Thermal Heat Press for Water Ski Manufacturing

Overview

The old ski press was made out of mdf wood, which was accidently left ON overnight at full power by a operator. This caused the MDF to char and become structurally unstable under pressure. I was tasked with creating a new bottom plate for ski press. I spec'd out and ordered a heatpad and designed a new bottom plate on solidworks, taking into account the limited manufacturing capabilities. The new bottom plate was made out of aluminum, and accounted for the compressive force of the press, thermal expansion from the heatpad, and thermal loss due to conduction and convection. I used phenolic spacers to create air gaps between the steel surface and the bottom plate, further insulating each component with fiberglass sheets for better efficiency. Provided power input, I calculated peak temperature of the aluminum and phenolic components and time it would take to reach operating temperature and peak temperature using MATLAB. Once satisfied with the design, the 3 aluminum and 12 phenolic components were then machined using a CNC. Temperature probes were placed into the aluminum mold to observe the temperatures at various locations for validation and the ski's were tested for rigitiy.

Key Deliverables

• 3D CAD Modeling (SolidWorks)
• FEA Analysis of failure points
• Thermal Simulation
• CNC manufacturing