Design and Development of an Economic Autonomous Beverage Cans Crusher

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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN 0976 6340(Print),ISSN 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue 3, Sep- Dec (2012) IAEME

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DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN ECONOMIC AUTONOMOUSBEVERAGE CANS CRUSHER

A. Elfasakhany 1, 2 * , J. Marquez 2, E.Y. Rezola 2, J. Benitez 2

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Taif University, Box 888, Al-Haweiah,Taif, Saudi Arabia

2Tecnolgico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad Jurez, Av. Tomas Fernandez Campus 8945, Parque Industrial Bermudez, CP 32470, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico

* Corresponding author Tel.: +966 (02) 7272020; Fax: +966(02)7274299 E-mail address : [email protected]

ABSTRACT

One problem of current cans crusher machines is that they are mechanical devices. However,

autonomous or electrical cans crushers are large and expensive due to complexities and applied forcompactor technology. Accordingly, there is a necessity having small, low-priced, and autonomous canscrusher devices. The aim of this work is to design and develop a small, economical and autonomousmachine for crushing beverage aluminum cans. This work involves the processes of designing, developing,manufacturing, testing and validation. The machine was built based on a compilation between both of horizontal and vertical crushing designs and, in turn, the force needed to compact the cans is much less. Themachine, which includes mechanical, electrical and electronic components, was tested in particularelements as well as overall. Testing and validation of the machine show that it works as it should be.

Keywords: Cans crusher, Design, Development, Economic, Autonomous, Testing, Validation.

1. INTRODUCTION

Around our environment due to the facilities of the modem world, wastes of aluminum drink cansincrease every year. This phenomenon is in a dangerous stage problem, which technologically needs tosolve. Recycling/or reusing of cans wastes is one of the options currently being utilized internationally tobeneficially reuse wastes and clean our environment.

Recycling of aluminum cans wastes helps freely up space (used for the temporary storage of aluminumcans) and improves workplace safety and neatness. It helps reduce waste disposal costs (since the aluminum

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cans are removed from the waste stream). For example, recycling one ton of aluminum cans saves 10 cubicyards of landfill space.

Recycling of aluminum cans wastes saves up to 95 percent of the energy that is required to make cansfrom virgin bauxite (ore metal) [1-3]. Making one aluminum drink can from virgin raw materials uses thesame amount of energy that is taken to recycle twenty empty cans. Recycling of aluminum cans provides97% less water pollution than the cans produced from ore. Recycling 40 aluminum cans provides the energysaving equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. Recycling just one aluminum can is the equivalent of keeping a100-watt light bulb burning for approximately four hours or having the television running for three hours.

Due to the economical and environmental benefits, recycling of aluminum drink cans is the worldsmost recycled packaging container nowadays [4]. In 1972, approximately 26,500 tons of aluminum canswere recycled and today that number is estimated to be as high as 800,000 tons. Over 100,000 aluminumcans are recycled every minute in the U.S.A, and there is a great effort being increased more [5-7] . Besides,two-third of the cans in the U.S.A is derived from regeneration [8]. In Sweden, 0.84 billion cans wererecycled with a recycling rate of 83.3% [1]. Both Europe and Japan emphasize recycling cans as well [8]. InMexico, a program for recycling aluminum cans was established some years ago [9-11].

Even though the billions of cans recycled around the world, there are still billions of aluminum cans

every year that are being disposed of roadways and in trash cans. This attributed to that recycling still facingsome difficulties. One of such difficulties of recycling aluminum cans is that cans need to be sorted fromplastic, glass, metal and other trash materials. Besides, sorting is a time consuming and costly. Recently,some researchers worked on that and presented an autonomous trash sorting system, e.g . [12-13] .

One of other difficulties of recycling aluminum cans is the necessity to reduce costs of shipping of these cans due to transportation of huge cargo. This problem could be solved using cans crushers. A cancrusher is a device used for crushing aluminum beverage cans for easier storage and transportation. Thisdevice gives us more space by compacting either single or multiple cans. The first can crusher was thehuman foot; people used foot to stand up on the cans and flatten them down, but this could be hurtful if thefoot does not come down in the correct way. Afterwards, engineers developed mechanical machines to dothis task. The problem of mechanical machines is that they are mechanical devices need effort to use [14]. Afterwards, autonomous or electrical cans crusher machines were invented. However, autonomous cans

crushers are big and expensive due to complexities and applied compactor technology. Accordingly, there isa necessity having a small, low-priced, autonomous cans crusher device .

The purpose of this work is to design and develop a cans crusher machine. What makes this cancrasher better than others is precisely the autonomous function of the mechanical press that crushes the cansand the unique design allows us to crush the cans at a little force. Besides, the proposed cans crusher deviceis smaller, cheaper, and more energy-efficient than current designs. By new design, cans crushers may beplaced into airplanes, appliances, break rooms, hallways, and offices for employee (the average employeeconsumes 2.5 aluminum cans per day). This new design may prevent aluminum cans from landing inlandfills but diverting them to the recycling centers like they should be.

2. MACHINE DESIGN

2.1 Beverage Cans Characteristics

The beverage cans available in the world market can be classified into two types, based on the type of material: type A is made of a combination of two materials, steel for the entire body and aluminum for thetop cover, as shown in Fig. 1(I). Type B, however, is completely made of aluminum, as shown in Fig. 1(II). Due to the large availability, especially in Mexico, type B was chosen forour study. The details of the geometry and thickness of our beverage can are shown in Fig. 1(III) . As seen,


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the thickness of both top cover and bottom base is 0.2 mm and the thickness of top and bottom shoulders is0.12 mm; the thickness is reduced gradually from the top and bottom shoulders (0.12 mm) to the center of the entire body by 0.07 mm for every 1 mm. The material properties of the beverage can of type B are givenin Table 1.

The measured average mass of an empty aluminum beverage can was about 16 g; the diameters of topshoulder, base bottom, and the main body of can are 54 mm, 48 mm, and 65 mm, respectively. Special carewas taken to use cans without defects such as indents and crumples in order to test the prototype during thiswork.

Table 1 Parameters of the beverage cans of type (b) [15-17]

Parameter ValueMaterial Aluminium 2024 Density (Kg/m3) 2770 Cp (J/Kg K) 875 Tmelt (K) 775 Cp= Specific heat capacity; T melt =melting temperature.

(I) Details of type (a) cans (II) Details of type (b) cans (III) Dimensions and geometry of anybeverage cans

Fig. 1 Beverage cans characteristics

2.2 Mechanical Design

The current mechanical design of the can crusher is a new design that allows people to compactcans using an autonomous machine at low price and a compact size. Firstly, we need to evaluatedifferent design ideas and defining the force required to crush the can at each idea. To apply that,several experiments were carried out using a dynamometer for crushing cans, as shown in Fig.2. In thefirst experiment, we crushed three cans a time organized as shown in Fig. 2. The experiment was

Top shoulder

Base bottom

All materialfrom

aluminum

D= 65 mm

D= 48 mm

D= 54 mm


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repeated 20 times to get trusted results and at every test we record the force indicated by thedynamometer. Table 2 shows the crushing force recorded and as seen the force was varied from 40 to55 kgf. The can after crushed is shown in Fig. 3 , and as seen the can is not fully crushed due to theorganization of cans. As a result, we thought about organizing the three cans to be above each other ina series mode but that organization requires larger devices; however we aim to make a compact andeconomical design, so this organization was disregarded. Next organization/experiment was to crushsingle can a time. The can was positioned to be crushed from its side, as shown in Fig. 4 . The crushingforce recorded using the dynamometer, as shown in Table 3 , was in the range of 9 to 12 kgf; however,the crushed can was not compacted efficiently (similar to the first experiment). In the third experiment,we crushed a single can but the force goes from above (not from side), as shown in Figs.5-6 . As seen,the deformation is mainly concentrated at the end of the can and the can was compacted to a small sizein this experiment (compared with first and second experiments) . The force needed to crush the can in avertical position is about 23 to 26 kgf, as shown in Table 4 . Considering the three experiments, webelieve our design to be a compilation between both of horizontal and vertical crushing designs, asshown in Fig.7. According, the horizontal force will be the same as side force in the secondexperiment, but the vertical one will be much less (about 17 kgf, this value is verified in testing andvalidation section). Besides, can compacts to a very small size.

Table 2 Vertical force needed to crush three cans at same time

Test Force (Kgf)1 402 553 524 485 496 487 528 549 45

10 4811 5512 4713 4814 4815 52

16 5417 5318 5419 5520 51


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Fig. 2 Dynamometer used to crush three cans a time organized as shown

Fig. 3 Crushed can when we organized three cans to be crushed a time

Fig. 4 Dynamometer used to crush a single can organized horizontally

Dynamomete


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Table 3 Force needed to crush one can in a horizontal positionTest Force (Kgf)

1 102 11

3 114 105 96 117 118 109 10

10 911 1112 1213 1014 1115 1016 1017 1218 1119 1120 11

Table 4 Force needed to crush one can in a vertical positionTest Force (Kgf)

1 252 253 234 245 256 247 248 239 25

10 2511 2612 2413 2414 2515 2516 2517 2418 2619 2420 24


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The mechanical structure, as shown in Fig.8 , is made of aluminum, which includes: (1) a circular plateacts as a main crushing piston to crush the can vertically, (2) a side piston for crushing can horizontallyfrom its side, and (3) an aluminum ring for stabilizing can in a vertical position.

After defining the design layout, the force and the mechanical structure, we need to define the motor(s)needed to control the movements of the two pistons. Since the maximum force needed to compact a can isabout 17 Kgf, we considered the total force of 20 kgf (adding of 3 Kgf as a safety factor) to be the forceneeded by the motor(s); the motor(s) be able to provide this force (20 kgf =196.2 N) requires toque about9.81 N-m for a radius (torque arm) of 5 cm, and the output power is about 1.23 KW, as shown in thefollowing calculations:

cosFd T = , (Eq.1)

m N m N T .81.9)05.0()2.196( ==

= T P (Eq.2)

W RPM m N P 123260 / )1200(.2).81.9( ==

Using motor with this specification (torque and horsepower) is very expensive, about 298 $. In order tosolve this problem, we may use a pneumatic system instead of the electric motor. To design a pneumaticsystem, we need to calculate compressor pressure, as follows.

AF

P = , (Eq.3)

KPacm

N P 9.6321.3

2.196 2 ==

There are two pistons in our design, horizontal and vertical ones. We calculated the pressure neededfor the vertical piston since it requires the higher pressure and the other one will be enclosed. The area usedin the calculation (3.1 cm 2) is the can area after it is compacted from the horizontal piston (see Fig. 4 ).

With this pressure value (632.9KPa =6.3 bar), many compressors available in the market will be able tocrush the cans. The compressor does not require to produce this pressure directly but normally connectedwith a storage tank for pressure accumulation. In this condition, the compressor may produce 2 bar as aworking pressure and connected with storage tank to reach the needed pressure. Hence compressor ischeaper (100 $, i.e. one third of electrical motor) and fulfills the requirements as a replacement for the

electrical motor used in the most available electrical can crusher in the market nowadays. Fig. 9 shows thepneumatic system connected with the compressor and used to crush the cans; it is the one that goes from thetop opening and the bottom connected with both pistons (see Figs. 7-8 .).

The last part of the mechanical design is the housing for the system. The housing comprises a high-resistance of the wooden structure that holds the components (mechanical, electrical, and electronicequipment), as shown in Fig.10 .


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Fig. 5 Dynamometer used to crush a single can organized vertically

3

Fig. 6 Progressive of crushing stages for a single can organized vertically

Fig. 7 Compilation between both of horizontal and vertical crushing designs


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2.3 Electrical and Electronic Designs

The servomotor, light sensor and arduino microcontroller were used to move and control the crushermachine. The function of the servomotor is to turn the cargo to get the can out after it was crushed, see Fig10. The servomotor used is the Hextronik HX12K type, as shown in Fig 11 . This motor was selectedbecause it is much cheaper than any other motor with the same specifications. Besides, it can turn for 120degrees in 1second to get out the crushed can.

The light or optic sensor determines if there is a can in the loading cargo. This occurs by sensing alight, which is received on a photo resistance. The light sensor of type ''DF Robot Ambient'' is chosen to becheap and adequate, as shown in Fig. 12.

The microcontroller is the brain of the entire system and it provides the calculations needed tocontrol all the actions. The microcontroller used is an Arduino, as shown in Fig. 13 . The programminglanguage is very similar to C but includes several libraries that help in the control of the I/O ports, timers,and serial communication. This microcontroller was chosen because it is inexpensive and very easy toreprogram; the programming language is simple and interrupts are available for this particular chip.

Fig. 8 Mechanical structure of crusher machine of 30 inches height; (1) Circular plate (14 inch diameterand 1.5 in thickness) acts as a main crushing piston, (2) Side piston for crushing can from side to reduce

the vertical forces, (3) Aluminum ring for stabilizing can in a vertical position.

(1)

(2)

(3)


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Fig 9 Pneumatic cylinder

Fig. 10 Upper/Side view of the can crusher with wood housing


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Fig.11 Servomotor

ig. 13 Arduino microcontroller board

Fig. 12 Light sensor

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2.4 Software Design

Since our can crusher system consists of hardware and software, the flow chart of the software ispresented within the system operation section in this paper.

3. TESTING AND VALIDATION

Testing and validation are a fundamental part of our work as well as in any new design. Several testswere carried out to validate our crusher machine and its components. The tests covered both the particularelements as well as the overall system. Firstly, all components were tested individually to demonstrate theircapability of working properly. After words, the overall system is tested.

Testing of the light sensor shows that it works properly but we need to detect a can within 2.5 cm awayfrom the sensor, according to the input voltage (5 volts). Hence, the sensor should be positioned within thisdistance or increase its input voltage in case of larger reflecting distance is needed; we made our design tobe within 2.5 cm distance.

The second device tested was the servomotor, which has to turn cargo including the compacted can

and throw it away in the waste container. To test the different functions of this motor, we made two kinds of tests, as follow:

1. A test in which we change the input voltage and check the output torque ( Table 5 ).

2. A test to check the response time needed at different angles ( Table 6 ).

Table 5 Voltage and related output torque from servomotorVoltage Torque

5 4.84.5 4.32 4 3.84

3.5 3.36

3 2.88 2.5 2.4 2 1.92

1.5 1.44 1 0.96

0.5 0.48 0 0

Table 6 Response time needed at different angles for servomotorTime (s) Angle (degree)

0.5 900.6 95 0.7 100 0.8 115 0.9 150 1 120

1.1 130 1.2 140 1.3 145 1.4 150 1.5 155


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According to these tests, we figured out the input voltage needed to provide the adequate torque at arotation angle of 120 degrees and also the time needed. We found that the servomotor needs 6 volts as aninput to take advantage of the strength and make it work for 1 second, which is enough to throw the canaway.

The third device tested was the pneumatic system. We changed the compressor pressure and checkedthe compacting efficiency. 10 tests were carried out starting from 1 bar to 10 bar and we found that at anypressure lower than 7 bars, we do not have a complete compacting, as shown in Table 7 . This test isconsistent with our calculation, which is presented previously and showed that the lowest pressure neededto crush the can is about 6.3 bar.

Finally, a complete system test is carried out using a pass/fail methodology. Pass means a cancompacted completely and gotten out of the machine; however, fails mean a can semi compacted and/or candid not get out after it was compacted. In this test we found that the prototype works properly and safelywithout any danger at the operator(s).

Table 7 Results from the can crusher using different pressure values (1-10 bars)

Pressure (bar) Result1 F2 F 3 F 4 F 5 F 6 F 7 S 8 S 9 S

10 S F: fail, S: success

4. SYSTEM OPERATION

The design of the can crusher is enough only for one can a cycle. In this way, the compactor has asimple way to detect the can in the sensing area. We take advantage of the gravity to put the can in its place.Once the can is putted into the can path, the can will only fallow that path, until it reaches the desiredposition. The light/optic sensor will detect the can and send a signal to the microcontroller. Then themicrocontroller will activate the pneumatic system to crush the can using both horizontal and verticalpistons. Once the can is crushed, activation is send by the microcontroller to servomotor to through thecrushed can away. The crushed can will disperse into the waste container. The flow chart of systemoperation is shown in Fig. 14 .

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Results from the beverage cans crusher machine are presented here. By operating the machine for tentimes, results show that the machine works property for all operated cases, except for only one case, asshown in Table 8 . The unique failed case happened due to incompact can to the required size. This isattributed to that the compressor pressure was not enough (less than 6 bars) due to electricity of compressorwas not connected. Otherwise, the machine has a high efficiency, and the result is very pleasant during all


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operating times, as shown in Fig.15 ; so in general we may conclude that it is an acceptable design . However, esthetic improvements might be implemented in the coming future. One of such improvements isthat the machine could give the people reward at inserting cans in the machine. Hence this may encouragepeople to crush cans. The overall cost of the can crusher machine is about 350 USD only. Detail cost of different components of our prototype is presented in Table 9 ; however, this cost could be reduced at massproduction condition. By this low cost with related specification (small size and autonomous) cans crushersmay be placed into airplanes, appliances, break rooms, hallways, and offices for employee. Hence, this mayhelp prevent aluminum cans from landing in landfills and diverts them to the recycling centers like theyshould be.

Fig 14 Flow chart for operation of the can crusher

Table 8 Results from testing of the can crusher for 10 timesNumber of Test Result

1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 F9 S10 S

F: fail, S: success


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Fig 15 Cans crushed from the machine

Table 9 Detail cost of different components of the can crusher machine in USD Equipment Price ($)

Relay 12 VDC 4Pneumatic cylinder 136Aluminum structure 24Pneumatic hose 8Wood housing 7.5Arduino 25Servomotor 13Electrical accessories 32Air compressor 100

Total 350

6. CONCLUSIONS

A new design of cans crusher is presented in this work. The cans crusher, which is used to compactsingle can a time, consists of a hardware and software. The hardware includes mechanical structure,servomotor, light sensor, arduino microcontroller, and pneumatic system. The pneumatic system has beenused instead of an electrical motor since electrical motor with the needed specification (torque andhorsepower) is very expensive. The software is the maestro for operating and controlling different systemcomponents.

The design of the can crusher is based on a compilation between both of horizontal and verticalcrushing machines. Accordingly, the vertical force will be much less; besides, can is compacted to a verysmall size. Several tests were carried out to validate the crushing machine and its components. The testscovered both of particular elements and the overall device, using cans without defects such as indents andcrumple. Results show that the machine and its particular elements work property.

In conclusion, this small, inexpensive and autonomous can crusher machine may help to preventaluminum cans from landing in landfills but diverting them to the recycling centers like they should be. Bythis new design, cans crushers able to be placed into airplanes, break rooms, hallways, and offices.


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Design and Development of an Economic Autonomous Beverage Cans Crusher