Mould Design
Mould Design
bricks. The mechanical arrangement which we discussed last time with you will not be economically feasible as we are not going to produce bricks in very large quantities. We had proposed to fashion a system in which blocks could be produced very quickly by filling the mould with the mixture and then applying pressure. We had thought of making a metallic mould preferably from cast iron. A preview of the mould is given below:-
Since the mould would be extremely heavy, uneconomical and difficult to fabricate we have come up with a different solution.
We intend to build the mould in parts and then join them together using fasteners. We have chosen wood as a suitable material. Aluminum sheets may also be used as inside lining to improve the performance of the mould.
We used SolidWorks 2011 for designing the various parts of the mould. Mahogany was used as the material property. Below is the long side of the mould:-
Cut
The cuts made are to facilitate the connection of the short sides with the long side. A protuberance is provided at the bottom which in turn gets fitted with the bottom part.
As it can be seen easily that the short side acts as the male part and the cut in the long side acts as the female part.
The view of the 2nd short side in this picture is 1800 off about the vertical axis. Below is the Mated Figure of the short and the long sides:-
It can be clearly seen that both the short sides have been properly fitted into the cuts provided in the longer sides. All dimensions have been provided.
Bottom part has a central strip shaped plateau to account for the shape of the brick. The two narrow grooves provided either side serve as the female part for joining the longer sides to the base.
For better understanding Sectional views along the X as well as the Y-axis are provided below.
Along X-Axis:-
Along Y-Axis:-
It can be clearly seen that the grooves are completely filled by the male parts in the long sides and hence provide fixity to the assembly.
The above figure shows the top part of the mould on its back. Having designed all the parts of the mould we proceed to the final assembly:-
Though this figure shows the top part fully inserted into the assembly, in real scenario the top part will in fact be a bit out. The soil-cement mixture will have to be tested to find out the exact shrinkage of the mixture upon application of pressure.
In design and calculation of the above mould trial shrinkage of mixture is taken as 5 mm.
Finally the long sides are fastened together using 4 metal rods with threads on the outer fringes for nuts and washers. Large size washer will be used to provide better gripping.
These rods will not only provide fixity but will also serve as handles for lifting the mould.