C-Clamp Design and Analysis

     For my Computer Automated Design Final Project, a partner and I were required to design a C-Clamp on Solidworks following the specifications for the Heavy Duty C-Clamp on McMaster Carr. The main purpose of this project was to find the necessary cross-sectional area of the C-Frame for a factor of safety of 1, 1.5, and 2 if the loading capacity of the entire clamp is 13,750 lbf. Additionally, the stresses and strains must be hand-calculated and simulated using Solidworks for the frame, screw, and handle. The final report includes a mesh analysis to ensure that these values are accurate.

     My role in this project consisted of the design of the C-Frame and the handle. The design of the handle only consisted of one variable, the diameter, so the hand calculations and simulation were straightforward. I should also note that I built a MatLab code for each of the hand calculations(the codes are included in the appendix of the above report).

     The C-Frame, on the other hand, consisted of four variables for the I-beam cross-section(height, width, thickness of the wings, and thickness of the center of the I), and one governing equation. To solve this problem, I first built a code stemming from the four variables. Then, I ran optimization studies to find the ideal ratios to ensure the strongest shape. When the three remaining variables became a function of the thickness of the center of the I-beam, I was able to run the code successfully for each of the factors of safety(I would also like to note that this was the only successful code in the class, and a few other groups used it to de-bug theirs). Finally, I was able to build the SolidWorks part and run simulations with Factors of Safety that were predicted in the hand-calculations. The project, on my end, was a success.