Upgrade of an automated line for plastic cap manufacture based on experimental vibration analysis

The study deals with an experimental campaign to analyze the effects on an automatic machine for plastic cap assembly of the increased vibrations occurring when speeding up its operation. The new velocity specifications are required by the machine manufacturer for raising the production capacity. The analysis successfully identified the functional units critically affected by elastodynamic issues related to the speed increment. Hence it permitted to focus the redesign process on the critical groups in order to implement the desired machine upgrade by means of limited modifications to the current machine version. The most relevant experimental results are presented and discussed. The paper also reports data provided by further tests carried out on a machine variant (obtained after the implementation of the first design modifications), which prove the effectiveness of the proposed solutions to improve the machine performance.