Design to replace electric motors with mechanical springs in a climbstation

Abstract

Joyride Games Oy wanted to explore the possibility to use mechanical springs as a replacement to electric motor currently driving their device i.e. a climbstation. I was commissioned to do a research and development work for this case as my Bachelor’s Thesis by Kaarle Vanamo (CEO of Joyride Games Oy). In a situation where the use of electric motors in machines are extremely high because of their reliability and efficiency, the commissioner wanted to find out what chances would mechanical springs carry in this specific application? To check this, I proposed some design ideas and for one most potential idea I have developed a mechanism and presented its analysis results in this thesis.

This project started with background research and brainstorming followed by kinematic modeling, static calculations, making of a 3D CAD model, performing a force analysis in Creo Parametric, running finite-element analysis simulation in ANSYS Workbench and ended in comparing the results. Results of the analysis indicate that the mechanism was capable of performing the required function. However, the mechanism is not yet capable of handling a total load of 30 KN.

This thesis can be a helpful reference for upcoming research and design works on this topic.