Fourfold Gripping Force Through Additive Manufacturing

Video: Fourfold Gripping Force Through Additive Manufacturing

Отличия серверных жестких дисков от десктопных — Video: Topology optimization for additive manufacturing Part 1/4 2023, February

The new robots for the pick & pack area had already been ordered when the Langen Group, supplier to a large American food manufacturer, began designing a gripper arm. With his help, the robots were supposed to grab packaged and stacked crackers and pack them in boxes. Then the engineers encountered a problem: the gripper had to be ultra-light. Because in order to be able to work with the maximum speed of the robot, the gripper that transports crackers in packaging, together with the product, could not be heavier than two kilograms. Since the largest packaging unit already weighed 1.5 kilograms, the end piece used had to weigh less than 500 grams.

Light weight in focus

The Langen Group, a global provider of cargo handling and packaging equipment, turned to Anubis 3D, a division of Anubis Manufacturing Consultants Corporation based in Mississauga, ON, Canada. Tharwat Fouad, President at Anubis, sums up the basic challenge as follows: “The weight restriction excluded aluminum or sheet metal as a material. Larger robots, which would have been more expensive, would have had to be ordered for a heavier metal gripper - and there was also a lot of time pressure.”

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In addition, the tool should be able to be fastened without nuts and screws so that the operating personnel can easily and, above all, quickly replace the gripper units. "There were a total of two completely different configurations, different shapes and three carton sizes, with two small cartons or one large carton each having to be loaded," explains Fouad. “The customer wanted a tool that is suitable for all carton sizes and weighs no more than half a kilo. And of course as quickly as possible."