Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste ...

Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management
Dissertations
Systematic design and process optimisation of
a robot for treatment of biomass in solar dryers
Innovation stress and short product life cycles in the
industrial sector of biomass processing ask for clear
methodical procedures during the design process. Currently,
there is a lack of systematic approaches to the
development process of technical systems in this sector.
Therefore, in this work the design method proposed
by The Association of German Engineers (VDI) was
tested and adapted to the context of biomass process
engineering. The development of a mixing and transporting
robot for solar biomass dryers exemplifies the
potential of that systematic and scientific approach.
First, the requirements on the robot were determined
to set up in ‘requirements lists’. A ‘conflict matrix’
supported identification and elimination of conflicts
of aims. The requirements on the functions of the robot
were abstracted and arranged in several ‘function
structure plans’. For each function, various potential
‘working principles’ were identified and organised in
several ‘morphological matrices’. In order to select exclusive
reliable and cost-efficient components each of
the 155 identified working principles was benchmarked
in a ‘pre-evaluation matrix’. The best-marked components
were chosen and combined to two promising preliminary
concepts for the robot.
Prototype of the biomass processing robot during a
field test
Next, the modules of the robot were refined and worked
out to two preliminary embodiment designs, solution
(1) and (2). Before releasing for production,
both designs were technically and economically evaluated.
As result, the economically and technically
weak points were identified. The product strength s of
the solutions for the robot was computed as s 1
=0.79
and s 2
=0.70. Solution (1) was therefore selected for
being designed in detail. For detail design phase, an
approach is presented to combine novel Digital Mock-
Up (DMU) techniques with the VDI design method.
As result, especially FEM structure analysis, collision
and assembly analyses were integrated into the VDI
procedure. Prior to building the first physical prototype
design problems were identified and solved on
the digital prototype ranging from geometrical errors
to impossible assembly sequences. In addition, this
work shows a strategy for Product Data Management
(DMU). Data information loss was therefore reduced
and data safety was increased since the suppliers got
exclusively the manufacturing information they needed
actually. Finally, a physical prototype was manufactured
and tested before market release. For this testing
phase, an optimisation approach was integrated
into the VDI design process. That approach was exemplified
by optimising the mixing and transporting module
of the biomass processing robot. During testing
Optimised biomass processing robot after release for
serial production in a solar dryer for sewage sludge
near Vienna, Austria
Digital analyse of human/machine interaction during
opening the hinged moror cap of the biomass processing
robot
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