Design and Fabrication of Semi-Automatic Road Reflector Stud Installation Machine

ABSTRACT:

Automation is an essential component nowadays to eliminate the requirements of labour in any industries. Road reflector stud is the important component that mainly prevents the major accidents during night time. But, Manual road reflector stud installation adds up to the major challenge of labour shortage in public work departments. Moreover the manual process is time consuming and not suitable for large volume installations in the roads. The main objective of this work is to design a semi-automated machine for the installation of road reflector studs. The conventional method employs four different processes includes drilling of hole on to the roads, pouring of epoxy resin, placing and stamping of studs, all these process done one back another manually. The present work consists of four stations to do these four processes and employs simple station transfer mechanism. Pneumatic power is fruitfully utilized in this project and the system is controlled by a microcontroller. This paper brings out the detail design procedure, hand calculations, fabrication procedure and system assembly of the machine.

INTRODUCTION

In today’s world increase in urbanization demands a large volume of road construction projects to maintain good communication between cities. This change is accompanied by number of road safety systems and one such system is the road reflector studs, commonly called as Cat’s eye . Road studs are retro reflective markers on the road surface to supplement longitudinal road markings, aiding visibility at night. Road studs have a retro reflective surface which reflects the light from vehicle headlights providing drivers with effective lane delineation, particularly during the hours of darkness and in adverse weather conditions.It has been reported that with the introduction of cat’s eye, road accidents are reduced by a large number. There is no current system that is being tried for automating the installation of the reflector studs on to the roads and manual effort is fully utilized for it. In recent years Public Works Department faces acute labour shortage problems and road stud installation adds up to it. Also manual installation consumes more time and are not efficient. This paper aims to design and fabricate a semi-automated machine for the installation of road reflector studs. This system once developed into a real time model will have the key to shape the future of road construction and safety and greatly reduces the relying of construction field on man power.

WORKING

The road studs are initially stacked in to the hopper . Once the machine is placed on the desired location and switched on, the four processes included in the road stud installation are carried out sequentially. On the first station a hole is drilled on the road for the depth of the stud’s leg. This can be achieved by a driller setup and lead screw arrangement. Provision of blower setup from the compressor ensures clearing the hole of sand and stone particles. The motor used here is of high torque enough to withstand the back pressure exerted while drilling on the road. Stability of the setup can be maintained while drilling with the help of pneumatic stability legs as seen in earthmovers. Once the drilling is completed the base motor rotates for 90 degrees and the pouring of epoxy resin in to the hole is carried out in this station. Epoxy resin is highly adhesive in nature which firmly fixes the road studs on to the roads and are not affected by any atmospheric conditions like sun’s heat. On another 90 degree rotation the 3rd station starts to do its job. Here from the hopper one stud is made to fit into the hole with the help of a pneumatic cylinder. Once this is accurately done with the provision of proper guide ways, in the next station a pneumatic cylinder stamps the stud that tightly fits them on to the roads. The entire sequence is controlled by a microcontroller and it is programmed such that . With the availability of small sized portable compressors and battery power supply adds the features of less weight and low cost to this machine.

Design Calculations

The design calculations utilized for the present work is reported in this section.

Selection of Pneumatic Cylinders is given

• below Stroke Length – 200mm
• Dia of the cylinder – 400mm
• Operating pressure – 4 to 10 bar
• Dia of the rod – 200 mm
• Force Calculations are based on the following values and it will be around 880N.
• Pressure = 700 kPa (assuming)
• Cylinder Diameter = 40 mm

Mechanical Section

Product Design is the most important stage which is iterative and complex in nature till the visualization comes into real picture. This machine is designed using Pro-E creo software. Initially the part drawings are made to the dimension specified and then the parts are assembled as shown in Fig. Once the design meets the requirement, the real time setup is fabricated. For the body making steel L angles of size 1’’ is used. They are cut in to specific dimensions and are arc welded. The motors and cylinders are screwed or fastened in appropriate places, motors are coupled to the shafts held in bearings. The entire rotating setup is laid over a base attached with wheels. The fabricated real time setup is shown in Fig.

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Design and Fabrication of Semi-Automatic Road Reflector Stud Installation Machine

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