Design and Development of a Singularizing Unit for Part Feeding System

Abstract

In the modern industrial world, speed, agility, accuracy and less time are the key factors to attain a position in the market. Various forms of the products manufactured which could either be symmetric or asymmetric. The stacking of the asymmetric parts are either done manually which is a time-consuming job or by installing robots which are costly. To overcome this problem, part feeders are introduced to stack the parts in a specific orientation. In the automotive industry the brake pads are the components manufactured in a large scale. The manufacture of components and stacking them is an intensive task which necessitates agile manufacturing. So a linear part feeding system is designed along with the trap and conveyor system to reorient the asymmetric part to its most favorable orientation for stacking. The major problem arrives in part feeding system is to send parts one by one to trap. The main objective of this work is to design and develop the singularizing unit for sending the parts one by one. The system is designed to separate the brake pads from clusters and singularize them. The singularizing unit is designed by using Markov model and the unit is fabricated. Experiments were conducted for selecting the suitable parameters by making the unit at various levels of inclinations by using base plates of various thicknesses. The parameters which are concentrated while orienting the parts are frequency of vibration, time to travel the part on the singularizing unit and acceleration of the part for effective part motion in a singularizing unit.