Burcham Hills is a not-for-profit retirement community home that was built in 1974. It is dedicated to providing quality care for residents even as their needs become increasingly demanding. Burcham Hills is home to many residents with various levels of need and does its best to ensure the happiness of its residents by allowing them to rearrange their living quarters to their preference.

Burcham Hills has a rehabilitation and health center whose primary goal is to aid in the healing and recovery process of residents and return them to their former level of health and wellbeing as quickly as possible. Burcham Hills is licensed with a Skilled Nursing Facility staff that provides physical, occupational, speech, and recreational therapy.

Currently, caregivers assist residents attempting to move from a seated position to a standing one. This transfer method tends to cause back injuries to caregivers. Also, because there are a limited number of caregivers, residents end up sitting for long periods of time, resulting in bedsores and further deterioration of muscles and motivation. Assisting the seniors in becoming more self-sufficient will improve their lives at Burcham Hills.

A moveable grab-bar that is accessible anywhere in the room will help residents gain independence, prevent bedsores, and reduce the threat of back injuries to caregivers. Research was performed on materials, manufacturing processes, and geometries; and the most effective design was chosen. Computer-aided design programs were then used to model parts and subject them to stress analysis testing. Meeting constraints such as mechanical loading, versatility, maintenance procedures, manufacturability, aesthetics, and cost was essential to the success of the project.

American Hydromech is a locally owned and operated Michigan business founded by Mr. Timothy A. Droste. American Hydromech specializes in contract and development engineering as well as equipment assembly for land and sea vehicle applications.

American Hydromech is involved with the development of a new means of powering automotive hydraulic pumps. Existing applications include the use of gear rotor pumps that have developed a reputation for an unpleasant audible noise. It has been shown in other fluid systems, most prominently fuel systems, that hydrodynamic (regenerative turbine) pumps have been successfully implemented. This project will investigate the feasibility of implementing a hydrodynamic pump at low pressure levels to reduce the overall audible noise level in fluid power pumps for automotive applications. In addition to reducing audible noise, the use of a regenerative turbine pump, in conjunction with an electric motor, will allow a greater flexibility of pump performance by making the pump drive independent of engine speed.

The student team was given the task of designing an appropriate fluid circuit system to test the feasibility o f using a regenerative turbine pump in place of a standard gear rotor pump. CAD was used to design the fittings and other assembly components. Utilizing the pump test assembly, several parameters were tested including discharge pressure, pump efficiency, sound pressure, and system flow rate.

Team Members: Motozo Horikawa, Chris Lange, Chris Rawsky, Oliver Zemanek

Eaton Corporation is a global corporation specializing in powering business systems by manufacturing and distribution of electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical products. The branch of Eaton Corporation based in Jackson primarily manufactures hydraulic power systems. This includes the hydraulic cylinder together with the servo valves
that control systems.

For a hydraulic system to perform with high precision, good performance of the servo valve is essential. The current model of servo valves has been manufactured for the past 30 years. However, Eaton Corporation has determined that this model does not perform as well as their competitor’s product. This is due to potential issues in the materials, geometry, and tolerances of some of servo actuator components. The goal o f this project is to research materials, machining processes, and tolerances in order to help improve the performance of Eaton’s servo valve.

Our team proposed a number of design changes, based on the outcome of our investigations. These involved varying materials, geometry, and tolerances. The team designed and built a test rig for assessing how the proposed changes affect the response of the servo actuator. This rig measures and evaluates the response of the servo armature using Digital Imaging Correlation, and the results o f the study will be used to recommend design changes for improving the performance of Eaton’s servo valves.

Ford Motor Company is responsible for the building blocks of the automotive industry. From Ford’s Model A creation in 1903, to the release of its latest 5.0 Liter Mustang in 2010. Ford Motor Company has proved it is one of the top automotive companies in the world today. Ford’s striving for excellence in the automotive industry has allowed for new, innovative components for its vehicles each year.

Automotive component design is a competitive and challenging arena in the automotive industry. Automotive suppliers and OEM’s are constantly investigating new innovative ideas and concepts that will increase the overall value of the vehicle to the customer. This project involved creating a new component design, specifically a thermoplastic valve cover sealing flange that could be used on new engine architectures, like the 5.0 Liter Ford Mustang engine.

The team was tasked to create a new sealing flange design that will not only enhance the look of the engine valve cover, but minimize the plastic and fastener usage, while keeping the necessary structural integrity under the gasket pressure.

Computer aided designs were created by the team members and stress analysis, both mathematical and finite element, was performed on each model. Optimization tools were used to maximize the fastener span and minimize the wall thickness of each design to reach the goals set by Ford of decreasing weight and cost to produce a product of high value.

Many regions of the world do not have the indoor plumbing infrastructure necessary to fully take advantage of all the features of many modern household appliances. The customers in burgeoning economies of countries like Brazil, Russia, India, and China would like to have access to all of the available conveniences from Whirlpool Corporation’s products, including self-dispensing water and ice machines that are incorporated in many of the designs the company offers. In traditional refrigerator design, this feature is dependent on a connection to municipal water lines. It was the intention of Whirlpool Corporation in collaboration with the student design team to build a mechanically driven alternative that would allow the end-user access to the ice-and-water dispensing system without incurring significant added cost.

The team will document the design process and results of different pump setups during bench-top testing while recording the respective differences in flow-rate, pressure, overall reservoir capacity, and cost of each system during feasibility studies. These results of each unique pump design will be furnished to Whirlpool Corporation’s technical team to ascertain whether to follow up with appropriate integration efforts as they are marketed to consumers in the effected target demographic.