Awards & Nominations
Fractal Gen has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Global Nominee
E.M.E.T. - Emergency Maintenance Engineering Tool
High-Level Project Summary
Instead of just designing concrete furniture, plastic dishes, training equipment, and so on, our team came up with an innovative idea EMET, which afterwards became the main focus of this project, because of its versatility and compactness. EMET is a device which can help astronaut repair any damaged mechanism as it is an upgraded version of a universal socket which also contains pneumatic cutter, all-shaped screwdriver, and Jack hammer. On a one-year mission, astronaut will definitely need a device for emergency situations. Printing and adjusting many screwdrivers with different heads, will not be practical for extreme situations. EMET is a solution for this problem.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
E.M.E.T. (Emergency Maintenance Engineering Tool) is a multifunctional device, which provides a combination of four extremely useful repair/industrial device mechanics. Pneumatic cutter [1], our self-designed innovative all-shaped screwdriver, compact Jackhammer and “work tools Inc.” universal socket [2]. E.M.E.T. can provide you with any tool that astronomer might need during emergency. (video) In other words, it can be used In order to quickly and efficiently cut off the wires, nuts, and bolts and so on. No matter the shape or the size of a bolt in a fastened system, E.M.E.T. can be as a suitable screwdriver.
The idea of this all-shaped screwdriver is based on shear thickening fluid [3], which was mainly used for military purposes since it can transfer from liquid to rigid state as soon as a kinetic energy threshold is surpassed and becomes rigid enough to stop even a bullet and spread its impact. It is a composite material composed of woven Kevlar® fabric impregnated with a colloidal shear thickening fluid (silica particles (450 nm) dispersed in ethylene glycol). The impregnated Kevlar fabric yields a flexible, yet penetration resistant composite material. Fragment simulation projectile (FSP) ballistic penetration measurements at ∼244 m/s have been performed to demonstrate the efficacy of the novel composite material [4]. The same liquid we are using to provide astronomer with a special screwdriver in which we will pour this fluid on top of the bolt so it fills and covers it up and after impact (generated by inside built jackhammer) it will harden and formed as a perfect sized screwdriver for all size of bolts (video).
in rigid state(fluid):
Not only E.M.E.T. can foster to repair any sort of damaged mechanism, it also requires fewer resources, for instance, metal to print as it combines various tools, which is crucial for our given challenge. From the printing point of view, printing parts of E.M.E.T. require less supportive structures and the main mesh contains mostly plastic (approximately 70 percent) this also reduces the need of the metal. E.M.E.T. is very compact to carry due to its size dimensions (32cm x 9.8cm x 18.9cm) so astronomer can carry it whenever they want to wherever they need.
Another mechanic implemented in E.M.E.T. is called universal socket, which can be used to fasten or unfasten all size bolts in a range of 8-36mm. According to the space agency data, these are the most commonly used bolt sizes.
The original model of the universal socket was specially modified in order to being capable of providing rotational movements simultaneously working with center placed jackhammer mechanics.
Both the universal socket and all-size screwdriver are attachable and detachable from the main body, can be swapped with each other and are controlled by first motor placed on the bottom part of the model. After removing those parts, E.M.E.T.’s front part acts as a jackhammer. Second motor placed on the side of the prototype pushes back 8mm diameter metal stick to the certain point. During this process, thick spring placed around this stick gets stretched and after the motor’s pulling part will fall off, spring will cause extremely fast returning motion and will generate a huge force. (video)
In addition, the last top side placed motor is controlling hydraulic cutter design of which we took from grabCAD.com and re-design so it would perfectly fit the smaller dimensions of our invention without a huge loss in its cut power. The mechanism consists of 2 different diameter cylinders and 2 pumps, one is pushed by motor which causes the second one to move with even more bigger generated force than the one applied by a single motor which accordingly moves mechanical parts and creates a tremendous force by the edge of cutting blades. (According to our calculations, generated force should be enough to cut a 1-1.5cm diameter metal stick). (video)
The main prototype design, component’s image rendering, physical simulations and part assembly were done in Autodesk Inventor. The final E.M.E.T. assembly model consists of 21 different types of parts and in total is built from 111 independent 3D printable and constructible parts (video). All animations were generated in blender as well as other mars habitat render images.
For future, our team has decided to also add contactless voltmeter and sensors to E.M.E.T. A contactless voltmeter is needed to prevent astronomers from accidentally cutting off current flowing cables. Sensors such as pressure and force ones might become useful in some situations and will improve our device overall.
Space Agency Data
We rаn into the information, which was about how essential in-flight maintenance tools were. (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001427/downloads/20200001427.pdf, page 22, 4.15)
As mentioned in the paragraph, these tools are crucial on space missions. IFM kits are used to reduce the time needed to gather necessary supplies. This point inspired us to make our multifunctional fixing tool, which will be able to not only reduce the time needed to gather necessary tools, but will be sufficient in extreme situations. Our team also found NASA mars land rover model at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and other websites, which enabled us to see which specific type of screwdrivers would be needed for fixing that rover(suited for the land rover bolts). It was useful for our team to understand that certain types of screwdrivers may not help with some situations and inspired us to create something that would be suitable for any type of fastened system.
Hackathon Journey
Our team enjoyed the experience a lot. During this weekend we met many interesting people at once, people who have shown us things from a different view. These two days were full of information, cooperation with each other and most important of all, having fun! The work was quite a lot too, however; we learned a lot with both from experience, researches and interesting people we listened to, for example, details about requirements for living on mas from Nasa's articles. Some of our team members also learned how to use assembly and blender mostly for simulations. Our team was inspired to take this challenge because we mostly focus on engineering projects and ''OUTFITTING A MARS HABITAT: A 3D PRINT CHALLENGE'' seemed to be a very interesting and challenging choice. Our approach was initially listing all the items needed for this one-year journey, later we wanted to come up with an idea that would be innovative and multifunctional. Eventually, our team came up with the idea of EMET. When we built our first 3D model of EMET and ran simulations, it did not prove to be as robust as we expected (it could not handle the force exerted on it), so we had to change up several things which took us even more time. Meanwhile, another difficulty was that our team was not really familiar with that program, so we had to first learn more details before improving our project. We would like to thank Illiauni state university, Technopark, and other organizations for hosting this event in Georgia and giving us the opportunity for all this experience.
References
1. https://mtmcongress.com/proceedngs/2013/3/15.DESIGN%20OF%20MULTIFUNCTIONAL%20ERGONOMIC%20FURNITURE%20MADE%20IN%20COMPUTER%20ENVIRONMENT%20TROUGH%20LEADING%203D%20SOFTWARE%20PRODUCTS.pdf
DESIGN OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL ERGONOMIC FURNITURE MADE IN COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT TROUGH LEADING 3D SOFTWARE PRODUCTS
SCIENTIFIC PROCEEDINGS X INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS "MACHINES, TECHNOLОGIES, MATERIALS" 2013
2. https://inhabitat.com/loop-a-multifunctional-piece-of-furniture-that-can-be-a-chair-chaise-bookshelf-or-table/boaz-mendel-multifunctional-furniture-loop-2/
01/02/2012
by Ana Lisa
3. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:40605
4d-Staunton Full Size Chess Set
by PerryT January 07, 2013
4. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5489483
Cap for cutting pliers
by Kroki September 01, 2022
5. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5166761
Knipex Pliers, Knipex Cobra Holder for Pegboard
by AppHero December 17, 2021
6. https://grabcad.com/library/reinforcement-steel-hydraulic-cutter-1
Muhammad Hashem
February 11th, 2020
7. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024424200221
Published: July 2003
The ballistic impact characteristics of Kevlar® woven fabrics impregnated with a colloidal shear thickening fluid
Young S. Lee,
E. D. Wetzel &
N. J. Wagner
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_vest
"Ballistic vest review"
9.Michael Gernhardt, Steve Chappell, Kara Beaton, Harry Litaker, Omar Bekdash, Carolyn Newton and James Stoffel. (2019). Deep Space Habitability Design Guidelines Based on the NASA NextSTEP Phase 2 Ground Test Program. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001427/downloads/20200001427.pdf
10.NASA.(2020). MARS 2020 MISSION PERSEVERANCE ROVER. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
Tags
#ENET ,#hardware, #multifunctional device, #engineering tools, #3d print, #Mars