Tube Roller

Hi this is George, in my engineering class I made a 3D CAD model of a tube roller. For those of you who don't know, CAD stands for computer-aided design. This

is the use of computer systems to assist in the creation, modification analysis or optimization of a design. The tube roller was designed and built by my classmates, Jonathan and Diego.

What is a Tube Roller you ask?  A Tube Roller is... a machine with three concave rollers. The tube roller example below is one made by the Harbor Freight company.

The rollers ascend or descend depending on the desired curve or radius you want. On the tube roller designed by Harbor Freight you screw the top roller to make it ascend or descend. Doing that will cause a difference in height and how much pressure is applied on the tubing. In effect this changes the radius at which you bend it.

The tube roller designed by my classmates however is a little different. It consist of three different parts; a main body base, an ascending/descending middle part and a car jack. In this design the jack acts like the screw raising or lowering the middle part against a third roller attached to the main base. On the outside of the main base a wheel is attached so that when you spin it the tubing moves along the rollers. The radius or curve of the tubing depends on the height of the middle part. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, in this case it might help elaborate on the functionality of this tube roller.

Above is a picture that may help better understand how the tube roller actually works. If you would like to see more drawings of the tube roller click on the following link. There you will see several perspectives of the original design. http://georgebasadrawings.blogspot.com/2014/03/tube-roller-drawings.html#more

Above is the image of the solidworks model using measurements from their cardboard model.

Below is the prototype cardboard model they built.

After I completed the original design my teacher asked me to design it in a form that was not only functional, but also appealing aesthetically. As you can see from the picture above, the original design has sharp edges and doesn't look user friendly. My plan to solve this problem was too add a uniform radius to all the edges. The result is what you see below.

                      

After several meetings with my teacher and my classmates about the design, we decided to make several changes. In some areas we noticed that more support was needed and in others less. One very noticeable difference is a concentric hole on the walls. Most of the changes made are minor changes in shape and placement of parts. Again I went into solidworks and made a third design rendering. The picture below is the final design of the tube roller after all the changes.