Bamboo is widely used in various applications such as structural elements, furniture, and accessories. Among bamboo accessories, Poaceae Life Design’s one of products is the bamboo hanger, which is manufactured by bending bamboo strips into a bow shape and assembling them with other components. Poaceae Life Design aims to establish a production setup involving workers from nearby villages to assemble bamboo hangers. In the current practice, bamboo strips are soaked in water, manually bent while heat is applied, cooled to retain the shape, and then assembled with supporting parts. The overall process takes approximately two hours and 4 to 5 hangers are produced per person per day (8-hour shift).The target production rate is approximately 200 hangers per person per day.
Therefore, there is a need for a manually operated fixture that can assist workers in assembling bamboo hanger components within a 3 min per unit.
Load requirements of Bamboo to get 5.5cm depth
Experiment 1
Bamboo is simply supported at it’s centre through clamp and load is added both sides as Bag + metal sheets as dead weights + clamp are considered in total weight and took weighing machine from soil lab. Setup and performed in workshop.
Both sides weights were added one by one until 5.5cm depth is achieved between centre clamp and ends of bamboo
Weight at A = 4.834 kg and Weight at B = 4.814 kg
FBD of our target setup as a simple supported beam
Under Static equilibrium, parallel forces in same plane moment about point A = 0
∴ (A*0) – (B*46.5) + (R*23) = 0
∴ (R*23) = (B*46.5)
∴ R = 2B ⟹ R = 2*4.8
∴ R = 9.6 kg
Experiment 2
Bamboo is simply supported at it’s centre through clamp and load is added on one side as Bag + metal sheets as dead weights + clamp + 5kg concrete block are considered in total weight
Considering 3.3 cm shift of bamboo corners during bending and 2.5cm is length of wedge = 5.8cm minimum clearance should be there . So we chose 6.5cm to add weight which when empirically transferred on centre it will be twice as observed from Experiment 1
Mechanical Leverage :
O point is hinge, at point A will be the actual load need to deliver to bamboo from above it’s approx. 20kg force and at B point where we will apply force of 5kg
∴ 20Xr = 5Xf
∴ Xf = 4*Xr
Front:
Back:
Learned Wood routing from Arti ma’am
POC:
Mr. Ajit Takke’s Feedback: Bamboo ends are flat we need curvature.
In physics, curvature (k) is directly proportional to the Bending Moment:
k =
M = Moment
E = Youngs Modulus
I = area of moment of inertia
Moment is maximum at center and M = 0 at ends, therefore k = 0 and no bending.
So therefore we have to increase more resistance points such that primary functionality is fulfilled i.e. Bamboo Hanger should get Assemble using fixture.
From 8 iterations following is selected using decision matrix:
Concept:
CAD:
