Finite Element Analysis of a Washing Machine Cylinder

In this thesis a finite element model of a household washing machine cylinder is built and analysed in ABAQUS 6.9-2. The aim is to help Asko appliances in conducting similar analysis for future manufacturing of high capacity cylinders by reducing experimentation. The analysis is mainly concerned with an evenly distributed load at a constant angular velocity. The load is applied with the help of lead plates instead of clothes. The cylinder is loaded with three thin (2 mm) lead plates weighing 2 kg each. The plates with dimensional 370x240x2 mm are mounted with one strip of double sided foam tape inside the cylinder. To estimate the behavior of the cylinder the strains are measured when the cylinder is rotating at 1620 and 2200 revolution per minute (rpm). To validate the model the numerical analyses are compared with experimental results. The results clearly show that the numerical strain values fit with experimental strain values