Document Type

Undergraduate Project

Date of Degree Completion

Spring 2022

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Mechanical Engineering Technology

Committee Chair

Charles Pringle

Second Committee Member

John Choi

Abstract

What happens to carbon fiber from airline wing tips when their service life ends, and they get replaced? Throwing them away would be wasteful, the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI) project can extract the carbon fiber from airline wing tips to be recycled. The JCATI project is a continuation from the work done by previous senior class engineering students and has a new set of issues to be addressed each year. This year there was a need for a new oven system for the JCATI carbon fiber recycler with this project’s focus being on designing the oven’s heating system to reach an overall temperature of 500°C ± 5°C in 15 minutes and to be able to hold that temperature for 30 minutes. Twelve mathematical analyses were conducted during the designing of the heating system to determine design parameters such as voltage/power required and stresses/forces the system will encounter while running. Then the oven heating system was built in three sections, heating controls, heating cartridges, and the thermocouple assemblies with some parts being manufactured/created in house whilst others were purchased through outside vendors. The new heating system device demonstrated good performance with it taking approximately 14 minutes and 23 seconds on average to reach the required temperature threshold 500°C ± 5°C and the actual temperature was the same as the displayed temperature. The device was also able to hold an average temperature of 500°C ± 5°C for the 30-minute cycle needed to run the machine.

Comments

2022 SOURCE presentation: https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2022/CEPS/65/

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