Computer Simulation of a Press Feed Mechanism and Experimental Confirmation

An experimentally verified simulation of the elastic-dynamic behavior of a lever-type feed mechanism is presented. Based on a combination of experimental and analytical findings, simplified motion equations could be introduced. In the experimental set-up, the motion of the mechanism is monitored by three angular encoders, which are attached to the drive shaft, the rocker-link shaft, and the feed roller shaft, respectively. Their output, which is stored in a specially designed data acquisition system, allows the correlation of the instantaneous rotations of the feed roller and the rocker shafts to that of the drive shaft. Strain gages provide in and out-of-plane bending-strain histories of the bent coupler. Experiment and theory, for different loading conditions, are correlated by way of the coupler strain, the clutch windup angle and the total feed length. Good qualitative and quantitative agreement between computed and experimental results was found.