contact
face as shown in Figure 16. These projected edges are further
used to construct a faying surface. All the faying surfaces are 4.2 Extraction of joint feature
stored in a standard template library container and used it for All the adjacent faying surfaces are stored in a container and
further processing. based on the number of faying surfaces, both single faceted and
Algorithm 1: Determination of contact faces and multifaceted ABAFs are extracted. If the number of faying
faying surfaces surfaces is greater than one, then the multifaceted ABAF

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Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
Figure 11 Classification of sequential compound ABAFs (open)
Figure 12 Classification of sequential compound ABAFs (closed)
attribute, i.e. joint feature is extracted. The Euler angle and
faying surface types help in extracting the joint feature. The
Euler angle is extracted using the concept adapted from the
literature (Woo and Dutta, 1991).The unit normals of faying
surfaces are extracted and the angle between the unit normals
are computed. The maximum angle between unit normal is
taken as Euler angle of a joint feature.
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Figure 13 Classification of mixed compound ABAFs (open)
Figure 14 Classification of mixed compound ABAFs (closed)
The faying surfaces are classified as base surface, wall surfaces
and distant faying surfaces. The following checks are to be done
to classify the faying surface as base surface:

The faying surface whose edges are at least connected to
edges of two faying surfaces.

From the center of that faying surface a ray is projected
along the normal, which is not intersecting with any other
faying surface.
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Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain Volume 39 · Number 4 · 2019 · 607–623

If the above two criteria are satisfied, then the faying surface is faying surface and the area of contact faces are taken as the
called as base surface and the adjacent faying surfaces basis for finding the relative orientation of the parts at joint
connected to the base surface is considered as wall surfaces. location. Also, this attribute helps in identifying the compound
The wall surfaces are further classified into open or closed type ABAFs like multi lap and multi butt features.
based on their connectivity. The common edges between the Algorithm 2: Determination of relative
base surface and wall surfaces are computed. The common orientation
edges are added to a container to make a wire. If the wire is Input: Contact face (Fi) of part (Pi) and
closed in nature, then the wall surfaces are classified as closed contact face (Fj) of part (Pi), Faying surface
(FS), Offset distance(d)
type otherwise they are classified as open type. The distant
Output: Relative orientation
faying surface is extracted by finding the distance between the 1. Offset the faying surface in the two
faying surfaces which is always greater than zero. The different opposite normal direction of contact
type of distant faying surfaces like PDBFS, IDBFS, SDBFS faces with the offset distance d1
and RDBFS are extracted by offsetting the faying surface along 2. If (Intersection(offset FS, Pi)= Null)
the normal and the collision with the other surfaces are checked 3. If (Intersection(offset FS, Pj)=
as described in Section 3.2. These different types of faying Null)
surfaces help in identifying the ABAFs. In the literature 4. If(plane type at contact face=upright)
(Sambhoos et al., 2009; Swain et al., 2014), most of the 5. Relative orientation=parallel
assembly feature are extracted considering only one faying and non-coplanar
6. Else
surface. But, in this paper many combinations of connection of
7. Relative orientation=inclined
faying surfaces are considered for a particular ABAF. The 8. End if
number of different types of faying surface and Euler angle 9. Else if (distance (faying
helps in identifying the multi-faceted ABAFs. If the number of surface of Pj, exactly opposite
faying surfaces are equal to one, then the single faceted ABAF closest face) < d or distance (faying
attributes like relative overlap, relative orientation, relative surface of Pi, exactly opposite
location, plane type at contact face and nature of contact are closest face) < d)
extracted. 10. Relative orientation =
parallel and non-coplanar
11. Else
4.3 Extraction of relative overlap 12. If (Area (Fi) = Area (Fj) = Area
In this step, relative overlap is determined by finding the (FS))
relative overlapping region of contact face of one part with the 13. Offsetface2 / Offset (FS,
other contact face of another part. This overlapping can be both Maximum Distance(FS, Face(Pj)))
complete, both partial and one complete & one partial type 14. If (Area of Intersection
based on the area of overlap. The area of overlap is the common (Offsetface2, Pj)!=0)
region of overlap between two parts, i.e. the area of the faying 15. Relative orientation=coplanar
surface. The area of both contact faces preferably equals to the 16. Else
area of faying surface then the relative overlap is called both 17. Relative orientation=inclined
18. End if
complete types. In both partial type of relative overlap, the area
19. Else if (Area(Fi)!= Area(Fj))
of faying surface is preferably less than that of area of both 20. If (Area of Intersection
contact faces. But, when the area of faying surface is less than (Offsetface2, Pj)!=0)
area of one of the contact face and equal to area of another 21. Relative orientation=
contact face, then relative overlap is called one complete and perpendicular
one partial type. 22. Else
23. Relative orientation=
4.4 Extraction of relative orientation inclined
Relative orientation attribute determines the orientation of one 24. End if
25. End if
part with respect to another part locally which can be parallel,
26. End if
perpendicular, inclined or coplanar as described in Algorithm 27. Else
2. This attribute is determined based on the area of intersection 28. Repeat the same step from
of an offset surface with the part in two opposite normal line 3 to 15
directions. The shortest distance of a surface which is parallel to 29. End if
faying surface is determined for the calculation of thickness of
the overlap parts. For optimum strength of adhesive bonding,
the length of the overlap should be minimum 2.5 times
thickness of the part (Swift and Booker, 2003). So, a specified 4.5 Extraction of relative location of part
distance i.e. overlap length/2.5 is taken as offset distance (d) for This attribute is only applicable for identification of T-joint and
the identification of the placement of thickness of overlap parts corner joint type of ABAF. The relative location of part is
if it is parallel, perpendicular or inclined. The offset distance is determined by calculating distance between the centroid of
used to offset the faying surface in two opposite normal faying surface and that of contact face having area greater than
directions. In this algorithm the intersecting area of an offset the area of faying surface as shown in Figure 17. The relative
surface with the part in both the opposite direction, the area of location of part is in the middle if the distance between the

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Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain Volume 39 · Number 4 · 2019 · 607–623

Figure 15 Flowchart for the extraction of ABAF
Start
3D CAD Assembly .STEP File
Extract the root parts
Extract the contact faces
Extract the faying surfaces (FS)
If (FS >1)
Yes
No
Extract the single-faceted
ABAFs attributes
Extract the multi-faceted
ABAFs attribute (Joint
feature)
Extract the ABAFs Type
Extract the ABAFs type
End
4.6 Extraction of plane type at contact face and nature of
contact
Plane type at contact face is applicable only to plain scarf joint
available in constant thickness part. In this case, during
adhesive bonding process a larger surface area is required for
higher strength. So, the faying surface is cut into inclined faces
for getting larger area of bonding. This attribute is only
determined if the relative overlap is both complete type. The
plane type at contact face is determined by considering the area
of intersection of offset surface with the parts involved at the
joint location. In this algorithm, the maximum distance
between the faying surface and the faces of part involved at joint
location is determined. This distance is used to offset the faying
surface in the normal direction as shown in Figure 18 and the
intersecting area of an offset surface with the part in both the
opposite normal direction is computed. If the area of
intersection is zero, then the plane type at contact face is
inclined in nature. Otherwise the plane type at contact face is
Relative overlap upright in nature. The nature of contact is extracted by
identifying the type of contact surface (planar or cylindrical)
Relative orientation involved at the joint location.
Plane type at
contact face 4.7 Extraction of adhesive bonded assembly features
type
Relative location of
part The ABAFs are identified based on the different extracted
ABAFs attributes defined above. The various combinations of
Nature of contact
ABAFs attributes and its associated ABAFs type are shown in
Table I and Figures 9-14. The associated process parameters
like adherend thickness, overlap length, width of adherend,
bondline thickness are computed by considering the relation
between the contact face and the associated faces of the part.

Figure 16 Projection of edges of one contact face to another for 5. Results of implementation and its details
identification of faying surface
The ABAFs are automatically extracted using Microsoft visual
studio C11 programming on a windows platform (Intel corei7
CPU, 4.00 GHz processor and 8 GB of RAM). Open cascade
3D geometric kernel is used to perform all the geometric
computations and queries required in the algorithms described
in this paper.
A wing of an aircraft is used as a test case for the developed
program as shown in Figure 19. It contains eighteen parts
which carries various ABAFs such as tongue and groove joint
and lap joint. The various extracted ABAFs and its associated
attributes are shown in the screen shots of the visualization
Figure 17 Relative location of part based on medial axis of faying
window and adjacent text window as shown in Figures 19-21.
surface and contact faces
Figure 22 shows an automotive instrumental panel. The
assembly has nineteen parts, which contains two LCDs,
one main instrument panel, two GPSs and other accessories.

Figure 18 Offsetted the faying surface for detemination of plane type

at contact face

centroids becomes zero. Also, if longest edge of the faying

surface is completely coincide with one edge of contact face,
then the relative location of part is in the corner position
otherwise it is in any irregular position.

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 Adhesively bonded assembly features
Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
Figure 19 Extraction of ABAFs from the wing of an aircraft
Figure 20 An ABAF between false rib9 and false rib10
The screen shots of the CAD tool show the ABAF identified
and the adjacent text window displays the details about the
various ABAFs types and its related attributes extracted by the
program from the instrument panel (Figures 22-24).
5.1 Discussions
Assembly features have been studied in the past as joining
features especially in the context of riveting and welding (Swain
et al., 2014). ABAFs are widely used in the industry to produce
lightweight and aesthetic product. Although few studies about
ABAFs are available (Swain et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2008;
Xiao et al., 2014), however, ABAFs were never considered in
the context of assembly process for variant design. Moreover,
these assembly features are limited to some of the elementary
assembly features having one faying surfaces. Also, very few
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have addressed about compound assembly features
(Van Holland and Bronsvoort, 2000; Chan and Tan, 2003).
But, they are defined at very high abstraction level with no
details of representation and extraction of assembly features.
The proposed data structure for representation of ABAF can be
used as a digital template by both designer and process planner
to capture process specific information for assembly process
planning. In the past, very few attempts (Swain et al., 2014;
Kim et al., 2008) are available for the representation of simple
ABAF, the complete ABAF cannot be obtained. The proposed
method can extract ABAF as characteristics combination of
faying surfaces and the Euler angle between them. The results
shown in this research indicate that the proposed algorithm is
able to extract elementary and compound ABAFs. The
elementary ABAF is classified as open and closed type based on
 Adhesively bonded assembly features Assembly Automation
Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain Volume 39 · Number 4 · 2019 · 607–623

Figure 21 An ABAF between spar and rib1

Figure 22 Extraction of ABAFs from automotive instrumental panel

Figure 23 An ABAF between main instrument panel_1 and LCD_1

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Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
Figure 24 An ABAF between main instrument panel_1 and left compartment buttons
the typical arrangement of the base surface and wall surface.
The open type elementary ABAF includes plain tongue and
groove, tapered tongue and groove, dovetail, scarfed step and
single step. The elementary closed types ABAF are plain
tongue and groove; tapered tongue and groove; and dovetail.
The algorithm is also able to extract various types of compound
tongue and groove such as plain, tapered, dovetail, scarfed
tongue and groove, stepped tongue and groove, multi-scarf,
multi-step, multi-lap, multi-butt, etc. This classification does
not depend upon any application and can be used for
maintaining associativity between product model and process
model (Swain et al., 2014), concurrent evolution of process
model and product model (Swain et al., 2014), computation of
component interface in assembly for FE simulation (Jourdes
et al., 2014) and capturing assembly process information for
variant design (Swain et al., 2014).
There are several ABAFs exist in industry which carry many
combinations of faying surfaces. But, in the literature, most of
the authors tried to extract the assembly features which are
restricted to only one faying surface (Sambhoos et al., 2009;
Swain et al., 2014; Mathew and Rao, 2010). Graph based
technique (Xiao et al., 2014; Vemulapalli et al., 2014) is used
for the extraction of some of the elementary ABAFs which are
combination of several faying surfaces. But, it needs too much
interaction of the user and its automation level in case of
complex assembly is low. So, a new and modified algorithm is
developed which can directly extract the ABAFs from the
assembly CAD model. As can be seen from the result, the
proposed algorithm is able to extract ABAF from STEP file
which is independent from any particular system. The earlier
work on the extraction of assembly features is limited to
SolidWorks native file (Swain et al., 2014).
The classification, representation and extraction of ABAF
primarily depend upon topology of the parts, the
characteristics combination of faying surfaces and angular
relationship among the faying surfaces. The present approach
is enabled to handle planar and cylindrical entities. The Euler
angle of a joint feature does not change with the addition of
fillet surface. So, the developed algorithm is also adapted to
handle the B-Rep CAD models with fillets on joint feature
surfaces. In automotive styling design, it is required to
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assemble various freeform shapes. The present work does not
address ABAF containing freeform faying surface. But, it is
possible to address large freeform surfaces where the radius of
curvature does not change drastically. In case of freeform
entities, it is difficult to manufacture the contact faces having
uniform radius of curvature to maintain a constant gap. In
adhesive bonding, though it is required to provide a uniform
thickness of adhesive for proper strength of bonding, it is
possible to join parts with slight variation in the gaps between
contact faces. For the freeform shapes, the normal is not fixed
over a face. The key step in the algorithm is to identify
the faying surfaces. Therefore, it is possible to find
representative normal of the freeform surfaces in proximity,
where the radius of curvature does not change drastically.
Once the faying surfaces are identified, the developed
algorithm can be used with slight modification for freeform
surfaces.
The proposed algorithm in this paper carries two steps, i.e.:
1 extraction of ABAFs attributes; and
2 extraction of ABAFs type.
The first stage of the algorithm is to compute parts are in
contact in the assembly. To achieve this, every part has to be
compared with all other parts. This is computed by finding
the distance between the parts. For each pair of parts, it is
computed once. The complexity of this effort will be O (n2).
The next stage of the algorithm is computed the faces which
are in contact between pairs of part identified in the previous
step. Between pair of parts, the distance between the part
and all faces of the other part is computed and vice versa.
This steps takes O (nc nf) where nc is the number of contact
in pair and nf is the number of face in one part. Once the
number of faces in one ABAF is determined, the rest of the
computation do not take significant time as the number of
faces in each AFAF is very small in number. So, the time
complexity of the proposed algorithm is more efficient as
compared to graph based feature recognition algorithm
which takes O (n3).
In this extraction process, different new algorithms are
built for many ABAF attributes like relative overlap, relative
orientation and relative location of part, plane type at contact
face, joint feature which helps in identifying the ABAFs types.
 Adhesively bonded assembly features
Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
These attributes are mostly extracted based on the geometry
and topology of faying surfaces which are very few in numbers
in a particular ABAF and therefore likely to be improve the
robustness of the algorithm. From the result, it is concluded
that, various process parameters associated with geometry
like bondline thickness, width of adherend, adherend
thickness are extracted which have a significant effect on the
selection of type of adhesives. These ABAFs and its
associated assembly feature information can be further used
for collaborative product design and its process planning.
Figure 25 An application of ABAFs
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5.2 Application of adhesive bonded assembly features
The proposed data structure of ABAFs carries various
geometric information related to adhesive bonding process.
These information have significant effect on the assembly
process planning such as adhesive selection, optimization of
cost and strength of the assembly. ABAFs can be used for
assembly variant design which involves mixing and matching of
existing components or modifying components to produce new
variant assemblies. For variant design, when there is change in
existing component’s dimension like thickness, diameter,
 Adhesively bonded assembly features
Shantanu Kumar Das and Abinash Kumar Swain
change in material type, form of component or change in
position of component, there is a change in the assembly
feature information (Das and Swain, 2016).
This section illustrates the use of ABAFs for variant design
with the following example as shown in Figure 25. In this
example, two variants of a model are shown where one is an
existing model and another one is a variant model, which
designer wants to produce from the existing model. The
designer first develops the CAD model for the variant model
and extracts various ABAF using the defined procedure of
extraction available in this paper. The existing model is a light
weight chassis of an automobile as shown in the example. To
provide more strength to the light weight chassis, designer
changes the form of component by making holes at the joint
location. The holes along with adhesive produce a hybrid joint
between Long Rail_1 and C channel AF and BTR-2. Due to
this variant design, there is a change in the ABAF type between
Long Rail_1 and C channel AF and BTR-2 i.e. from plain
tongue and groove joint to hybrid joint (rivet bonded step
joint). Also, there is a chance of changing the assembly process
plan for variant model and needs proper verification for
computer aided assembly process planning.
By automatic extraction of various ABAFs and finding out
the modified and non-modified ABAFs, the various possible
assembly process can be chosen based on each modified and
non-modified ABAFs. This modified and non-modified
ABAFs can be determined by comparison with the existing
model ABAFs database with the variant model ABAFs
database using data mining methods like text mining, clustering
and similarity analysis algorithms etc. The non-modified
ABAFs have already assembly process planning information in
the existing model assembly process database and they don’t
require any further process planning. So, only there is a need to
develop an assembly process plan for the modified ABAFs.
Therefore, this automatic extraction of ABAFs helps in
reducing the assembly process planning time for variant design
by eliminating the assembly process selection and its planning
time of existing ABAFs. This combination of assembly process
plans based on the modified and non-modified ABAFs
generates a complete process plan for variant design.
6. Conclusions and future work
In this paper, a new classification and extraction of the
ABAFs have been described. Algorithms have been
developed to capture both elementary and compound ABAFs
and its associated attributes which have significant effect on
the adhesive bonding process. The proposed way of
extracting the ABAFs relies mostly on information that can
be automatically extracted from the geometry and topology of
the faying surfaces. The proposed algorithm has been tested
for various industrial CAD assembly models and also applied
for a variant design application. The developed algorithms in
this paper can be extended to extract assembly features
involved between freeform entities. The proposed data
structure is expected to work as an interface for the
concurrent evolution of design of product family and the
corresponding assembly system.
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Corresponding author
Shantanu Kumar Das can be contacted at:
shantanuds0206@gmail.com