Center Console Coin Holder Design from Class A input – Automotive Plastic Component

Center Console Coin Holder Design – Automotive Plastic Component

This report demonstrates the design of an Automotive Plastic Component – Coin Holder for Center Console using industry principles such as Draft angles, Draft Analysis, Determining the Tooling Axis, Class A, Class B and Class C surfaces. The component is designed using Surface Design and Solid Design techniques in CAD package CATIA V5.

Figure1: Coin Holder

The terms are briefly explained below:

Draft:

• Draft is an angular tapering given at the design stage to every Plastic Component that has to be manufactured.
• It is given in the direction of the Mold Movement.
• The Draft allows the parts to release easily from the mold without creating friction between the surface of component and the core and cavity plates.
• When a Plastic component cools down inside the mold, the natural tendency of it is to shrink and attach to the core or cavity half.
• The movement of mold opening causes friction on the walls of the component as well as the core/cavity blocks.
• This reduces the life of the mold as well as the component itself.
• The component may also have rough surface finish as well as weak structure due to this.
• This problem can be solved by giving draft to the component.
• Most applications require minimum draft angles of around 0.5º to 1º , however 3º draft angles are widely accepted for cost saving purpose.
• 7º Draft angles are given to textured surfaces like Instrument Panels.
• Minimum possible draft angles are given to screw bosses, ribs and stiffeners due to their critical nature.
• Walls having 0º or negative draft are difficult to manufacture thus, are required to redesign from the Class A stage.

Figure2: Draft Angles

Tooling Axis:

• Tooling Axis is the direction in which the Mold opens and closes.
• Part Drafts are given along this axis.

Figure3: Tooling Axis

Draft Analysis:

• Draft Analysis is a tool in CATIA which identifies the zones which deviates from the specified values of angles along a defined draft direction using colour codes.
• It highlights the regions of draft using colours.
• Draft analysis is the first step performed after receiving the Class A of the component.
• Draft analysis should be passed in order to make the plastic component manufacturable.
• Acceptable draft angles are used as range for draft analysis.

Figure4: Draft Analysis showing one of the faces having acceptable 27º draft angle

Class- A Surface:

• In automotive design, a class A surface is any of a set of freeform surfaces of high efficiency and quality. It is the visible aesthetic surface of any automotive component.
• Class A surface refers to those surfaces which are visible and abide to the physical meaning, in a product.
• This classification is primarily used in the automotive and increasingly in consumer goods industry.
• It is a requirement where aesthetics has a significant contribution.
• For this reason, the exterior of automobiles is deemed Class-A.

Class- B Surface:

• Class B surfaces are Engineering Surfaces which are invisible to the eyes or often on the back side of the Class A surfaces.
• It is mainly the thickness of the component or Class A.
• These surfaces need to be designed as per the Class A surface i.e., the continuity, thickness of the component, functionality etc should be maintained.
• These surfaces include the main engineering features such as Screw bosses, Ribs, Snaps, Stiffeners and fixations.
• B surfaces also do not contain any aesthetic styling content and textures since it is not visible to eyes.

Class- C Surface:

• Class C surfaces are connectors between Class A and B surfaces.
• This surface connects both A and B surfaces along or angled to the Tooling Axis.
• It contains the draft as per the design.
• It is basically the thickened surface between both A and B surface.
• Below Figure 5 shows class A,B and C surfaces: Purple surface is Class A, Cyan surface is Class B and Red surfaces are Class C surfaces.

Figure5: Depiction of Class A, Class B and Class C surfaces

COIN HOLDER DESIGN:

Procedure to be followed:

Figure6: Procedure in designing Coin Holder

Step 1: Design Check on received Class A:

After receiving the Class-A for the Coin Holder check for the connectivity of the surfaces on it. Use Join operation, boundary operation and disassemble. The check is over if any discontinuities do not arise. Delete the operations after the check.

Step 2: Determine the Tooling Axis:

• Identify faces which can potentially create problems while manufacturing.
• Surfaces at angles along a desired Tooling Axis.
• Extract a plain surface and create a point on its center for Axis system creation.
• In this case Y axis can be a possible Tooling Axis Direction.
• The highlighted coloured faces can be a problem in terms of draft analysis Figure 7 demonstrates the steps.

Figure7: Base Extract, Highlighted Faces for Draft Analysis and Tooling Axis

• Intersect the YZ Plane with the Class A.
• Since Most of the Faces from the Intersect are either parallel or at 90º or having comfortable draft angles, the Tooling Axis will be created in direction normal to the Base surface along the origin of the Axis System.
• It is shown in Figure 8 and 9.

Figure8: YZ plane sketch for Tool Clearing for Y.

Figure9: Tooling Axis.

• Publish the Tooling Axis as well as the Class A for easy access using Insert ---> Publication as shown in Figure 10.

Figure10: Publication of Tooling Axis and Class A surface.

Step 3: Perform Draft Analysis on Class A Surface:

• Change View Mode Customization to Material mode
• Go to INSERT à ANALYSIS à FEATURE DRAFT ANALYSIS and move the compass to the Tooling Axis. Change the range to 3º. Apply the settings as Shown in Figure 11.
• As shown the target area has 27º draft angle on a face.
• The input Class A also has walls having negative angle to the tooling axis and some having 0º too.
• This can be an issue while manufacturing the component as it would be very difficult to draw from the molds.
• So, this design needs to be reconsidered at the Class A Styling stage where improvising on the draft angles is required.
• Minimum positive drafts can be considered while styling after which it can be considered to be thickened and manufactured.

Figure11: Draft Analysis on Class A of Coin Holder.

Step 4:Class B Surface Creation:

• Extract the relevant surfaces from Class-A surface which excludes the Fillets and holes.
• Here the selected faces consist of Side Walls, Base, Top Walls and External Flange surfaces.
• Extract of these surfaces is shown in the Figure 12.

Figure12: Extract of surfaces from Class A of Coin Holder.

• Use Untrim Command to untrim the extracted surfaces and create a natural extend.
• It is shown in Figure 13.

Figure13: Untrim of Extracted Surfaces.

• Extrapolate the untrimmed surfaces so that each of them intersects clearly and pass way forward than the Class A which will help in its trimming in further operations.
• The operation is shown in Figure 14.

Figure14: Extrapolated Surfaces created from Untrimmed Surfaces.

• Offset the extrapolated surfaces to the value of required Thickness of the Part.
• In this case of Coin Holder, the thickness value is 2.5 mm.
• The offset faces are the part of B-Surface.
• The operation is shown in Figure 15.

Figure15: Offset highlighted in Purple.

• Trim the extra surfaces to obtain similar extended surfaces as in Class A.
• The surface obtained after trim is shown in Figure 16.

Figure16: Surface obtained on Trimming of Extrapolated Surfaces.

• Create Fillets while maintaining the part thickness between the Class A and Class B surfaces.
• The Value of Fillet is given by the equation (B surface fillet = A surface fillet ` Thickness of the Part).
• The sign + or – must be decided so as to maintain the part thickness which in this case is 2.5mm.
• The operation is shown in Figure 17.

Figure17: Fillets to be created as per the Part Thickness (in this case 2.5mm).

• The obtained surface is the required Class B Surface highlighted in Light Brown as shown in Figure18.

Figure18: Class B surface of Coin Holder highlighted in Light Brown.

Step 5: Class C Surface Creation:

• Use Boundary Feature to extract the outer boundary of the Coin Holder Class A surface in Figure 19.

Figure19: Boundary for Class A of Coin Holder.

• Use Sweep Operation to extrude the boundary using the ‘With Reference Surface’ option and selecting the boundary for Guide curve and the Multiple extract of External Flange Walls as Reference Surface.
• Use angle as 90º and select inward direction i.e., towards B surface with appropriate length say 4mm as shown in Figure 20.

Figure20: Sweep operation for C Surface.

• Use similar Boundary and Sweep option for the Cut Section in the coin holder.
• Multiple extract the reference surfaces and sweep outwards 90º to the extract towards B surface as shown in Figure21.

Figure21: Class C surface for Cut section.

Step 6: Final Closed Surface Creation:

• Join all the Swept surfaces along with the Class B Surface.
• The Final trim should be one single Surface Entity without any gaps as shown in Figure 22.

Figure22: Final trim of Class B and Class C surfaces.

• Join the Final Trim Surface with the Class A surface to obtain the final enclosed Surface for the Coin Holder as shown in Figure 23.

Figure23: Final Closed Surface for Coin Holder.

Step 7: Perform Draft Analysis on the Final Closed Surface:

• Change View Mode Customization to Material mode
• Go to INSERT ---> ANALYSIS ---> FEATURE DRAFT ANALYSIS and move the compass to the Tooling Axis.
• Change the range to 2.9º. Apply the settings as Shown in Figure 24
• The final surface Draft analysis also does not pass since the class A contained Parallel walls and walls without draft.
• This component will be costly to manufacture or may even fail causing loss in Time and Cost.

Figure24: Draft Analysis on Closed Surface of Coin Holder.

• Other view of the Draft Analysis is shown below in Figure 25.

Figure25: Draft Analysis on Closed Surface of Coin Holder.

Step 8: Create a Closed Body Part from Final Closed Surface:

• Switch to Part Design Workbench and use Closed Surface option to create a Solid Part from the final obtained surfaces.
• The part created is the required Coin Holder designed from a Class A.
• The obtained solid Part is shown in Figure 26.

Figure26: Final Closed Surface - Part of Coin Holder.

• Other Views of the Solid Part are shown below:

Isometric View:

Front View:

LHSV:

RHSV:

Top View:

Bottom View:

Conclusion:

The Design of Automotive Plastic Component – Center Console Coin Holder from Class A is completed using concepts of Draft angle, Draft Analysis for Class A and Final enclosed surface, Tooling Axis creation and implementation, Class B and Class C creation and conversion to a solid part.