Finite element analysis of polycarbonate knife cum peeler.

What is it about?

A new concept of kitchen knife is proposed in the presented work and structural stresses are calculated using Solidworks® Simulation software (previously COSMOSWorks) to find its factor of safety (FOS). An h-adaptive method is used which refines the elemental size in the areas of higher strain and “strain energy norm” error. The strength and stiffness criteria are used to select suitable design parameters. The concept is a combination of two cutting devices used in the kitchen these days, a knife, and a peeler. The two types of blade which provide the said functionalities are combined into just one. The blade slides inside a plastic handle having a surface to surface contact, which works like a plunger and barrel arrangement. Here the blade acts like a plunger and the handle acts like a barrel. If the blade is moved to one extreme of the handle, the device acts as a knife, and a peeler if moved to the other extreme. Multiple sketches and CAD (Computer Aided Design) models were created and the most preferred one was further examined. First, a preliminary study is done to find a suitable geometry without the h-adaptive solution. The preliminary geometry is then simulated using h-adaptive method to examine contact stresses and the FOS. Necessary design simplifications were done for simulation purpose. Final production CAD will reflect the aesthetics and functional features after obtaining necessary data from the study presented in this paper. The static loading simulations done in this work shows the most stressed areas of the model and the design presented has a minimum FOS of 1.93 on the handle and 3.7 on the blade using h-adaptive method (using yield strength and nodal stress values).

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Why is it important?

FEA (Finite Element Analysis) is proving out to be an indispensable tool in product design and development just like 3D printing and is done with the help of CAD and Simulation tools, such as Solidworks®. Dal [1] successfully used it to reduce the time and cost drastically, in designing custom ankle orthosis for patients, for aiding in the rehabilitation.

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