Blog Post 16: Second FEA for Design Concept 1

Here are the optimised components I made from the first round of FEA for my first design concept:

Enclosure Assembly:

Having removed material from the traction pads, I carried out a second round of FEA on the enclosure assembly with the same torsional force as before. The results shown above indicate that despite a 2.7% reduction in material at the primary contact points (traction pads), there are still no points of failure. Any additional modifications to the enclosure at this stage should revolve around further reduction of material (i.e. from the walls).

Rack (Gripper):

The results above show how the gripper faired with the second round of FEA under the same forces as previous testing (95.28N) having had support material added at its known failure point. As you can see, the addition of a chamfer to the corner has succeeded in reducing the concentration of stress and allowed it to dissipate throughout more of the geometry.

Handle:

After making considerable weight reductions (29%) to the handle arm and main body as well as adding support material where the two sections meet I have carried out a 2nd round of FEA. The results shown above do not indicate the presence of any failure points so the best course of action moving forward is to eliminate more material around the main body. Having verified the component’s strength, focus can also be placed on the addition of a bottle-opening tool to the end of the handle.