Problem

The company purchased the intellectual property of the toggle clamp from another company, thus the purpose of this project is to develop a report to simulate an applied force through the provided prototype, to test the functionality and structure provided through CAD in real time.

Process

This simulation is divided into several phases:

(1) The first covering the reverse engineering effort for the prototype including a performance simulation, interface design requirements

(2) The loading analysis, and design check

(3) The final report for recommendation and conclusions comparing the performance to the required design specifications.

Solution

The analysis of the multiple aspects of the overall toggle clamp design included a free body diagram analysis, loading equations and calculations, FOS requirement, height specifications and assembly drawings. Through analyzing the major parts and assembly, the entire system had to be increased by a factor of 3 to meet the design specifications of a factor of safety over 2.0. Through the FEA simulation on links the original dimensions provided a factor of safety less than 2. For the Link strap the original FOS was 0.96 (min. of .9578) and after the scale was applied the FOS increased to 5.1 (min. of 5.05). For the Arm, the original FOS was 1.5 (min. of 1.453) and after the scale was applied the FOS increased to 11. Lastly, the base had an original FOS of 0.36 (min. of .3546) and after the scale was applied it increased to 2.3. In the calculated design check with application of appropriate failure criterion displayed that the rivet pin would fail first because it has the smallest area and that the link strap would be the second failure. Although increasing the size of the toggle clamp will increase the cost associated with manufacturing and producing the part, it will provide a safe and reliable mechanism. The toggle clamp meets the design specifications and conditions as follows:

(1) The rated clamping force: 150 lbs

(2) The factor of safety: 2.0

(3) The new links’ lengths of the clamp is capable of operating over the distance between the designated touch flat surface of the part and the flat ground from H=0 in to H=0.25 in to accommodate the potential snubber compression. [1]

Thus, the new design provides a safe product and the minimum scale that can be applied to meet the part specification is 2.65.

Solidworks Drawings

Example FEA Simulations