THINKER | Let's Connect
Awards & Nominations
THINKER has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
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Evaluation of an assembly mechanism based on a formable screw
Summary
This project addresses an aspect of affordability through an assembly mechanism using a formable screw, addressing the issue of high assembly costs in space. While vehicle launches into space for exploration programs are relatively well known, in-orbit assembly has received much less attention, but is an equally important component of the aerospace infrastructure that allows human access to space. The objective of the development of this project is to innovate and use technologies that facilitate suborbital assembly while being real and achievable. We present the design ideas of a moldable tonneau to create effective assemblies, based on the principles required for its successful operation.
How We Addressed This Challenge
The future of humanity in space is closer than expected, so it is necessary to build larger spaceships and the construction of gunners in space, with this in mind it intended to develop an assembly mechanism based on a moldable screw that fits the hole in which it inserted. Thus facilitating the assembly and coupling in space also has the advantage of being adaptable to different sizes of holes. The project consists of a moldable material that covers the screw thread and the screw head is easy to screw in by hand without the use of a screwdriver. Being a moldable screw can be adapted to any shape of hole so we could join incompatible or compatible parts. Its operation is simple as other types of screws are assembled in the holes of the parts we want to assemble and if for some reason the holes of these parts have been disfigured and the original screw no longer fits, the adaptable screw can replace its place without any difficulty. This project has an important economic and environmental impact, since it will reduce the costs of materials to be able to solve problems of final assembly before expensive pieces. The alone fact of being able to repair pieces of damaged ships without necessity of using other tools would reduce the economic expenses and on having repair we would avoid to generate more space contamination. With the development of a simple, low cost and effective mechanism to be able to assemble parts in space, we hope to facilitate the assembly of any type and size of parts and thus reduce space pollution.
How We Developed This Project
"To survive as a species, we must eventually travel to the stars, and today we commit ourselves to the next great advance of man in the cosmos" - Stephen Hawking
We decided to start this challenge because it represents a challenge for us to develop this project, to integrate our skills, capacities and abilities in combination with acquired knowledge and to integrate them to achieve a real and accessible solution.
We have decided to have a qualitative approach that allows us to analyze ideas to develop an accessible assembly mechanism to assemble parts whether they are compatible or not regardless of size.
The tool was used to design the screw and moldable materials was freeCad. This app permited us show a prototype about our proyect.
Our achievement was to design an innovative mechanism that allows the assembly of compatible and non-compatible parts regardless of the size, since it allows the process to expedite and costs reduced. However, our problem was cannot founding the right material to use but we thought about using a thermoplastic elastomer, and the limited time to investigate in addition to not getting an accessible software to assemble the design.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We used the ZipNuts data shared by NASA through resources to develop the idea of an assembly screw that will speed up the assembly process. we used the Assembly and Maintenance in Space (iSSA) data to bring the idea to a low-cost, accessible form
Project Demo
the yellow colors corresponds to thermoplastic elastomer material. this is the material that be able to be moldable to do an assembly.
Data & Resources
(Abbasi et al., n.d.)
(Mansfield:KSC, n.d.)
(Exoplanet Program: In-Space Servicing and Assembly (ISSA), n.d.)
(Access the Data - Canada.Ca, n.d.)
(La NASA Busca Imprimir Espejos de Telescopio En El Espacio - LA NACION, n.d.)
(Drouot et al., 2018)
(Latombe et al., 1997)
(Chang & Gossard, 1997)
(“Estudio,Análisis y Clasificación de Elastómeros Termoplásticos,” n.d.)