Daniel Moth

By running the DFM wizard I can check that the part is possible to produce using injection moulding, these checks show primarily if any errors within the design will prevent the Truck. I ran the analysis twice to show areas with as minimum thickness of 1.4mm, (1mm smaller than the thickness of my supporting Rib features), and to check that no areas, excluding the two kingpin supports exceeded over 5mm thick. By checking the minimum thicknesses I can display any thin walls that could cause a possible weakness to the structure which would need to be modified within the design to provide more strength.

These results show that where needs attention, the centre rib on the support structure needs improving because of the large amount of force this area has to cope with. This can either be done by increasing the thickness of the rib, or by adding a stronger support structure to help distribute the weight away from this area.

Here is a similar design produced using extruded steel. The design is very sturdy but has two main stress points: The drilled mounting holes are too close to the sidewall and are distributing the stress into one point between the hole and sidewall, this is a liability because not only will it put unnecessary strain on the truck hangar, it will also put strain on the bolt itself, which may not be designed to accept stress and could shear during use, this could be potentially dangerous or costly if the board was used in this damaged state. the current safety feature is 1.3578

By moving these holes farther from the side wall of the hangar we can increase the safety factor and relieve stress from this area. The holes are offset by 3mm away from the side wall to move the sensitive areas from the high stress zone near the bend. After making these minor adjustments, the factor of safety is increased to 1.75763

In order to ensure that a CNC machine can easily manufacture this part the inner edges of the side walls need a large fillet as sharp corners can be difficult to achieve with CNC. This is the simple design incorporates these features with a simple solution that will not require a large amount of processes during manufacture, this will help save on costs. CES EduPack is used to select a suitable material for CNC machining. because of the process used the range of materials is greatly expanded as normal traits like plasticity or malleability is not needed as the material is cut from a larger piece. The most suitable material selected was Low alloy steel. Because of the simple design and thick, strong steel construction, very few areas take a large amount of strain, the most stressed parts are the mounting holes. The Truck hangar has a very high factor of safety, the lowest point being around the mounting points with an FOS of 12.33. Far beyond the original injection moulded design.