Institution

Name

Date

Unit

Design Tool: Plastic Bottle Trimming Machine

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Project concept

Plastic bottles are one of the products that are mostly consumed globally. This means that

manufacturing companies responsible for these products are doing massive work to ensure the

supply of the product is constant in the market as a result of high demand. The production

undergoes several processes before becoming a complete product in the market. However, the

current processes and tools used in manufacturing plastics are considerably expensive and time-

consuming, especially removing the unwanted overlap plastic mold on plastic bottles (Dagar&

Kaushik, 2019). Therefore, in this project, I plan to design and build a cost-effective bottle

trimming machine to remove the unwanted or overflow moulds on the surface of the moulded

plastic bottles to be used by plastic manufacturers. The machine will solve the challenge of time

and cost of production incurred in the large-scale manufacture of plastics.

Related Work Search

The plastic molding industry has been in existence for centuries. Since the American

glass jar and glass bottle industry was established in the late 1600s. The industry majored in

producing glass bottles for centuries before the first plastic blowing machine was invented in

1903. since then, the plastic manufacturing industry has tremendously developed and is among

the leading industries in the world. However, the challenge of overlapping molds and unwanted

parts on the plastic started way back with the invention of pressure blowing and molding

machines (Jordan, & Jordan, 2018). Other the years, quite a number of scholars have researched,

analyzed and proposed possible solutions to the underlying challenges in the plastic molding

process. Sadly, out of the solutions proposed so far, there has not been a design solution that

automatically trims bottles as they come from molding units.

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Coelho and Gobb0 (2014) conducted a research study to solve the strenuous processes of

manual trimming of plastic bottles in one German plastic bottle molding industry. After research

analysis, the duo managed to design an electric bottle cutting machine for the molding process.

Though this was a breakthrough for the duo's company, it only lasted for six months, and the

machine was no longer in use; upon scrutinizing the reasons, Coelho and Gobb0's machine could

not pass the test of time (Garcia et al. 2019). I realized that the machine was uneconomical as the

company still had to use human labor to manually place and remove plastic from the clamp, and

the net energy consumption of the machine was too high that the company almost doubled on its

average electricity bills.

By comparison, the proposed design machine and the Coelho and Gobbo's machine are

converging on the goal; to provide a solution to the manual strenuous bottle trimming processes

used in the current setup. However, the difference is that the proposed design utilizes pneumatic

systems as the powering source and automatic feeding mechanism for bottles onto the clam for

trimming.

Research proposal

The proposed project is to design an automatic plastic bottleneck trimming machine to

recycle the trimmed overlap chips into manufacturing other significant plastic products. The

landscape and impact of the proposed design tool project are as follows.

Landscape and impact of the proposed project

Point Evidence

Landscape

Plastics are part of households as most of our Since plastic is part of household items, especially

utensils or household items are made of plastic. bottles used in the water bottling business and soft

Plastics put in good use do not pollute or affect the

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environment in any way unless improperly drink packaging, among other applications

disposed of. The recycling of trimmed chips is a profound

The proposed project is conscious of environmental gesture of environmental sustainability

sustainability. Therefore, it has a conveyor system The use of locally available materials in the

that collects the trimmed chips transferred into the fabrication and development of the proposed plastic

hot furnace for recycling instead of waste. bottle trimming machine proves economical, thus

The machine aims to address the cost of production making it cost-efficient

as well as the elimination of strenuous manual Automation through the pneumatic system using

labor compressed air will save on production cost

Impact

With the scope of project actualization, it has more

benefits on the environment and the manufacturing Through the use of locally sourced materials in

players. fabrication is economical.

The overall budget for the project is relatively Recycling trimmed chips instead of disposing of

cheap, thus saving on cost them is a gesture of environmental conservation

The use of automation will ease the manual labor Automation is twofold, reduction of production

and injuries often associated with the manual cost as well as the elimination of injuries

trimming of bottles.

Problem Framing

Problem Framing

Point Evidence

Gap in Knowledge

The research on the related works reveals that the The proposed solutions lacked the sustainability

current trimming systems and the previously aspect in implementation as most ended up
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proposed solution failed to satisfy the feasibility of consuming more electricity, thus adding on the cost

the production and the sustianble automation of the of production

trimming process.

Difficulty

The looming challenge on the development of the The population is more than the allowable within

project could be the fabrication space, considering the workshop as per the MOH guidelines on Covid-

the current workshop cannot accommodate all 19 containment.

students with the Covid-19 health guidelines The process of fabrication might be a little longer

Research plan

The development of the project will be based on the following research questions

i. How different was the proposed design from the existing ones?

ii. The availability of required materials for fabrication?

iii. How to the fabricated machine be tested to determine its functionality?

iv. The impact of the developed machine on the plastic bottle manufacturing industry, and

how it boosts their productivity?

v. The cost of the machine and profit turnover profit to the company?

vi. What are the advantages of using this machine overusing the already existing methods

when it is used?

The bottle-neck is a trimming machine aimed to trim the excess material from the neck of the

bottle, thereby reducing human effort, increasing production rate, reducing injuries caused

through cuts and thus providing an alternative for industries to generate practical and sustainable

solutions for future industrial development. The fabricated machine was limited to trimming the
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neck of plastic bottles, operates to a maximum bottle diameter of 200 mm because of its small

size. It is limited to working on the hot bottle from the molds and also lacks an automatic system

for bottle removal from the clamp after trimming

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Reference list

Dagar, R. & Kaushik, A. (2016). Investigation on Design Analysis and Fabrication of Automated

Metal Sheet Cutting Machine.

El Mourad, A. M. (2018). Assessment of bonding effectiveness of adhesive materials to tooth

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Garcia, E. E., Kimura, C., Martins, A. C., Rocha, G. O., & Nozaki, J. (2019). Automatic

Pneumatic Sublimation Heat Press Single Mug Machine (ST-110). Brazilian Archives of

Biology and Technology, 42(3), 281-290.

Garcia, E. E., Kimura, C., Martins, A. C., Rocha, G. O., & Nozaki, J. (2017). Outsole Trimming

Machine. Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology, 42(3), 281-290.

Gosalia, D. (2014). Pneumatic shearing machine (Doctoral dissertation, University of Mumbai).

Jordan, A. C., & Jordan, A. C. (2013). Towards an African literature: The emergence of literary

form in Xhosa (Vol. 6). Univ of California Press.

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review. Journal of reconstructive microsurgery, 25(01), 055-061.

Orlowsky, A., & Orlowsky, A. (2018). Deflashing, Trimming, and Reaming. Plastics

engineering-new york-, 54, 211-218.

Xiao-yan, X. I. (2013). Optimal =Design of Wine Bottle Packaging Machine with Clearance

Based on ADAMS [J]. Packaging Engineering, 1.