EV Motor High-Voltage Busbar Redesign
During a cost-reduction project for an EV motor, I discovered that the existing high-voltage busbars made up nearly 10% of the entire bill of material cost for the motor. Each busbar was made from 3 pieces- a formed copper section, a solid machined copper round bar with threaded insert, and a hex nut to attach the two sections. I simplified the design by forming the busbars from one-piece and installing a PEM threaded insert. This reduced the busbar cost by a massive 82 percent!
EV Stator Epoxy Casting Tooling
Initial production runs of a 2-part epoxy casting process proved to be extremely volatile. My solution was to design some riser tooling that would allow the part to be overfilled such that when the epoxy contracted as it cooled, it maintained proper volume inside the part. The tooling consisted of a machined ring with threaded holes that allowed custom machined riser fittings to be attached to the casting mold. The fittings sealed radially using o-rings. A rubber tube was clamped to each of the fittings to allow for the correct overfill volume. The implementation of this tooling lead to an immediate 30% reduction in scrap and a 60% reduction in rework. Approximate cost savings from labor and materials was over $187,000.
The custom-machined riser tooling proved to work well, but the consumable costs for full production would be very costly. Each use required replacement of the o-rings and rubber tubing. My solution was to design a concept for a disposable rubber riser. I proposed this design to a vendor and worked with them to design the injection-molding tooling. In terms of consumable costs and labor costs, this option provided a cost savings of $812,880 at target production capacity. There is also potential to reuse these rubber risers, which would allow for even more cost savings. The upfront tooling costs were also much more attractive, coming in at a mere $3,548, compared to over $250,000 for the custom-machined riser tooling.
Baghouse Project
30,000 cfm baghouse for foundry sand processing equipment.
Plant Compressed Air Dryer
12,000 cfm heated blower-purge desiccant air dryer for foundry compressed air system.
Heat Exchanger Assembly & Handling Fixtures
Fixtures used to assemble and handle heat exchanger tube bundle assemblies ranging in size from 36,000 lbs to 100,000 lbs.
