VIBCO vibrators has tasked the team in designing an internal bin fixture that aids in material flow for the food, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. This bin fixture must be adaptable to various sized diameter bins in order to create a cost efficient product that does not require the customer to make any physical changes to their bin. Lastly the internal fixture must be capable of raising and lowering in a way that gives the customer the ability to control material flow. The team began research on competitor systems that are currently on the market in this industry. After completing this research, it was determined that all of the competitor systems require the customer to make physical changes to their bin in order to implement the system. This being said it was imperative that the team design an internal fixture that can be easily installed without requiring the customer to edit their bin. From here design specifications were determined and discussed with the VIBCO engineering team to ensure that all of the bases were covered.
In order to complete this task, the team began with brainstorming in order to determine some basic design specifications that would guide our 90 concepts generated. After analyzing each of the 90 concepts and a critical design review, two concepts were created by integrating and incorporating many elements of the entire spectrum of concept solutions. From here the team furthered research on different materials that would be strong, light weight, cost efficient, and high-corrosive resistant. After determining the different materials design work was furthered and a Solidworks design of the full internal bin system was created. Before finalizing any Solidworks designs the team crosschecked once again the proposed design with the competitors to ensure that this had not been done before. After completing and simulating a model of the proposed design the team performed a financial analysis and determined we are well under competitor pricing once this design is in full production. All of our other design specifications were met but the team would continue to make improvements. Once the design had been approved by VIBCO, parts were ordered and the build portion of the project began. Testing of the system soon followed at VIBCO using a bin they had on site. With the testing and data collected, redesign and improvements were able to be made to the original prototype
