Kautex Textron, located in Providence, Rhode Island, is one of the world’s 100 largest automotive suppliers. It manufactures camshafts, clear-vision, selective catalytic reduction, and fuel tank systems. Kautex has made significant advancements in fuel tank technology in recent years, revolutionizing their manufacture by constructing them from plastic materials that are lightweight, resistant to corrosion, recyclable and have many other advantages over their steel counterparts. In plastic tank systems, assembly is a two-step process in which a stud is welded or screwed into the tank and a palnut is hammered over the heat shield onto the stud. Kautex is interested in an optimized wave pad design and a method of attachment that would reduce the design lead time and the validation costs of this assembly process.

The MSU team will develop designs that reduce the need for multiple operators or machines to streamline the assembly process while meeting manufacturing constraints. An optimal design will be selected and developed in detail for implementation by Kautex Textron.

International Automotive Components (IAC) is an automotive supplier with 32,000 employees at 100 facilities in 22 countries and is the third largest supplier of automotive interior components in the world. Components designed and manufactured by IAC include trim systems, instrument panels, flooring systems, and overhead systems. Currently at IAC plants across North America, flooring systems are made in large quantities and are often carried by employees between each stage of the manufacturing process without assistance. These carpets can be as large as 24 square feet, may weigh up to 30 pounds and are carried over distances from one to fifty feet. This practice carries a risk of employee injury and can also cause physical strain.

IAC has asked the MSU design team to develop a carpet transfer system that will reduce the physical strain on factory employees, lower the risk of physical injury, and improve workplace efficiency. The MSU team will design and manufacture a prototype transfer system for implementation and testing at IAC facilities.

Ingersoll Rand is a global industrial company that manufactures tools and air conditioning systems for consumers and businesses worldwide. The Climate Solutions Sector, which is a division of Ingersoll Rand, offers products which aim to help customers reduce energy and carbon emissions use while improving performance. During assembly of gas manifolds at Ingersoll Rand’s Lynn Haven plant in Florida, one of a sequence of assembly operations is problematic. A street elbow is attached to the manifold using a torque gun, which frequently results in the street elbow being orientated incorrectly. The operator must then use a wrench to reposition it.

MSU students were asked to reduce or eliminate the need for the repositioning procedure, thus reducing or eliminating the street elbow’s ergonomic score. Ingersoll Rand wants to make the manifold assembly as safe and streamlined as possible to prevent long-term injuries to personnel. The team will design a new assembly process that fulfills Ingersoll Rand’s specifications. It will begin with tests of existing torque guns and ultimately result in the demonstration of new methods of assembly to improve the ergonomic score.

Ingersoll Rand is a multinational engineering company with divisions that specialize in transportation, manufacturing, construction and agriculture. One division, Trane, specializes in heating and cooling air control. Trane manufacturers large air handling units (AHU’s) for its semi- customized commercial market. These units house multiple stacked fans that can weigh up to 500 lbs. Since these fans run constantly, their maintenance is important. Their motors are heavy and removing them for maintenance or replacement can be difficult and dangerous. Trane will be launching a new AHU model and wishes to develop a reliable and consistent method of removing the AHU’s fan motors safely.

The team at MSU will design and develop a safe, reliable motor-removal solution using a rail system for removal and lifting of the motors to a doorway, through which workers can handle them safely. The team will construct a prototype of the optimal design for evaluation by Trane.

Tenneco Inc. is a leading manufacturer of automotive exhaust systems and catalytic converters, which have been used for emission control in vehicles since 1975. In its Grass Lake, Michigan, engineering facility, Tenneco designs converters which are manufactured at plants throughout the United States. The chemically-active component of a catalytic converter is a ceramic substrate that is wash- coated in precious metals, which undergo catalytic reaction with certain species of the exhaust gas to clean the emissions of the vehicle. The substrate is wrapped in a mat, typically made of ceramic fibers, to hold it in place within the can. While the contents of the catalytic converter are generally dictated by requirements of the customer, the process by which the contents are ‘canned’ is inefficient and inconsistent and offers significant opportunities for improvement.

The goal of this project is to design an improved manufacturing technique for ‘canning’ the substrate and mat, which may be optimized by altering the geometry or changing the mat material. The resulting catalytic converter should be constructible with greater manufacturing consistency while meeting or exceeding the quality and performance of current designs.

Team Members: Evan Boyers, Nathan Gill, Bradly LaBaere, Trevor Laskowski, Alan Richards

Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, Meritor is a leading global supplier of innovative products for commercial-vehicle and industrial markets. These products include axles, brake and safety systems, drivelines, suspensions, trailer components, and aftermarket parts. Meritor produces more than 50 different trailer axles for a broad range of trailer applications, all of which require a hub component as part of the wheel-end assembly. The current trailer- axle hub sold by Meritor is made of ductile iron and competes with lower quality but lighter hubs produced by other companies. Lightweight hubs are desirable to customers because less weight corresponds to lower rotational inertia. Meritor is interested in designing a new, lightweight design trailer-axle hub that meets the performance quality of Meritor’s existing iron products.

The MSU design team will create an optimized design of Meritor’s trailer-axle hub so that the company can introduce a more competitive product into the hub market that still meets the desired strength and durability requirements. The team will benchmark hubs from Meritor and its competitors, determine ways in which weight can be reduced and select an optimal design using optimization software.

As the nation’s fourth-largest oil and natural- gas refiner, Marathon Petroleum Corporation operates over 8,300 miles of pipeline for transporting fuels and marketing petroleum products. Based in Findlay, Ohio, Marathon Petroleum owns a variety of storage facilities throughout the Midwest. One of these facilities, located in Woodhaven, Michigan, has seven storage reserves at which butane is stocked in caverns roughly 1,500 feet below the earth’s surface. Butane is pumped between tank trucks and these caverns through thousands of feet of pipeline which require continuous maintenance. One of Marathon’s maintenance projects requires the refurbishing of the well heads to the storage caverns. Marathon strives to protect workers against hazardous vapors that may escape during such operations, since safety is a top priority. Therefore, Marathon is interested in installing an isolation plug which, when placed between the production and service casings, can block all potentially hazardous or explosive gas emissions.

The Capstone team will design and model an annular, isolation plug for Marathon’s pipelines. The plug must meet Marathon’s functionality, reliability, and durability requirements. A final, working prototype will be delivered to the company prior to the course deadline and tested for performance at the site.

Easter Seals Michigan AgrAbility is a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to farmers with handicaps, injuries, or conditions due to aging. Services include creative solutions through the development of tools, equipment, and methods to improve each farmer’s daily quality of life. A skid-steer, which is a vehicle designed for a variety of tasks in farming and construction, is the one such device that AgrAbility has modified to accommodate its clients’ needs. Due to its versatility, a skid-steer is an essential tool for a farmer’s day-to-day tasks. However, getting into skid-steers with a front-loading driver’s seat requires dexterity and flexibility which many farmers with disabilities lack. Therefore, Michigan AgrAbility is interested in creative modifications that could be made to the skid-steer to help disabled farmers get into and out of their personal vehicle.

The major factors that constrain design solutions are the dimensional limitations presented by the motion of the skid- steer arm assembly and the inability to alter the vehicle’s roll cage under the terms of its warranty. This team’s challenge is to design, build, and test a mechanism that would allow the disabled client to get into and out of the skid-steer safely and efficiently. A prototype will be constructed and delivered for testing.

*This is a joint project of the MSU Cooperative Extension and Michigan Easter Seals, funded by the US Department of Agriculture.

Team Members: Nassar Alhajri, Ross Buckley, Kane Clark, Kimberly Fortenberry, Mike Pinger

ArcelorMittal is the world’s leader in steel production and mining. In order to remain competitive in many steel markets, the company must operate multiple finishing-product lines. In such lines, one widely-used method of steel processing is annealing. During this process, steel coils are loaded into ovens heated by furnaces for a prescribed amount of time in order to remove stresses introduced during manufacturing processes. The furnaces vent some exhaust fumes into the processing facility, which can create a hostile work environment for employees, especially if combustion in the furnace is not ideal. While combustion gas analyzers are available for measuring furnace exhaust properties and as personal meters for individuals, the constraints on their operation require a carefully designed gas-sampling strategy to ensure workplace safety.

In order to minimize downtime and eliminate the need for expensive combustion analyzers, the Michigan State team will develop a method of collecting and cooling furnace exhaust gases. The gas cooling will be substantial enough to meet the sample temperature requirements of individual employee gas meters. The team will present a prototype design, justification and analysis to ArcelorMittal for future implementation.

Robert Bosch is a pioneer in research, development and production of automotive, consumer and industrial components and systems for manufacturers worldwide. With the ongoing efforts to improve Diesel engine efficiency and environment sustainability, Bosch has developed a Waste Heat Recovery system (WHR) for heavy-duty commercial vehicles. WHR utilizes approximately 60% of invested primary energy through an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) in which ethanol is circulated; it converts exhaust waste heat into useful energy for powering mechanical or electrical systems in a vehicle. This system guarantees fuel savings of up to 5% and a reduced output of CO2, which will help to meet future emission limits. Currently Bosch uses a tank as one component of the ORC, which maintains ethanol at a constant pressure and volume. Determining the amount of ethanol required for the ORC is necessary for it to recover waste heat at maximum efficiency. The tank also needs to be designed with long-lasting components and materials to overcome durability and leakage problems.

The team will design and fabricate a tank which maintains the optimal amount of ethanol at constant pressure and volume for maximum efficiency. It will also specify components and materials needed for a durable, leak-free design. Structural design calculations and finite element analyses will be used to ensure the design meets the requirements of minimum weight and fabrication cost.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a government organization that regulates and enforces laws that pertain to the cleanliness of the environment. One of the main concerns of the EPA is vehicle emissions. The EPA tests all car models sold in the U.S. to ensure they meet exhaust-gas emission standards. A common method of measuring emissions is to remove the engine from a vehicle and run it under controlled conditions on a dynamometer, collecting exhaust gas for emissions analysis. In order to accurately measure the concentrations of emissions in the exhaust, the sampled gas must be cooled prior to analysis to stop chemical reactions that would continue in uncooled high-temperature gas. The desired cooling is achieved by introducing a controlled flow of air at a specific temperature upstream from the engine exhaust, and mixing it with the exhaust gas in a dilution tunnel.

This team’s objective is to design a system to heat the incoming dilution tunnel air to 47 °C +/- 5 °C as efficiently as possible. To accomplish this, the team proposes a design that utilizes as much waste heat from the engine as possible in order to minimize the requirement for additional electrical heating to reach the desired temperature. The proposed system will be tested on the EPA’s dilution tunnel.

Team Members: Micah Appel, Josh Cresswell, Ryan Kutcher, Katy Sabo, Basil Thurton

Hitachi Automotive Systems is involved in the development, manufacture, and sale of automotive components and systems, and its Farmington Hills location is home to the fuel system team. A principal objective in automotive design is to maximize the fuel efficiency of vehicles in every way possible in order to meet environmental impact regulations. One method by which fuel efficiency can be increased is through the use of gasoline direct-injection fuel systems in preference to traditional port-injected systems, as they permit more precise control over the amount of fuel injected, which can reduce fuel consumption. Another method of improving fuel efficiency is by using blends of fossil and alternative fuels in optimal ratios.

The goal of this project is to design a testing bench for a gasoline direct-injection fuel system comprising six injectors. A successful design will allow the fuel system team to perform experiments that monitor the performance of an injection system using different fuel blends and to measure the fuel flow through each injector. With such tests, Hitachi may ultimately design the most efficient fuel systems for the automotive market of the future.

Team Members: Keegan Connolly, Yan Li, Alex Zettler, Yijia Zhang

Tenneco Incorporated is one of the world’s leading designers, manufacturers, and distributors of clear-air and rid-performance product systems within the automotive industry. In many of the muffler systems that Tenneco designs, high pressure gas passes through a passive exhaust valve before freely entering the atmosphere. Recently, it has been observed that, if designed properly, a back-pressure can be induced in the passive exhaust valve, which can in turn, prevent approximately 2-3% of NOx emissions from reaching the atmosphere, effectively aiding in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Tenneco is interested in design concepts that improve upon the functionality of the back-pressure-induced exhaust valve, which also meet decibel, temperature, lifespan, and cost regulations of the product.

The MSU team will evaluate a set of conceptual part-minimizing designs that satisfy the constraints set by Tenneco. An optimal design will be selected and then customized for a particular Tenneco muffler. A prototype of the most promising design will then be built and tested for functionality and reliability and delivered to Tenneco for further evaluation.

Team Members: Max Bennett, Omar Elsherif, Kevin Pugh, Andrew Stieber, Patrick Vaughan

Whirlpool Corporation is the world’s largest manufacturer of appliances. It produces models for several of the most popular brands in over 70 manufacturing facilities around the globe. One of its products is a pedestal attachment for washers and dryers that raises the appliance and provides a drawer for storage. During installation, the appliance must be laid on its back so that the pedestal can be fastened to it with screws. However, many laundry rooms are not large enough for this attachment process, in which potential customers may consider other brands. Furthermore, the appliances are not designed to be laid on their backs as they contain concrete counterweights. Whirlpool is, therefore, interested in pedestal attachments that maintain the structural and vibrational characteristics of the current design but do not require an installation process in which the appliance is laid on its back.

The MSU team will conceive and evaluate multiple designs that satisfy Whirlpool’s constraints. An optimal design will be selected and a prototype will then be built and tested for preliminary functionality and reliability. This design will be delivered to Whirlpool for further evaluation and optimization.

Team Members: Sanders Aspelund, Jessica Buschman, Garrett Dunn, James Hargrove, Elisabeth Warner