Automated Aerosol Can Puncture 3.0

Team: Marshall Breck, AJ Burns, Karsten Jacobson, Jackson Jepperson, Chase Mortensen, Andrew Mushet

Sponsor: HAFB

Project Description

Hill Air Force Base (HAFB) produces 40,000 waste aerosol cans per year. To properly dispose of the cans, technicians must puncture, drain, and recycle each can. To reduce labor time and personnel exposure, we were tasked with improving a previously developed unit to meet the following requirements:

  • Decrease operator time to load
  • Increase output of punctured cans
  • Decrease loading height
  • Decrease loading weight
  • Reduce the force required to move the cart
  • Increase overall reliability of the puncturing system
a rendered diagram of a level
a rendered diagram of a cart

Design Description

A: Metering Magazine: Allows 3 cans to be loaded on each side, while using custom gears to align cans before puncture enabling the technicians to have time between error free loading.

B: Cart: Custom fabricated cart that houses all components internally. This allows for reliable operation and organization. The cans are punctured and ejected off the cart at the height of the dumpster used for disposal.

C: Loading: Using a custom gantry-crane track and linear action pneumatic cylinder, the cans are pushed into the puncturing device from a custom cradle from underneath the cart top.

Performance Review

Decrease operator time to load [Yes]

With the addition of can alignment systems the product has decreased the overall input required from the operator thus decreasing the operator time to load.

Increase output of punctured cans [Yes]

At the current stage of testing this design requirement is met. Through further testing a final output per minute can be determined.

Decrease loading height [TBD]

Currently the loading height is too tall, however, with the purchase of steps this design requirement will be fulfilled.

Decrease loading weight [No]

The cart currently fashioned to have the operator load cans into a magazine, because of this they are required to do the lifting that the customer wanted to be eliminated.

Reduce the force required to move the cart [Yes]

The cart is equipped with heavy-duty caster wheels and has the ability to be moved with a forklift, thus it meets this requirement.

Increase overall reliability of the puncturing system [TBD]

Due to the lack of full cans, the team was unable to evaluate this criteria thoroughly. Reliability can be determined with more testing.

a rendered diagram of a sort of casing

Conclusion

Currently, the updates to the unit meet 3 of the 6 customer constraints. However, the unit can meet all requirements with small adjustments found through more testing.

Lessons Learned:

We learned the difficulty of fabrication and assembly and how setbacks need to be better accounted for. Additionally, we learned the difficulty that arises when working within a design created by a completely different group.

Future Work:

For the cart to be fully realized we recommend more extensive testing, there is refinement that can be done in the timing and pushing force that can be refined through more testing.