Stationary Clamp Project Report

MME 231 C Due: Friday, May 3rd, 2013

James Alexander Kalene Kelly Elliott Batchelder William Frain

Problem Definition The current design for the subtractive prototyping Rowland Mill does not allow for a firm hold of the workpiece. The current way of holding the workpiece in the Rowland Mill is simply by using double-sided tape and sticking it to the base of the mill. The classs goal is to design a clamp that can be fixed to the fixture base that will hold the workpiece in place better than the double-sided tape while maintaining a budged of under fifty dollars.

Discussion of Product Design We tried to keep our design as simple as possible without sacrificing any performance. It was decided that a 3x2x2 piece of aluminum 6061 - T6 would be ideal for the stationary clamp. From the 3x2x2 piece of stock, two holes of diameter 5/16 would be drilled on the top 3x2 face. The holes are the same diameter of the bolt that is used to bolt the stationary clamp to the fixture base. This diameter is 5/16, so a 5/16 drill bit was chosen for this operation. These two holes are to be located at (1,1) and (1,2) in inches, with respect to the datum. The datum will be located at the bottom left of one of the 3x2 faces. It is to be located at this position because, after using the edge finder, finding the locations of the holes will be made simple because all numbers will be read out on the display as positive. The positioning of the holes to be drilled into the stationary clamp was mandated by the spacing of the holes on the fixture base. The center of each hole on the fixture base is spaced exactly 1 apart, so the holes of stationary clamp would need to follow this same spacing.

However, since the height of the bolts is only 1 from the top of the threads, a portion needed to be milled out of the top of each hole drilled. The depth of cut needed to be milled out is 7/8 because, we did not want to mill exactly 1 out and risk the bolt being slightly loose when screwed in. Also the diameter of the mill bit to be used was determined to be . This size was chosen because it is larger than the diameter of the head of the bolt, which is 7/32 and gives a bit of additional room to maneuver the bolt in this crevasse. Any dimensional specifications along with dimensional tolerances can be observed in Figure 7.

Future Iterations We noticed when we went to bolt our final stationary clamp design into the fixture base, that the stationary clamp was not centered on the board. The stationary clamp will still function just fine, but since it is not centered is not very astatically appealing. Another thing we noticed that isnt necessarily a problem but is not ideal because of the amount of room the stationary clamp takes up on the fixture board the thickness of the clamp. Our final design for the stationary clamp is two inches thick. However, we could have easily made our final design only an inch thick. This would still allow for plenty of room for the mill bit to mill out the necessary hole needed to fit the bolt. The stationary clamp would still function as well if it were only an inch thick. To make these two changes we would make the stationary clamp an inch longer and only an inch thick, so the final dimensions would be 4x1x2. Also the two holes for the bolts would be located at (0.5,1) and (0.5,3) in inches, with respect to the datum, which is located in the bottom left corner of the top face. All other dimensions, including the diameter of the drill bit, diameter of the mill bit, and depth of milling, will remain

unchanged. This will center the stationary clamp on the fixture base and will allow for larger workpieces to be machined.

All Design Drawings Figure 1, Initial Design Sketch:

Figure 2, Refined and more accurate initial design sketch:

Figure 3, Engineering drawing for design 1:

Figure 4, Engineering drawing for design 2:

Figure 5, Initial sketch for final design:

Figure 6, Refined sketch with dimensions for final design:

Figure 7, Engineering drawing for final design:

Discussion of Manufacturing Process Design

The initial view of the stationary clamp started with the goal of creating a soft, flat, and sturdy surface for a part to be pressed against or clamped. It was important to make sure the clamping area resembled the clamping area of the movable clamp so that a part could be held securely. This area would have to be approximately two-inches high and have little to no give, or possibility of bending, during the clamping (and machining) phase. The first design implemented a single sheet of aluminum. The thickness was not specified at that point but it would need to be thin enough to be bent to reach a 90 angle with less than a one-inch radius. Then, holes would have to be drilled to allow attachment of the part to the base using screws. The initial holes could be quickly drilled but additional material needs to be added to reach the length of the screw, and to reinforce the bent sheet metal. Additional material would need to be welded to the back of the bent aluminum; if the material was in the form of a large block, holes would need to be drilled that matched the holes in the bottom of the sheet to allow for the screw to fit. This design incorporated the bending, drilling, and welding. Due to the possible issues with bending, and with the weakening of the metal and joints in welded areas, a new process plan was created to utilize the strength and stability of a solid aluminum block that is approximately 2 x 2 x 3. The new process works to use mainly drilling and milling to meet product specifications. Both screw holes would be drilled through the entire part and then the milling section would use these holes as pilot holes. The milling section would go down far enough to work with the length of the screw for proper securement, and then a canal would be milled out to connect the two drill holes. The initial plan took only a few steps, but due to the amount of material removed and the method of milling small sections at a time, the milling would take longest in the process. With the multiple repetitions used to mill, an additional surface finish would be required to smooth out the canal and reach a final state. After breaking down the problems and weaknesses in this design, a new and simpler design was created. By eliminating the milling canal, the total process time is reduced, as well as the coolant used and dangers due to heating. The new design still incorporated the drilling of the two holes through the part, but then the mill bit would be used only to go down far enough to allow for proper securement of the screw. This allows for the drilling of the two screw holes to be used

as pilot holes again, and then instead of moving across and milling out an entire canal, the mill would only be used to create individual wells for each screw hole. This method is faster than the previous method which helps with overall tool wear and cost of the process. The final process was selected by finding the simplest and safest operation of the drill/mill. With the last process described, there are only tolerances needed for the screw hole and depth of screw well so it can be properly secured, along with the distance between the screws. The material properties and shape do not allow for any deformation or wear over time. After addressing the required tolerance areas, the simplest design was chosen to maximize possible production of the part. The chosen steps in the final design incorporate sawing, drilling, milling, and sometimes a finishing step. With all of these steps, safety is the first factor so the accuracy of the process instructions for each operation is important. The bandsaw is used only to separate the correct length of aluminum for our part. This is only necessary if the metal stock is too long. The speed to be used is low range, which is set for the aluminum material on the bandsaw speed charts. For the setup before drilling can occur, the part must be placed on parallel risers in the mill clamp. This step is necessary to make sure that when the holes are drilled through the entire piece, that the drill bit does not hit the clamp or workstation. After setting up the part in the clamp, the actual drilling of the initial holes takes multiple plunges in order to clear the removed material from both the hole and from the drill bit. This adds additional time to the entire drilling but is necessary for safety and quality of the hole. Before the drilling can occur, the edgefinder is used to set the datum point to the bottom left of the part. The edgefinder is commonly run at 1000 rpm which creates a distinct look for when an edge is found. This must be done for both the x- and y-axis to accurately separate the drilling/milling hole centers. Without specific location of the holes, the screws would not be able to match the holes and threading in the base plate. When deciding where drilling will take place, the radius of the edgefinder needs to be accounted for because the datum planes are actually zeroed off of the edgefinder center point. The speed of the drilling is set at 600 rpm which is consistent with the aluminum material being used and with the finish desired. This speed was found both online and in the

workshop for the aluminum material. With the 5/16'' drill bit, this speed allows for easy removal of the drilled material in between each plunge, and a smooth surface on the inside of the hole. The milling speed was also set to be 600 rpm which creates a nice smooth surface for the head of the screw to sit. This surface must be flat so that the screw has an adequate area on which to rest. A '' mill bit was used to create a large enough well for the screw head to sit and be screwed into the base plate. The diameter of this bit must allow for the screw head to fit without touching any of the sides. Depending on the type of screw head, this milled area must also be able to fit whatever tool will be used to tighten the screw. The final design process involves drilling and milling two holes that are a specific distance apart. The first process plan was to take one or two plunges to complete the drilling of the holes through the part. This is not the correct method for removing the amount of material necessary. After adding additional plunges to the process plan, where material was cleared from the hole and drill bit in between each plunge, the process became better adjusted to the drilling being done. Once drilling was first done, it was realized how much heat was created by the drill bit and aluminum. For this step, the drill bit exhibited an amount of machine talk the more material that was removed. The part also began to smoke if not allowed to adequately cool. Both of these symptoms called for the addition of a coolant while the drilling was taking place. The coolant greatly reduced the noise being created by the bit and completely eliminated the smoking that was originally occurring. Plunges still needed to be completed in a number of steps which was evident by hearing noise if the plunge was too deep. The milling steps had similar issues regarding machine and material behavior. A number of set plunges needed to be completed, with the final milling plunge being a shorter depth to allow for a smoother finish where the head of the securing screw would sit. Coolant again needed to be added to reduce heat buildup around the area of contact. To expedite both of the above mentioned processes, a coolant that is consistently added to the drilling location while drilling or milling is occurring could allow for more continuous drilling. And anything that would reduce the amount of removed aluminum

material that gets tangled around the drill bit would reduce the number of times the drill must be turned off in order to clear the material. Because the drilled and milled holes are a set distance apart, if it were possible to drill both holes simultaneously with two drills at set locations, almost the entire process plan would be halved. This would be the first step for a manufacturing setting if drilling were to be the main method of part creation. Working two drills with the addition of coolant would be very effective at quickly creating this particular design. Casting the part would be possible. The mold would likely be designed in two or three pieces allowing for easy removal. The bottom mold would be only a square box shape, while the top mold would incorporate the previous drilling sections. The top mold would have two cylindrical extrusions which would match the shape of the milled area of the part. These depressions would have to be to a specific depth because they still allow for the tight fitting screw and attachment to the base. If this tolerance is off too much, the screw will either not hold tightly or it will not be able to reach the threaded section of the base plate. With the correct tolerance and depth of the cylindrical depressions, the holes for the screws would still need to be drilled as done in the previous plan. This drilling makes sure that the screw is fitting snuggly in the hole effectively reducing wiggle or looseness of the piece. With the drilled hole being completed in the depression of the mold, slightly less material needs to be removed during the drilling step. With less material needing to be removed, less plunges need to be completed, and less material is turned into chips, which in a casting process could be recycled for the next piece. If a poor surface finish is acquired by using a casting process, the side of the clamp piece that would be in contact with parts that it is securing would need to be finished with either a mill bit or finishing bit. The addition of this step would require a change in tooling, and if a finishing bit is used, the part would also need to be rotated 90 degrees in order to flatten one of the other sides. This step is not crucial but would only be necessary if the surface is not relatively flat or if there are any jagged edges or protrusions. A casting process would reduce the number of waste by essentially eliminating the creation of unusable material. All of the waste material created would come from the riser,

spouts, and other extraneous volumes from the casting process, and from the chips removed by drilling or finishing. All of this material could then be re-melted down into the vat of molten metal to be used for the next part. This method greatly reduces cost of material and recycling methods which would both occur as expenses (losses) in a method that drills and mills form a preformed block of aluminum. The speed of this process would be slower because of the time required to cool and set the mold. This would reduce the number of parts that could be made per minute/hour. The casting method also still requires the drilling of the holes in the part. This drilling process is slightly faster but it was not able to be eliminated by using a casting process. It may be possible to create a mold that creates pilot holes for the drilling, allowing for the drilling to occur in one continuous step. This method would be the only way to further reduce time required during drilling, because the tolerances of the screw holes makes the drilling step an important step in the process. So the trade-off really comes between the cost and speed of part creation. The reduced cost comes mainly from less use of a drill/mill machine and the elimination of waste materials created.

Inspection To inspect the part vernier calipers were used to measure all the different dimensions. Not every dimension could easily just be measured, some had to be calculated. For the measurements of the x-axis to the right edge of the big holes the width of the whole piece was measured and the width from the right edge to the other end was subtracted. That way the measurement was more accurate and there was a place to grip the calipers. For the measurements that went to the center of the small holes the width from either the x or y-axis was measured and the radius of the small hole was added. This allows there to be no guessing about where to measure too. The rest of the measurements were pretty straight forward. For the depths the depth probe of the calipers were used, for lengths the outside jaws, and for the diameters the inside jaws.

Below is a table of all the set dimensions for our part along with their tolerances and then what the piece actually ended up measuring. Most of the dimensions were within tolerance though there were a couple places where problems arose. Drawing Dimensions 3 in .75 in .75 in .3125 in .3125 in .625 in 1 in 1.375 in .625 in 1 in 1.375 in 1 in 2 in .875 in .875 in +0 in -.004 in +0 in -.004 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +.0625 in -.0625 in +0 in -.0625 in +0 in -.0625 in Tolerance +1/2 in -0 in Measured Dimensions 3.026 in .770 in .776 in .313 in .311 in .631 in 1.031 in 1.401 in .630 in 1.033 in 1.405 in 1.051 in 2.053 in .864 in .893 in unsure yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no Within Tolerance? yes

Length Diameter of big hole 1 Diameter of big hole 2 Diameter of small hole 1 Diameter of small hole 2 x-axis to left edge of big hole 1 x-axis to center of small hole 1 x-axis to right edge of big hole 1 x-axis to left edge of big hole 2 x-axis to center of small hole 2 x-axis to right edge of big hole 2 y-axis to center of small hole 1 y-axis to center of small hole 2 Depth of big hole 1 Depth of big hole 2

The depth of the second large hole was slightly deeper than the original set dimension and went outside the set tolerance. This is most likely due to not exact machining when making the part and could also be partly due to some measurement error during inspection. The

purpose of our set dimension and tolerance was so that the screw would fit snuggly to the bottom of the hole and clamp the box to the board well. We didnt want too much extra space so that there was room for movement. After the piece was made the screw still fit in very well and worked exactly as it was supposed to. Our tolerance for that depth could probably have been a little bigger without there being a problem. For the diameter of the first small hole the problem was that the set dimension was to four decimal places but for the inspection of our piece calipers that only measure to three decimal places were used. Depending on what that fourth decimal place is the diameter is either within tolerance or not.

Cost Our total process time was found to be 53 minutes, including setup and machining. The amount of time spent for setup and processing for each step of the process plan is shown in table 1 below.

Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total:

Setup Time Processing Time Total Step Time (min) (min) (min) 1 0 1 1 4 5 2 0 2 3 3 6 2 0 2 5 10 15 5 15 20 2 0 2 21 32 53 Table 1: Process Time per Step

Finding these time values is a key part of the cost analysis. The analysis will be broken into 4 parts: cost of tooling, cost of material, cost of labor, and cost of energy

consumption. The cost of tooling includes the cost of the tool itself and the wear that the process inflicts on the tool. Since we are only manufacturing one part, the cost of tool wear is considered negligible. We used 3 tools during the process: a horizontal band saw blade (priced around $20.00 at http://www.detroitbandsaw.com), a 5/16 inch drill bit (priced around $4.00 at http://www.fleetfarm.com), and a 3/4 inch drill bit (priced around $8.00 at http://www.hardwareandtools.com). Though the total amount of tool cost is $32.00, we do not include this figure in our final cost analysis because our assumption is that we are working in an academic/manufacturing environment and the tools are already purchased. The second figure to account for is the material cost. For a 2x2x3 block of Aluminum 6061-T6 purchased from Speedy Metals, the price was $6.03 and the total weight was 1.18 pounds. The amount of alloy that was actually ordered was larger than the 2x2x3 block. This is because another design team created a second iteration of our part. For the sake of cost analysis, however, we will only use the figure of $6.03 because we are only concerned with the production of a single part. Shipping cost is also not included as the order was handled by the faculty, and shipping price information is not available to non-members at Speedy Metals. The third cost figure is the labor cost, or how much money would need to be paid to a machinist to do the work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pay for machinists is $19.65 per hour (study conducted in May 2012). Taking into account our total process time, we need to simply multiply the cost of the machinist by the time we would be hiring him/her for. The cost that can be expected for a machinist to be working for 53 minutes is $17.36.

The fourth and final cost figure is the amount of energy consumed during the 3 different machining processes that occur during the making of the part. The methodology for calculating the energy is the same for all three processes: find how much volume of the part is removed per process and multiply that value by the amount of time it takes to complete the process. This calculated value is the MRR, or material rate of removal. Next, this value is multiplied by the specific heat (0.18 hp/in3/min for aluminum) of the material to get the power consumed during the process. We finally use the average value for cost of electricity in Ohio of $0.12/kWh to find how much we pay for electricity used to make the part. Table 2 shows the values used in the calculation. As we can see, the cost of electricity is negligible for producing one part.

Process Band Saw 5/16'' Bit 3/4'' Bit

Power (kW) 0.00510948 0.002057238 0.003469068 Total Cost: Table 2: Cost of Electricity

MRR (in3/min) 0.038 0.0153 0.0258

Cost ($) $0.0000409 $0.0000412 $0.0001041 $0.0001862

In conclusion, the total cost came to $23.39, as we can see below in table 3. The two sources of cost were material costs and labor costs. An easy way to reduce material cost would be to use smaller dimensions. We had quite a bit of excess material on either side of the holes. A 2x2x3 block is excessive for the required function of the part because the holes being drilled are only 3/4. Another major source of cost was labor costs. The best way to reduce the labor costs would be to reduce the amount of time spent performing the process plan. One way to do that would be to use a polymer instead of aluminum. Using the softer polymer would allow for much faster machining and reduce the time spent

machining and in turn the labor costs. However we must consider the possible tradeoff in switching materials, because the polymer may likely cost more than the Aluminum. To achieve the best cost reduction, we must optimize all of our options.

Cost Source Cost Tooling Material $6.03 Labor $17.36 Energy Total $23.39 Table 3: Cost Summary