Flow Bench Fabrication

Hey everyone its Forest again from the OAVS Team. Jon and I have been rippin right along on getting the parts made for the flow bench. Jon has since Wednesday machine the Flow Straightener Inlet Flange, the Flow Straightener Outer Flange, the Oil Reservoir Plug Bung and all 18 of the Short Mounting Tabs for the frame.  I was able to finish welding the basic frame up on Wednesday. I also sat down with Jon and we tried some different surface preps on the frame. We decided that polishing the outside of the frame and doing a brushed finish on the inside would give the best form to function. I fooled around with different processes on Thursday to determine the fastest way to get the best finish. Friday I got the process down and sanded and polished for 8 hours straight. I brought the frame home this weekend to finish it so that when Jon and I go back to work on Monday we can get all the tabs mounted.  We are currently in a bad spot as we are missing materials. Our Round Tube for the Flow Straightener Body, Oil Reservoir and External Air Assembly isn’t going to be in till the 9^th. OnlineMetals didn’t inform Matt during the order that the materials were being shipped from two different locations and at different times. We will have to bump up due dates on other aspects of the Flow-Bench in order to accomplish our goal of a completed unit for January 14^th. A while back, Jon helped out one of the FSAE Car Capstone team by showing them how to use the AMC’s Faro CMM arm to get accurate measurements on their motor for their chassis design. Jon is going to be working with one of the FSAE team members, who works at the Advanced Structures and Composites Center, for their Water-Jet capabilities. This will speed up some of the process in getting the parts done by tessellating our parts on one sheet of material instead of band sawing them out by hand. Check back to see what’s going on next week.

Have a Happy New Year, OAVS

Flow Bench Design is complete

Hey everyone its Forest from the OAVS Team. Jon and I managed to do a completed design and manufacturing print package in 12 days in order to get the project back on task. We will be sharing some PDF versions of our 3D Solidworks model and some examples of the print in our print package on the sight soon.

Right now everyone is on winter break here at the University of Maine. We aren't going to take a break from the project though. Before everyone left we sat down as a team and made an aggressive plan to finish the Flow-Bench entirely before classes start again on Jan 14th. Jon and I live locally to the school and work on campus at the AMC so were are around all break. Matt and Dan live at opposite ends of the state north and south of campus. We devised a plan to accommodate everyone. Since the Bench will be built at the Advanced Manufacturing Center, Thanks John, and we need a load of materials and parts we split the tasks. Matt and Dan have split the raw materials and the purchase parts up and will be doing what ever it takes to get them to Jon and I at the AMC on time and on schedule.  When the materials and components reach the AMC Jon and I will uses them up as fast as we can. The plan is to have all the Machining and Metal Fab done when Matt and Dan get back so we can assemble it as a team.

Current progress, Matt put in the purchase order for our first shipment of materials 2 24' lengths of 2 x 2 x.125THK 6061-T6 aluminum square tubing. It arrived on Thursday this week from Bangor Steel, free delivery. Jon and I commonsensed to measure 3 times and cut once as we have a limited budget and hope to sell the leftover length to recoup some money. We had it all cut, cleaned and deburred Thursday night after work. From there Jon hopped on the lathe and started knocking out the caster bosses that need to be welded into the lower frame work. He finished all four by the end of the night. I jumped on getting the base frame work TIGed together. I haven't made a frame like this in awhile so I took my time walking it straight using the welds. Jon and I took it back and forth to the surface plate half a dozen times to lay it on four 1-2-3 block to check it for flatness. All said and done I managed to get it within .010in of flatness in the 4ft span.

Jon and I worked a half day Friday and and started on the bench at noon. Jon turned the threaded flange for the flow straightener out of 6061-T6 and used the rotary table to do the hole pattern. I set the top frame up and tacked it together and tacked to the legs on so they could be manipulated after being joined with the straight fully welded lower frame. What and ordeal, after messing around with the frame for 4 hours I realized the 2 2ft framing square in the shop are bent from being used as guides for the plasma arc. Jon and I measured the diagonals on the frame a dozen times and they all came out within a 1/32in yet the squares would say all 4 corners in a square section were tight. We quit for the night after that and will get back to it next Wednesday.

Have a Merry Christmas, OAVS

Things are picking up...

In the past few weeks our project has ramped up considerably. The task list we are trying to accomplish before we go to winter break seems to grow longer by the day.

The main issue holding us back has been our calculations for the flow bench. When trying to back calculate the size of the compressor system we need, we discovered our numbers do not match what Jon and Forest have proven through testing. We finally realized that when using the Bernoulli Equation, it does not take into account the change of the air source pressure, as we will be using a compressed air system and our source will be draining constantly throughout our tests. We did find an equation that is used to size a compressor while taking in to effect the change in source pressure. This allowed us to properly size our compressor system and finally be able to take a step forward.

Our DAQ is finally done and tested!  Jon and Forest have been finishing the CAD models, wiring diagrams, as well as user manuals for both in car use and flow bench use. With that done, we now have some extra man power on designing the flow bench, everything from modeling parts to creating the prints. Our plan is to have it built and tested by January 14^th so we can to start testing the catch cans.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks with many more ahead, but we are starting to see progress in the right direction. Motto for this month has been Press on Regardless!!!