Company: Burnside Engineering, Carlow

1).Hydraulic Ram calculator

Produce a program to semi-automate the stress calculations for a hydraulic cylinder. This maybe could be done in an Excel spreadsheet where the different calculations are set out and all a person has to do then is fill in the boxes so that long formulae do not have to be repeated every time.

The project could be performed using Excel, Visual Basic or Excel using visual basic for applications.

2).Web utility for Ram purchase

Design an E-catalogue which customers could use to fill in dimensions to produce a basic drawing for pre-order purposes. The program would be implemented on our website.

Initial implementation could be in a stand alone Visual Basic program. This program could be made available to download from company web page or could be adapter to implement directly on the wed.

3).Automated assembly of small cylinders

Design a machine to automate the assembly of small cylinders. Currently all assembly is done manually by hand. This is largely due to the delicate nature of the seals and the need for care and attention with their fitting. Anyone interested in this project could take a look at some cylinders being assembled to get a better idea of what is involved.

This would be primarily a design / simulation project. In addition to designing the machine it could also be simulated using SW event driven simulation.

4).Analysis of end of stroke cushion

Design an apparatus to measure the cushion rate for a hydraulic cylinder. Only some cylinders have cushioning fitted. Cushioning slows down the cylinder at the end of its stroke. At present the presence of the cushion is detected by eye when the cylinder is tested, this is obviously not ideal in critical applications where the cushion rate is very important.

This project would involve the use of a linear motion sensor interfaced with
Labview for creating a velocity time graph. Initial test could be carried out by compression Ram on Tensile testing machine.

5).Finite element analysis of Hydraulic cylinder.

The purpose of this project is to:- explore the use FEA analysis in its application to hydraulic cylinder design;investigate how the process could be automated and determine what recommendations can be made from the study to help improve these cylinders.

6).Investigate feasibility if implementing CAD CAM system

Burnside engineering have 20 CNC machines but no CAD-CAM system. The purpose of this project is to explore the different types of CAD-CAM system available, the types of operation which might be automated using CADCAM? What are the potential benefits to Burnside of implementation of CADCAM?

As many of Burnsides CNC operations are drilling tapping etc. This project could also explore the viability of implementing a simple system which uses hole positions in Solid Works to create simples CNC programs.