Design and fabrication of a semi-automatic paper petal compression machine with a pneumatic system

บทคัดย่อ

This research presents the design and fabrication of a semi-automatic paper petal compression machine with a pneumatic system to crease paper petals for making artificial flowers. The description comprises the procedures of defining operating characteristics for the machine, drawing its function diagram, designing the pneumatic circuit and the electrical circuit, calculating and choosing the dimensions of pneumatic components, and studying optimum paper petal compression conditions and appearances of creases on the paper petals. The machine can be used to compress the paper petals in four positions at the same time. The experimental materials were the paper of 55 and 65 gsm which was cut in the petal shape. The experiments were done by rolling 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 pieces of paper petals into hollow cylinders of which four rolls of those with the same number of paper petals were compressed simultaneously at the operating pressure of 0.6 MPa. The results showed that the machine could be used to compress the paper petals of 55 gsm to provide quite noticeable and consistent creases in the range of 6 to 14 pieces per roll, while the paper petals of 65 gsm were in the range of 6 to 12 pieces per roll.