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Solar Turbines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc that manufactures industrial gas turbines. To perform maintenance activities on their T250 engine, Solar uses an accessory gearbox support and pulling system. This field tool bolts onto the inlet and splits the engine to allow for on-site maintenance. This tool, however, is currently made of ASTM A36 carbon steel. Though the carbon steel assembly ensures that this apparatus has a high safety factor, it also causes the part to be heavy and difficult to maneuver in terms of installation. Therefore, the

purpose of this project is to optimize this field tool and to create a documented optimization procedure that may be used as a guideline for future teams.

Objectives:

The project involves mechanical analysis of a field tool in order to optimize its strength-to-weight ratio. This first requires the evaluation of the turbine package maintenance tool in terms of its weight and yield performance. From here, consideration of new geometry and materials for an optimized tool design was made. We were expected to create a comprehensive flowchart on altering the design to meet the desired requirements. At the end of the presentation, a recommended solution for the tool as well as the documented process of our analytical approach is to be delivered to our sponsor.