Design and Development of a Portable Metal Chip Baler using A System Design Approach

¹ Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia
² Faculty of Technology Management, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: fahrul@uthm.edu.my

Abstract

A large amount of metal chips at workplace will result in untidy and unsafe condition thus measurements of safety are needed in some industries, where the metal chips will be collected and put into a container until the volume is sufficient to be recycled. Due to that reason, the metal chips require a lot of spaces for storage before going to recycle. In this study, a portable metal chip baler as a device for compacting those metal chips is presented based on a system approach of engineering design. Basically, the system design evolves through four phases of development that are started from conceptual design, preliminary system design, detail design and development to system test and evaluation. The portable metal chip baler uses current technology such as pneumatic cylinder to compress the metal chips so that the system capable to operate efficiently. The output from this system is the metal chips are compacted into a block shape and a working prototype was developed to prove the concept of the system. As a summary, the conceptual design of portable metal chip baler was proven and was presented using the philosophy of the systems design approach. This tool may assists workers especially in the Small-Medium Enterprise (SME) manufacturing industries, school or universities’ workshops for managing metal chips easily and systematically.