Subject 1 : Water for all Research

Subject 1 : Water for all Research

Revised Brief :

The aim for this term assignment is to produce a product in which lightens the burden of water collection for women in developing .Statistically 40 billion hours a year is spent on water collection in developing countries and the water collected have been known to be contaminated with deadly bacteria which causes diarrhoea and other deadly diseases . The target market I have chosen to aim my product at women who have a family of four in Chad (more specifically Niger) who currently operate a small farm and require roughly 50 litres of water a day for consumption , bathing and other .The reason why I have chosen to target women as a consumer is because it is largely the women populations response-ability to collect water in developing countries .The aim is to create a product in which helps the collection process of water by the transportation needed to collect the water or by making the water collected ,be more efficiently used reducing the need to gather more water .

Aesthetics: Must appeal to be easy to use and colours must not draw any attention and can be easily operated .
Function: Must be able to travel long distances as well as storing water ,allowing comfort and easy to the user
Cost: Considering the cost of the product is charge through charities the cost can be slightly higher.
Size: large enough to only need to make one trip and store water for a family of four as well as being able to feed the crops .

During my research stage I came across different methods to purify water in the wild using the bare minimum of resources .

References

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/how-to-find-water.htm

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2012/03/22/world-water-day-10-places-most-in-need-of-clean-water/

Subject 2 : Poster Designs ( Final )

Subject 2 : Urban Farm Features board

Subject 2 : Rotational moulding (Original Design)

Subject 2 : Rotational moulding Technical Requirements

Wall Thickness

The ideal way to specify the wall thickness on a rotationally moulded part is to specify the NOMINAL wall thickness and also the MINIMUM wall thickness that can be allowed anywhere on the part.  Since moulding is done with a female tool only – with no matching male portion of the tool – accurate wall thickness is not attainable.

A tolerance of +-20% should be considered as a commercial tolerance whereas +-10% would be precision and be more expensive to maintain.

It should also be noted that because of material flow characteristics outside corners tend to be thicker that nominal wall {usually an advantage since outside corners are frequently heavily loaded} whereas projections into the moulding tend to thin out.  These are generally not regarded within the general wall tolerance.

A. Inward projections thin out.      B. Outside corners thicker

Although generally the process produces relatively even wall thickness it is possible to locally increase the wall thickness if necessary.

A typical wall thickness, at Amber, ranges from 3mm – 10mm.

View – Corner Radii

Taper and Draft Angles

An advantage of rotational moulding, over other processes, is that products can be moulded with no draft angle at all, since the tool is of female form with no internal core for the moulding to shrink into. As the product cools it shrinks away from the walls of the mould making it easier to remove.  It should be noted, however, that textured surfaces, moulded in logos etc. may necessitate taper even on a female shape.

The draft angles below are recommended to be incorporated unless it interferes with the functional requirements of the part.

INWARD PROJECTIONS
Minimum   –  1 degree
Recommended   –  2 degrees

Flatness of Rotational Moulded Surfaces

The flatness of product surface is subject to the design and cooling process.

Typical flatness tolerances for polyethylene would be 5% ideal with 2% as a commercial tolerance and 1% as a precision tolerance.

If at all possible, the design of parts to be rotationally moulded should avoid large flat areas.  If absolutely necessary they should be broken up by reinforcing ribs (see next section) or possibly have a gentle curvature on them.  Moulded in detail, such as lettering, logo’s etc. can also break a flat surface up visually so that lack of flatness is disguised.

Corners and their radius can affect the flatness of adjacent surfaces as differential cooling rates can cause the corner angle to distort. This effect is minimised by careful design of the corner, the tooling and cooling process.

View – Ribs in  Rotational Moulded Products

Difficult to Mould Geometry

If the design, of the product, is not done with the rotational moulding process in mind certain areas can prove troublesome to mould.  These include small corner angles, walls very close together and parts with undercuts.

The first two of these result from material bridging over the space between the two walls of the moulding when they are too close together. If bridging occurs the bottom part of the moulding will not fill out

To be sure of proper fill the width should be a minimum of five times the wall thickness.

If an angle is too acute we have a similar effect.  If possible the angle should be kept to a minimum of 30 degrees and all radii should be kept as large as possible.

Undercuts on Rotational Mouldings

An undercut is any wall projecting inwards or outwards, parallel to the parting line of the tool, which makes the removal of the moulding difficult if not impossible.

Since the rotational moulding process uses hollow tools, with no male core, it is sometimes possible to use the shrinkage during moulding to enable small undercuts to be removed.

Hence in the diagram if the undercut at A is small enough (and even better if there is a generous radius at A) then the part shrinkage will enable the part to be removed.  If the undercut is too big then, the split line must be moved to XX and the inward projecting boss has then to be moulded using a removable loose piece.  Thus the part has to be designed with product removal very much in mind.

Tolerance of Rotational Moulding

As previously mentioned; it is difficult to hold rotationally moulded parts to tight tolerances.  The outside dimensions of a rotationally moulded plastic part are free to draw away from the inside surfaces of the tool as the plastic cools and shrinks.

It should be noted however that where the tool form represents a male form and the moulding shrinks on to the mould it is possible to hold tolerances much more closely.

It should also be noted that since the inside surfaces of the part are formed only by flow of the plastic and not against a males core it is very difficult to control these to any repetitive degree of accuracy.

Although each product design is a special case which must be given individual consideration; in general, a tolerance of 2-3% would be considered a commercial tolerance and 1% to be precision.  As with all tolerances the best is the broadest tolerance that will satisfy the end use requirement of the part.

Subject 2 : Rotational moulding Corners

Corner Radii – Corner Radius for Rotational Moulding

Radii on the corners of rotationally moulded parts fulfil two functions:

A. They distribute the corner stress of the part of a broader area which adds strength to the part.
B. They help the moulding of these corners by the process – too tight a radius can give an incomplete corner.

A plastic part, on loading, will be highly stressed when the radius R on the inside corner is less than 25% of the nominal wall thickness. The stress is reduced as the radii are increased up to 75% of the wall thickness. Increasing the radius has much less dramatic effect on the stress reduction above this.

As well as the effect on stresses, sharp corners are problem areas in moulding.
Sharp inside corners tend to:

A. Be the last portions of the mould to react to moulding temperatures.
B. The plastic has a tendency to flow quickly over these corners.

These two factors result in a general reduction in wall thickness in the moulded part where there are sharp inside corners.
Sharp outside corners cannot always be filled out completely. If the corner is too sharp the first layers of plastic picked up by the mould tend to bridge across the corner leaving air bubbles and incompletely formed radius

Therefore, in rotational moulding it is recommended that all corners have generous radii. The table below gives the recommended radius for Polyethylene and Nylon.

POLYETHYLENE corner RADIUS for Rotational Moulding
Ideal – 12mm (inside), 6mm (outside)
Minimum – 4mm (inside), 3mm (outside)

NYLON corner RADIUS for Rotational Moulding
Ideal – 20mm (inside), 12mm (outside)
Minimum – 5mm (inside), 5mm (outside)

Subject 2 : Rotational moulding Increased strength

Ribs in Rotational Moulded Products

Some thermoplastics used in rotational moulding are not inherently stiff materials e.g. PE, EBA.  In order to increase product stiffness, ribs are used extensively without great increase in part weight.   The correct use of stiffening ribs results in stiff lightweight parts that can be produced more economically because  the wall section uses less material and is quicker to mould.

Stiffening ribs in rotationally moulded parts cannot be designed as solid sections (as with injection moulded or compression moulded parts) – the relevant sections would not fill out.  Instead the stiffening ribs are designed as hollow sections similar to corrugated sheet. They can be raised or embossed.

The diagram below shows good average proportions for ribs where the depth D is at least four times the wall thickness T and the width W is at least five times the nominal wall.  Increasing the depth D increases the stiffness but it also increases the difficulty in moulding and part removal.  Decreasing the width W makes moulding more difficult increasing the chance of material bridging off between the two walls and not fully filling the rib.

Round ribs shown below are often specified as they are much easier to mould however they do not provide as much of an increases in stiffness as there is less depth D lying perpendicular to the wall.

Subject 2 : Poster designs

Experimenting with the rendering process by changing the colour scheme trying to create a range of examples to get a better and clear example of the final design for my product. This was done through using more vibrant colours to bring out the image and messing around with the light and camera angle to portray the product to the best angle to display what it does as well as be aesthetically pleasing .

 Example of the first poster layout ,which used a light grey background to try to prevent the poster looking too conventional and creating a simple and elegant background which did not over power the main rendered image . The image on the right was an example of a rendered image which was in a exploded view and in order to get the rendered image to look more elegant I decided to increase the lighting and the end result was not the best due to the fact some of the details on the design was not shown . By experimenting this through cad allowed the best final outcome for the product poster .

 The poster had developed more through adding close up view of certain components creating a better features board for the poster illustrating the products functions more effectively . This however made the poster look to dull in the fact that there was no colour contrast on the poster reflecting on to the product itself . Which meant there was a need to change the way the poster was formatted and designed through adding more life into the poster by adding colour.

Sujbejct 2 : Rotational moulding Research

Materials / Plastics for Rotational Moulding

AMBER uses materials such as Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Nylon 12, EBA.

POLYETHYLENE:
Polyethylene (or Polythene as it is also known) is, by far, the material most used for rotational moulding. It has ease of processing, good low temperature impact strength and excellent chemical resistance. It falls into various categories.

L.D.P.E. {Low Density Polyethylene} – This is flexible and tough, easy to process and has low strength, excellent chemical resistance.

L.L.D.P.E. {Linear Low Density Polyethylene} – Better mechanical properties than L.D.P.E. Higher stiffness, excellent low temperature impact strength and environmental stress crack resistance.

H.D.P.E. {High Density Polyethylene} – Better stiffness than the lower densities but more prone to warping during moulding and lower impact strength.

EBA Copolymer – Gives excellent low temperature flexibility. Has less strength than straight polyethylene.

POLYPROPYLENE:
AMBER is the leading processor of polypropylene in the UK. It gives excellent resistance to stress and high resistant to cracking (i.e. it has high tensile and compressive strength) and high operational temperatures with a melting point of 120°C.
It is highly resistant to most alkalis and acid, organic solvents, degreasing agents and electrolytic attack.

NYLON:
Nylon 12 – Low Moisture absorption and good chemical resistance but mechanical properties and heat resistance lower than, for example, Nylon 6. Nylon 12 is more easily processed but more expensive.
Nylon’s secondary finishing operations are more difficult than polyethylene’s.