Failure analysis of production device
Shortly after a new manufacturing machine for optical disk printing was put into use, the machine’s rotary arm failed. The cause: fatigue. The pressures placed on the arm during the printing process exceeded the fatigue strength. Femto was asked to anal
Solution
To ensure a reliable reproduction process, it is of great importance that the structure of the device is fail-safe and that the angular deformation of the end is very low. Early failure of the device indicated that the fatigue life was too short. Hence, the fail-safe objective was not met. Analysis of the device under process conditions showed that the stresses were above the fatigue endurance limit. Redesigning the rotary device arm resulted in operational stresses below the fatigue limit. The redesigning process involved increasing the arm thickness and changing the groove length and position. This new design was eventually implemented in the manufacturing machine.
Results
Redesigning the device resulted in increased fatigue strength and a reduced angular deformation, which is beneficial to the reproducibility of the optical disks.
Any questions about this project? Contact Tom Santegoeds at ts@femto.eu.