Design, Modelling and Manufacturing of 16 Cylinder Hydraulic Fixture with Automated Clamping System

Abstract

The function of a jig and/or fixture (fixturing system) is to hold a workpiece firmly in position during a manufacturing process. It is seeming that almost all the literature of fixture is focused on principles and theoretical aspects of fixture design. This raises a question of the practical value of fixture research. There is a clear demand for designing and manufacturing fixture for real industrial component and more research in computerized fixture design in such fields. The present research work satisfies this demand by deploying the fixture design task into an overall manufacturing process to obtain best fixture design solution for real industrial component. The component is rear flange of gear case widely used in automobile industry, made up of cast iron. The major operations to be performed are drilling and milling. The research includes design and manufacturing of a fixture with automated clamping system, which provides location and clamping arrangement for machining 4 components in one cycle on VMC 640 of pallet size 800 mm x 500 mm. Machine tools, material handling devices, transport and other mobile equipment, aviation systems, etc. do use hydraulic systems, butapplication of hydraulic principles in fixture is of uncovered area till now. This paper includes designing and manufacturing 16-cylinder hydraulic fixture with automated clamping system for machining rear flange on VMC. The important details of the part and fixture are included in each section along with 2D drawing and 3D view of finished component and fixture assembly using Creo 2.0.Fixture is not only designed but manufactured also, it sets the classical example of design for manufacturing.