Heat Shrink Oven
...a conveyor belt that turns at a preset speed. The insulated heat generator is placed directly on top of the belt and operates at a steady state at a desired temperature. The basic function of the oven is to shrink wrap a tubing so that it holds the wires in place. The way this is done is quite simple, the wires are placed inside the tubing and laid on the conveyor belt which passes slowly through the heat generator and comes out the other end shrink wrapped. The process is effective and provides good results. 3.0 Oven Liabilities 3.1 Heat Dissipation Heat dissipation is the main problem that team Alpsheat wants to solve. If there is too much heat loss that means that we are not concentrating the heat where it should go and therefore loosing valuable energy. From what we have seen of the oven, we can see that better insulation is needed. The only insulated part is where the heating generator is located, which is attached to the cover. A major flaw with the design of this oven that the Chief Engineer at Alps let us know about is that the cover makes direct contact with the main body of the oven so there is conduction and convection heat from the heat generator to the main body. This conduction causes the whole oven to get hot when only a certain part of it should be. Our objective is to find a better way to reduce on the heat escaping to the surrounding. One of the possible solutions that our team has already talked about is optimizing the insulation of the oven. We have to conserve all the heat possible and direct it where it is needed. A good design of the insulation should accomplish this. 3.2 Safety One of the major concerns that the Alps talked to us about was the safety of the operators of the oven. With the heat generated by the oven, the temperature in a radius of a couple of feet is too hot to work comfortably. When we visited the Alps plant in Reynosa the workers operating this machine were sweating and clearly resenting the heat. We asked one of the operators if he worked with the oven all day and he told us that they took turns operating it so that it wouldn’t be so tiring. Another major hazard is that the operator may actually come in contact with the oven and get burned by the oven’s surface. The worst case scenario that could happen is that the oven can start a fire and damage expensive equipment if not burn down part of the manufacturing plant. 3.3 Efficiency Another source of concern for the oven is its inefficiency. A lot of the heat generated by the heater is not being used. It is wasted by dissipating into the surroundings instead of being concentrated to the conveyor belt. Alps is unhappy with the power consumption of the oven which is why it was replaced. Its power supply is quit high and one can imagine how much power it consumes per hour. Right now we don’t have the exact data of power consumption but we are sure to get it soon. A reduction in power consumption by the oven is one of the main reason people at Alps want us to redesign the oven. 3.4 Cooling Right now Alps has to compensate the heat generated by the oven to its surroundings by adding a cooling system. This means that Alps is actually using twice the energy to operate to oven, first to heat the oven and then too cool its surroundings. This process is very costly for the company. Alps want us to minimize the need of a cooling system or get rid of it if possible. 4.0 Design Objectives In order to successfully meet the needs of the client, a list of objectives for the improvement of the oven has been developed. The ideal design would be: • reasonably priced • well-built • long-lasting • transportable • easy to repair 4.1 Design Constraints As with any project design there are constrains that we must follow in our goal to accomplish our end results. Constrains are parameters that the design must meet; a design concept that fails to meet and of the constraints will be discarded. The design constraints for the Heat Shrink Oven are as fallows: • The design of the oven must be cost effective. We want to spend money prudently. There exist many ovens in the market that are ready to do the job. We have to work with this old oven and make it as competent as the other models in the market with as little money as possible • We have to maintain the oven transportable. We have to keep more or less the same dimensions of the oven so that we can incorporate it into individual work cells. The oven is going to be moved around from work cell to work cell so maneuverability is a must. The oven has to conform to the current standards that Alps Automotive has set for us. • The new oven design has to be long lasting. We want our new oven to work proficiently throughout its life span and not just for a short time. Alps automotive must meet the demand of its customers and the last thing they want to worry about is that their heat shrink oven is not working. • The oven must be easy to repair. Everybody knows that machines will go down. The oven has to stay relatively free of these problems. If the oven is down frequently the production of heat shrink components will diminish and Alps is not going to like this. We want our oven to be easily accessible for repair and keep fixing time to a minimum. 5.0 Timeline/Schedule Right now we are done with the problem formulation part of the Engineering Design Process. We have recognized the need to redesign the oven so that it can be reintegrated into a work cell. The needs have been specified to us by the Alps engineers. A conceptual design of the oven is being impalement right now. We have made a functional decomposition of our oven. 6.0 Concept Generation For our concept generation we first determine exactly how the oven functions when operating it in the conditions it was given to us. We run the oven and got familiar with the controls and switches the oven has. By observing how the oven runs we detected several problems. From this operation we understood that our most important problem we have with this oven is the heat dissipation. To accurately...