Omkonstruktion av bracket : Metallersättning av aluminium konsol

The thesis was done on assignment and in cooperation with Erteco Rubber & Plastics AB, the assigned project was to create a metal-replacement of an existing aluminium-bracket for an armrest in a truck cab. The goal of the new product is to achieve weight reduction, a reduced material volume and a reduced manufacturing cost. The final product result that the students developed was in direct correlation of the preliminary work that were done in the field of “metal replacement” gave the group an idea of what is possible and what to avoid when creating a detail in plastics. With the preliminary work and the list of demands given to the group the design process of product suggestions started and were worked on until a final suggestion was decided to begin further development into a final result. The final result was a solution where structural ribs were implemented perpendicular to the surface where most of the absorbed force is happening. To achieve the best possible result where the constructional demands match or improve what the original aluminium bracket could achieve, the group decided to use the highest amount of ribs possible while still following the demands on rib-thickness and rib-spacing The results that the students developed were done with help from several tools, among these were the CAD-tool Catia v5 which was used to create the new design and create simpler FEM-analysis. ANSYS Mechanical Enterprise FEA was used during the timespan of the project to create more advanced FEM-analysis with more exact results. Among the two mentioned Moldex3D was also used to create mold-filling analysis