Design, Prototyping and Testing of Online Double Chlorination Gripper for Rubber Glove Manufacturing

Chua, Han Jie (2021) Design, Prototyping and Testing of Online Double Chlorination Gripper for Rubber Glove Manufacturing. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Rubber gloves are chlorinated to improve donnability. Current industry has fully automated production of single-chlorinated gloves where only the inner surface is chlorinated. However, medical applications require both surfaces to be chlorinated to wear two layers of glove at once for safety. Second chlorination is conducted off production line, where gloves after the earlier chlorination were manually immersed into another chlorine tank. This manual process endangers the workers and is time-consuming. This work designed a gripper that grasps the glove after the first chlorination and moves on to the second chlorine tank, thus integrating double chlorination to be fully online. The gripper has a solid body made of 316 stainless steel and flexible EPDM rubber seal. It is to be applicable to different glove sizes, chlorine resistant, leakage proof, and withstand high temperature. Engineering analysis was conducted through simulation and experimental testing. 3D gripper model was subjected to structural stress-strain analysis, fatigue analysis and creep in SOLIDWORKS environment. The gripper was also subjected to behavioural analysis to determine gripper functionality under actual production condition. A prototype was fabricated for experimental testing including heat test, water immersion test, and performance of function. Results from the von Mises Stress Plot has a maximum value of 42.08MPa and safety factor at 4.085, evidence of no yield or fracture for the solid body under load and a good margin of safety. For fatigue analysis, the Stress-Life (S-N) showed that the seal accumulated no damage after 1,000,000 of expand-contract operating cycles. Experimental results revealed that gripper could withstand 120ºC for 48 hours, grasps all glove sizes, and no seepage indication under water for all samples during the test run. It is concluded that the simulated and experimental results supported that the gripper has met the requirements for a full trial production run. The project contributes to improved worker safety and increased productivity, leading to lower production cost and better company revenue.