156B Week 2

Week 2 Accomplishments

Analysis of gaskets completed with respect to a negative vacuum pressure. Gasket choices ranked among a list of weighted criteria.

Met with Professor Ghazinejad concerning our mathematical analysis on clamps and fasteners. This will aid our final design choice of clamps in the upcoming week.

Test rig CAD was further refined to be built from bent sheet metal instead of COTS channels. BOM for the test rig was drafted and preliminary budget was set. We hope to finalize the design this week and begin manufacturing soon.

Presented our work to both Solar Turbines and the 156B classroom as the design proposal.

Goals for Next Week (list names after each item). Use specific and measurable objectives.

1. Select Gaskets to purchase based on 1/8th minimum compressed thickness, and explore application methods. (Patrick)

2. Make Pugh Chart for Clamps and begin proposals for test rig (Josue/Everyone)

3. Clamp length placement (2D beam case), compare the cases for steel and aluminum sheet metal of various thickness (Jose/JD)

4. Further refine test rig CAD by adding bolt holes and considering clamp mounting (JD)

5. Discuss welding of test rig and test operation procedure with machine shop (Young)

6. Begin 2D drawings of test rig to submit to machine shop - finish the bottom half (JD/Young)

Sponsor Comments from Last Meeting and Actions Taken to Address these Comments (in person conversation 4/7 1PM)

1. Discussed budget of test rig and plans to manufacture

   1. Thinner steel sheet or aluminum sheet can both be considered for the scaled prototype. Future analysis will consider both of these options, as full thickness steel is unworkable in our machine shop.

   2. Electronic vacuum transducer is expensive, so we have to further discuss if it is a necessary purchase. Our current plan is to continue with our plan to purchase one, and then use an analog pressure gauge for redundancy.

Instructor Comments from Last Meeting and Actions Taken to Address these Comments  (indicate date of comments and if via email or in person)

1. Steve at the machine shop might be willing to weld our assembly - this would ensure an airtight seal and a solid structure. We will discuss the idea with him, but are okay without using welding to assemble our structure.

2. Professor Ghazinejad helped us distill the math behind fasteners, and we will go forward this week to apply it to our own use cases.

Comments from Other Students in the Class (indicate date of comments and if via email or in person)

1. We need to establish a standard acceptable leak rate. This will be done by sealing the test rig with Sikaflex as a control, and using the data from that test to compare our gasket choices to

Risks and Areas of Concern

We are approaching final design decisions for the gasket, clamps, and test rig geometry. We will try our best to make sure that our designs are supported by rigorous analysis and are approved by both the class and our sponsor. 

Resources or Information Required but not Available

None

Schedule

• • Refer to the Gantt Chart

Budget

Spent: $0

Remaining: $1800