Date of Award

2018

Degree Type

Capstone Project

First Advisor

Bahram Nassersharif

Abstract

In this report, Team 2: Team Pr3zici0n worked on the development of a fixture to automate a lapping process that met the specifications demanded by the sponsor, Mahr. Working closely with the staff at Mahr, the team explored the possibility of creating a fixture that automating the lapping process for ring gages at Mahr, which is currently fully operated manually. With this study Team 2 will have created a fixture that can automate this process mimicking the operator motions, while maintaining the demanded geometric tolerances by Mahr. With the use of SOLIDWORKS the team was able to put together an assembly and simulated the motion of the fixture with respect to the lapping machine. The fixture translates rotational motion of a cam powered by a motor, to linear motion of a yoke guided along precision bearings, to only allow for one degree of freedom and low friction. The motor is connected to a potentiometer, which allows the operator to control the speed of the fixture. The cam itself has four slots machined for placement of a dowel pin, which allows for variable stroke lengths.

Currently the process is completed by highly skilled operators where human influence causes variability. Due to the high skill level and experience required, this is not an ideal process and Mahr has proposed this problem as a capstone project. This report documents the teams preliminary research, patent searches, concept generations, competitive analysis of the concepts, engineering analysis, designs, build, and testing phases of the development of this fixture. This fixture is heavily dependent on allowing one degree of freedom along the direction of motion, and also controllable stroke lengths and speeds in order to generate predictability in the material removal process. Testing was conducted on various features of the fixture in order to ensure that the fixture operated at the demanded design specifications. After testing, the team redesigned some aspects of the fixture. Washers were added to all rotating parts move much smoother with very little deviation. This report projects that with the integration of the fixture and the lapping machine, the lapping process would be controllable allowing for testing to determine predictability.

Comments

Sponsor: Mahr

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