Abstract:
Presses produce a variety of similar articles in large quantities through press work operations. In Kenya, many manufacturers have manually operated Open-front Power Presses which have low productivity and attendant safety hazards to operators. The purpose of this study was to simulate a computer-aided automation system for open- fiont power press operations to achieve higher output and eliminate manual operation which has attendant operator safety hazards. This was achieved by designing a linear press cell that gave a production range of 7-19 working strokes per minute(SPM). Comparing this with the manual production of standard building shovel study case which is produced at an average rate of 2 strokes per minute(SPM), simulation of the automated Open-front Power Presses gave an output improvement of at least 350% when the Press is loaded to the maximum allowable limit of l5% velocity loss.The algorithm and equations of the system “ere developed and modeled in the Matlab-Simulink environment in the form of function M- file and M~file S-function codes with the latter being accessed through Simulink models. Hie Simulink models were interfaced to 3D models built in V-Realm Builder2.0 sofiware through the virtual reality toolbox. Simulation of the function M-file codes gave graphical outputs while simulation of the M-file S-function code driven Simulink models gave both graphical and 3D virtual reality animation outputs.However, signal attenuation was experienced at speeds higher than 10units/s for Simulink model scope outputs while signal attenuation was not experienced over the speed range in function M-file graphical outputs. Also, 3D virtual reality simulation results showed that the M-file S-function driven Simulink model resulted in animation distortions in the form of extraneous linear and rotary displacements in the X and Z directions. The results ofthis work enabled the modeling and simulation ofthe automation system for manually operated Open-front Power presses. ln Academia. it can be used for making 3D animation demonstration models for teaching and learning in colleges and schools while in industry, modeling and simulation of design will eliminate expensive design errors before committing actual resources in hardware implementation. This work is therefore a template for automation of manually operated Open—front Power Presses.
