Optimal Fixture Design for Drilling of Elastomer using DOE and FEM

An elastomer is a polymer with the property of viscoelasticity generally having notably low Young's modulus and high yield strain compared with other materials. The elastomer which is used in our project is styrene-butadiene rubber. The drilling of elastomer work piece is not easy since it can easily deform. Hence the desired output cannot be obtained. By designing a proper fixture layout, the drilling of elastomer can be done accurately. The fixture design requires accurate positioning of locators and clamps to reduce the deformation of work piece during drilling. In this work six locators and three clamps are used. The primary design layout is done and then it is analyzed in ANSYS to find out the work piece deformation. The various possible design layouts are formed using L27 orthogonal array by MINITAB Software. Then all the 27 layouts are analyzed using ANSYS and the deformation values are found. The optimal layout is found using DOE – Taguchi method from MINITAB Software by giving the 27 layouts and the corresponding deformation values as inputs. From the obtained SN ratio graph, the optimal fixture layout is found for minimum deformation of the work piece.