Design and Optimization of Direct Drive Motor Alloy Wheel for Manual Wheelchair

Design and Optimization of Direct Drive Motor Alloy Wheel for Manual Wheelchair

Sateesh Reddy Avutu, Sudip Paul
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/IJSDA.20211001.oa10
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Abstract

The wheelchair is the primary rehabilitation device used to enable the movement capability of disabled people. To provide an appropriate wheelchair, the doctor will suggest the necessary customization has to be made on the existing one. However, the customization of a manual wheelchair is easy and cost-effective compared with the powered wheelchair due to simple structure and spare parts availability in the market... Because of the above, a novel concept is proposed. The rear wheels of the manual wheelchair are replaced with a Direct drive motor alloy wheel. CATIA – V5 is utilized to design the proposed wheel and ANSYS software is used to check its performance at different load conditions. The stress-bearing capability of different materials for various Direct drive motor weights is observed through structural analysis. The natural mode frequencies are found using modal analysis and its nature of vibrations is verified. The harmonic response analysis is used to test the nature of deformation and stress concerning natural frequencies for the applied force.
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1. Introduction

The wheelchair is preferred to avoid mobility issues that occur due to disability, injury, and illness. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15% of people of the world population suffers due to various kinds of disabilities. In India as per the Census 2011, 2.21% of the total population has a disability Avutu et al. (2017). The design specifications and type of wheelchair must be based on the needs of the user. How-ever needs of the user depending on their disability, purpose, age, gender, and atmospheric conditions. The Rehabilitation purpose wheelchair is quite different from the sports wheelchairs and these are classified as a manual and powered wheelchair. There are several designs with specified applications are available in the global market, but its cost is quite high and beyond the user purchase capacity. The emerging technologies lead to inventing smart wheelchairs. But, unfortunately, these inventions are not reached to the village people of the low-income countries. The long term usage of the manual wheelchair causes severe shoulder injury to lead to surgery. The propelling capacity of the user is depending upon the success rate of the surgery Jordan et al., (2018). Sometimes the users may not able to propel his wheelchair, in such cases, they have to depend on the caregiver to do his daily routine activities which are quite difficult it may cause an extra financial problem. In this article, an attempt has been made to bring the facilities of the powered wheelchair within the manual wheelchair to enhance the independence of the wheelchair users.

The recent developments in computer science have led to invent simulation software in the engineering field. Simulation and validation are crucial parts of any product manufacturing and initial step of 3D-CAD modal design. A good simulation work can improve the strength of the product at a low manufacturing cost and also increases the sales in the market. But, the defective error similarity between the simulation and real-time model depends on the interpreted results. It has applications in many industries like architecture, aerospace, electronics, automobiles, and household products manufacturing. It can help to study the behavior of the device without physically building. Design simulation tools help to verify the product design parameters like safety, lifespan, strength, Energy requirement, deterioration, design flaws, and to ensure optimum use. It is easier for the designer to make any changes in digital form products rather than the prototype model and helps to develop a low cost-efficient product for consumers. The product design in the digital form helps the manufacturer as a reference for future developments

Computer-Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA-V5) is a multi-platform Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software used in surface modelling and high-end products. Analysis Systems (ANSYS) is a mechanical software used to study the dynamic, structural, linear, and nonlinear behavior of the product based on Finite Element Analysis (FEA). In general, either structural steel or stainless steel are the materials used to make manual wheelchair rear wheels. Although the cost is low, these materials have heavyweight compared with alloy materials. It makes the total wheelchair weight bulky. The quick acceleration and faster stop can improve with a lightweight wheel. While selecting the alloy material for product design the properties like Machinability, Structural properties, Impact strength, Process cost, Alloy cost Bearing properties, and wear resistance has to consider. The Aluminum alloy remains one of the most economical materials used in the manufacturing industry. The Magnesium alloy has low density and weight.

In the remaining part of the article, related work is elaborated in section – 2. The methodology used for design and analysis is discussed in section – 3. The strength of the projected design, observations, and demerits along with the future work is presented in sections – 4 and 5 respectively.

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