1-29-2013

Hey everybody, it’s Matt here again.

This past week the whole team has been busy working on getting the flow bench together so we can begin the testing phase of our project. A little over a week ago Dan and I went to Home Depot and Lowes to solicit for donations that would help us complete our flow bench. Though we weren’t able to get 100% of the materials we needed donated, both companies were very generous with the donations they made. Home Depot donated Oak Hardwood plywood, and Lowes donated a gallon of Bar Topper which we’ll be using for a finish on the top of the work bench. This week we managed to cut out all of the plywood for the bench as well as get several coats of polyurethane onto the panels. Our first attempt at creating the bench top ended up having some issues, so Forest and Jon worked on setting up a new bench top and burning some new sponsor tiles. The flow bench should be coming to fruition fairly soon, so keep an eye on the blog, and I or one of the team members will be keeping all of our readers posted.

Remember to check out our web page, and our Picasa photo album to see what we’ve been up to!

Good evening everybody!

It’s Matt from the OAVS Capstone group at the University of Maine. Winter break is winding down to an end with spring semester starting on the 14^th of January. Good news from the capstone team, we’re all back in the Orono area now and getting ready to finish fabricating and assembling the flow bench. Almost all of the parts and materials have been ordered and received at this point. The delayed shipment of metal stock that Forest mentioned in a previous blog post finally came in today which is great! The only things left to get are some sheets of plywood which Dan and I will be doing this week. While I’ve been playing the part of the procurement department over the past week or two, Forest and Jon have been working on fabricating the frame for the bench. While Dan was home he used his sawmill to make us some wood inserts for the bench top, which we’ll be laser etching with our sponsors’ names. Speaking of sponsors, Jon has talked to Mikah Barnett of All Angles Design and he’s agreed to donate his latest catch can design for testing. So a big thanks to Mikah and All Angle’s Design for the support, and thanks to all of our sponsors for all of your help, this capstone project is only doable because of your generosity and I know I speak for the whole capstone team when I say that. Well I think that sums it up for now. Take a look at the pictures below to see what we’ve been up to so far, and we’ll be checking in with the readers later on this week with some more updates!

Here we have the frame of the bench all welded together.

And here's what the first test run through the laser etching machine came out looking like...

Until Next time everybody!

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!!!

Flow Bench Continued.

Hey everyone, It's Matt here to update you on what's going on with the Oil-Vapor Separator Team.

We just sat down briefly with our adviser Chuck Maguire to pick his brain about how to go about setting up our flow bench.  We had run into some issues with looking at fans that would pull enough flow through the system at the pressure that we wanted.  We've now decided on utilizing an air compressor and a holding tank, and then utilizing a flow control valve to push air through our system.

Jon is going to be heading up the design of the oiling mechanism that we'll be using.  It's currently looking as though we'll be going with some kind of capillary tube to supply the oil to the air before it gets to the catch can.  the oil is going to be applied a minimum of 10 tube diameters downstream from the catch can.

Right now we're going to focus in on general design of the system and then narrow our view to other things that we can add to the system.  We'll be updating the blog again by next Thursday at the very latest.

Flow Bench Project Specifications

At our last meeting we had a brain storming session to come up with some parameters that our flow bench hand to meet.  The following is what came out of that meeting.

Flow Bench Project Specifications

- Fluid (oil) that acts, when at room temperature, like engine oil at engine operating temperature.

- Recreate the oil mist that will enter the Catch Can

- Attaches to 3/8 fitting on Catch Can, possibly for other sizes as well

- Flow rate through Catch Can of 0 to 7 CFM (Fan that functions well at low frequencies)

- Measures the pressure drop due to the Catch Can

- Measures of the flow through the Catch Can

- U-Tube Manometer

- Oil Reservoir

- Oil collector (for what is not collected by a catch can)

- Scales to measure the amount of oil that is put into the system and how much the catch can actually collects

- Flow bench Electrical Box for power of all devices

- VFD and PLC to control the Fan

- Easy DAQ installation and removal

- Inlet from atmosphere

- Exhaust to atmosphere

- Table to house all equipment

On the sponsor front, Forest has talked to several of the companies who offered to donate catch cans to our project, and asked if we could possibly receive the catch cans sooner rather than later.

The Website is going through steady updates, we're trying to update it at a minimum of once per week.

Keep watching the blog for more updates!