Design study of a ninety degree rotator unit

Abstract

The project was proposed by Dr. Fadi SAIFI, an engineer from INDEVCO, targeting to design and study an effective unit to rotate products. The rotation of the product must reach 90 degrees at high speeds and capable to achieve 1000 pieces per minute. The design will help in improving the automation of the process and decrease the number of labors working on the process, in addition to the decrease in the dimensions of the total machine. Hence, this rotation will be a necessary phase in the production process since a wrapping process follows. At the beginning, we were discussing about two belt conveyors, perpendicular to each other, where the sanitary napkins are dragged to the other conveyor. The second idea proposed was to use one conveyor on which we have an inclined arm that rotates the sanitary napkins 90 degrees. The third idea represents two conveyors running in the same direction but with different velocities. The napkin is held on a cylinder that is in contact between the two belts. Hence, Friction between cylinder and conveyors will lead to the rotation of the cylinder and thus the rotation of the napkin. After several interpretations, we found a system that works by a rotating disc where paddles are attached. The paddles are driven by several types of gears. The system is composed of gears, bearings, key, ring, paddles, shafts…, and should be designed in a compact way so it could fit on the existing machine. The paddles, holding the work pieces, are oriented and rotated by bevel gears. Thus, nine paddles will exist in the design so the process can be rotating many parts at continuous manner. These paddles will be set prior the functioning of the rotator unit so they ensure the rotation of 90 degrees throughout the process. Finally, sizing, component selection and cost estimation were concluded to finalize and set all the data required to build the rotator unit.