Update #5

Capstone II Blog Post #3

Over the work period of February 14 - March 6, the team has been waiting on the laser-cut parts to come back from the manufacturing company. Additionally, the team has finally been able to meet with the TA in charge of the Material Science lab to discuss the use of the Instron machine for the force test on the pedal box. The machine is very much capable of providing the force required by the competition rule book. The only thing we need to figure out now is creating a jig that can hold our pedal box and attach to the Instron machine for the testing.

Figure 1: Resultant Displacements in the Backplate

Figure 2: Von Mises Stresses in the Backplate

As stated in the previous blog post, the team has been struggling with time. The procurement of the laser-cut pieces is the main challenge for us at this point. It is out of our hands since the machine shop cutting the parts for us has to work around their schedule. The longer it takes for us to get them back, the less time we have to assemble. Since handing over the DXF files of the parts for laser-cutting, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tests have been run on some of the key components of the pedal box using the Solidworks Simulation tool. Material properties were assigned to each part and a compressive load of 12,000 Newtons (2,000 Newton pedal input force) was applied to the tips of push rods. Plots of the resultant displacements and von mises stresses are provided in Figures 1 & 2. The results from the simulations show that the body of the pedal box we are building should pass the physical testing we plan to conduct. We hope that the results from our testing on the instron machine will help us validate our FEA models. Other than this, the construction of a testing jig is our next challenge. We have some measurements of the testing area on the Instron machine and our focus will be to create a jig that can fit on it.

For the work period of March 6 - March 20, the team anticipates to be working on the assembly of our pedal box. This will include some welding and some hardwear, but once it is done, it will be ready for the Instron machine. The team will spend most of their time at the shop once the parts have come in. If we can get the assembly done and the construction of the jig complete within this time period, then we will begin the validation process.