Although vibratory finishing has been in commercial use for over 40 years, relatively little fundamental information is known about the process, and industrial practice remains largely based on empiricism and trial and error. An experimental investigation into the vibratory bowl finishing process was conducted using material removal rate and surface roughness as the dependent variables. Bowl performance can best be described in terms of acceleration and depends primarily on the feed weights used, while bowl loading has a relatively minor effect. Furthermore, small changes in bowl loading resulting from normal media wear can be neglected. Results showed that material removal rates were constant over time for aluminium, brass and steel and were sensitive to hardness and bowl acceleration. Surface roughness saturated after a fixed period and was primarily a function of material composition. Surface roughness did not appear to be sensitive to bowl acceleration.
From the students' perspective, the project objective of this 2-semester senior design course was to design and build a storage device for a hand powered upright hand cycle that can be installed on the exterior of a wheelchair accessible Dodge-Chrysler minivan so that a person with paraplegia or quadriplegia can drive the vehicle independently (without a human aide) when the hand cycle is loaded on the vehicle.The novelty of this paper is the pedagogy of blending traditional methods of engineering design (hand sketches, low resolution mockups, and prototypes) along with CAD design and modern computational analytics, including FEA, in a 2-semester design course. Students drew sketches of multiple ideas and made a full-size three dimensional mockup of the rear of a Chrysler minivan out of plywood and structural wood. They also made two mockups and two metal prototypes and analyzed the design with FEA.Course evaluations from students revealed their appreciation for having the opportunity to hand sketch ideas and make low resolution mockups in the first semester to arrive at a general design. (The second semester was devoted to detailed design and making functional prototypes.) The students felt that they had a rich design experience that they could use for future design projects in their careers.
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