ANALYSIS OF NATURAL RESTING ASPECTS OF COMPLEX PARTS

This paper verifies the existing hypotheses which predict that the nat ural resting aspects of small engineering parts on soft and hard surfa ces are able to predict the orientation of parts on the track of a vib ratory bowl at different vibrating amplitude levels. Most of the exist ing hypotheses developed were verified using the ''drop test'' method in which parts were repeatedly dropped from certain height to a surfac e in order to analyze the natural resting behavior of these parts. Thi s paper describes an attempt to conduct accurate experiments in the la boratory to examine the probabilities of feed orientation of T-shaped components of different aspect ratios by varying the amplitude levels and surface textures of the vibratory bowl. The experimental results w ere compared with the predictions of the hypotheses postulated firstly by Ngoi et al.(1) and secondly by Ngoi et al.(2) The experimental res ults were found to agree well with those predicted by the hypotheses. Moreover, it is also observed that the vibrating amplitude of the vibr atory bowl does not significantly affect the orientation of the parts.