Heavy Duty Pallet De-stacker

Allen George Philip, Jose Trejo, Harindu Jayathilake, Ouzegane SariFaculty Advisor: Dr. Rajeev Nair

OBJECTIVE

PROBLEM STATEMENT

BACKGROUND

DETAILED DESIGN

CONCLUSION

KINEMATIC ANALYSIS

STRESS ANALYSIS

DESIGN VARIANTS

Design a heavy-duty pallet de-stacker

mechanism that can hold a stack of at least

twenty 42”x 48” pallets, and can dispense

them, one pallet at a time, at a certain rate.

Company Sponsor: Brian BrownDesign Duration: 11 weeks

The National Institute of Aviation Research

(NIAR), mainly focuses on research,

design, and testing, within the aviation

industry. Currently, the workers at NIAR

Robotics and Automation Lab, carries out

the pallet de-stacking process manually. A

pallet de-stacker mechanism would help

automate this task and save time and labor

The de-stacker requirements are:

• Holds at least 20 pallets.

• Dispenses one pallet at a time, 12”

above the ground.

• Needs to be durable and ergonomic

• Costs approximately 5000$

Overall Function Structure

Function Structure Block Diagram

The group experimented with various designs for three main parts; the arms that grabs and

lifts the stack of pallets, the frame that holds the pallets, as well as, the conveyor that

dispenses the pallets. It was finalized to use arms that can easily rotate, and translate, frame

that is compact, and a conveyor like dispenser

After several iterations, the team developed a design with minimal weight, takes less space,

and is strong enough to hold and de-stack the large stack of pallets.

Frame with Pallets Final Assembly

Arms Conveyor System Conveyor with Pallets

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ADAMS software was used to analyze the

kinetics, and kinematics of the arms

ADAMS Simulation

Tranlational Displacement of Arm

Tranlational Velocity of Arm

Equivalent Stress on Frame and Arms

Equivalent Stress on Dispenser

Total Deformation of Frame and Arms

Total Deformation of Dispenser

Equivalent Stress on Arms Total Deformation on Arms

FEA analysis using Ansys Workbench

It was found that the model can withstand

loads from the stack of pallets, as well as

perform all the necessary operations.

A very special thanks to the TA, Durga

Venkata Suresh Koppisetty, for his

extensive help on FEA analysis, as well as

our advisor Dr. Rajeev Nair.