Blow Forming Plate Cooler
Upper blowforming plate with copper cooling system on top
Overview
The aluminum plates used for pressure blow forming took one hour and forty minutes to cool down. I was tasked with creating a cooling system to reduce this cooling time to increase the speed with which we could prototype our primary separation containment. This image was taken in the Zaiput Office and showcases abilities in solidworks (layout design) fabrication, procurement, and assembly.
Problem
The full scale blow forming plates take too long to cool down.
Design Constraints
3/8th inch copper tube to mitigate pressure drop down a tube
Attach tube to plate with JB weld epoxy.
Thermal paste due to JB weld poor thermal conductivity.
Swagelock fittings and fep tubing
Challenges
I was required to bend copper tubing by hand using a manual pipe bender
Design a tube network to maximize surface contact with plates while combining to one outlet and one inlet at the chiller
Results
The implementation of my cooling system resulted in a 60% decrease in cooling time for the blow forming plates. This increased the efficiency of our prototyping and sped up our product development and troubleshooting.