Proceedings of the Multi-Disciplinary Senior Design Conference Page 3

Multi-Disciplinary Senior Design Conference Kate Gleason College of Engineering Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York 14623

Project Number: P10505

COLD PRESSURE FUSING II

Aniket Arora / ISE / Project Leader David Hatch / ME / Lead Engineer

Eric Wilcox / ME Jonathan Burville / ME Thomas Stojanov / EE

ABSTRACT DOF: Degrees of Freedom

The primary goal of this Senior Design ID: Inner diameter of a bearing. Project was to test all the parameters that affect pressure uniformity and fusing of the fusing device, Load Cell: Transducer that converts a voltage into an which solely uses pressure to adhere the toner to the electrical signal. paper. This project is a continuation of P09505, Cold Pressure Fusing I. Minor modifications were made to Nip: The width of the contact area made between the the previous prototype so that the bottom endblocks paper and the rollers. are swappable. Three sets of endblocks will be manufactured, each for a distinct skew angle, and be Nip Pressure: Pressure across the nip of the paper. tested. After testing, an optimized endblock set will be manufactured based on the testing results. Parameters OD: Outer diameter of a bearing. that will be tested will include skew angle, paper orientation, compliance, paper weight and load applied Self-Alignment Ball Bearings: Double-row ball to the load cells. bearings which are designed to accommodate shaft The purpose of this paper is to explain the misalignments. These bearings will be responsible for concept selection of the modifications made to the new maintaining the skew of the support rollers. prototype, as well as the design process, testing process, testing results, and further recommendations. Skew: The tangential angle of the support roller to the fusing roller. NOMENCLATURE Smudge Test: One of two tests used to measure the Calender: The compression of the paper from an amount of fusing on the paper. extreme pressure resulting in a change in paper thickness. INTRODUCTION In the xerography industry, toner is applied to Compliance: Inverse of the spring factor, k. Affects the paper and then fused using heat and pressure to the load distribution and deflection. paper. However currently there is customer demand for printing products to use less energy. By removing Crease Test: One of two tests used to measure the the heat from the fusing process it becomes known as amount of fusing on the paper. “cold pressure fusing”. Cold pressure fusing relies solely on pressure to permanently adhere the toner to DAQ: Data Acquisition System. the paper. However, there are aggressive hurdles to DOE: Design of Experiment. overcome in regards to the pressure necessary to fuse the toner but avoiding calendaring. A high pressure

Project P10505 Proceedings of the Multi-Disciplinary Senior Design Conference Page 2 creates calendaring and can also produce other visible 1. Prototype must have varying skew angles defects such as wrinkles and tears in the paper. The with 1.9 degrees being a desired value. previous group had difficulties in establishing a 2. uniform pressure and fusing across the rollers. The previous group investigated pressure Engineering Specs : uniformity and fusing at 0° and 0.5° skew. Pressures After obtaining the customer needs the would tend to be high on the ends of the rollers while engineering specifications were formulated based on rapidly tapering off towards the center resulting in those customer needs. Below is a list of some of the insufficient fusing. The bearings housed in the device most important engineering specifications. would also tend to move out of the end blocks during operation. 1. Product will vary in nip pressure less than As a starting point, our group performed 10% some preliminary testing with the previous prototype 2. Product must be capable of adjusting to three to benchmark and to gain knowledge about the device. skew angles The primary goal of this 20-week project was to 3. Product must be able to reach a 1.9° skew investigate all the possible parameters that would angle affect pressure uniformity across the rollers. 4. Product will minimally calendar print Parameters that were investigated included: skew 5. Product will produce trailing edge wrinkles angle, compliance, load, paper weight (20 lb vs. 24 lb) less than once every twenty prints and paper orientation. To evaluate the pressure 6. Product must cost less than $3000 uniformity pressure sensitive paper will be used due to its ability to illustrate pressure variation via varying Marginal values, Ideal values and Importance shades of the color red. This information would then were assigned to each of the engineering specification be handed over to Xerox that would be used to so the final prototype can be compared to measure produce low energy fusing products. project “success”.

DESIGN PROCESS Concept Selection : For the Cold Pressure Fusing II project the Assumptions Made : PUGH concept selection process was implemented. A small number of assumptions carried over The PUGH concept selection process is a useful tool from the previous group to our group’s analysis. One in determining the benefits and disadvantages of assumption that carried over was that there is multiple concepts and comparing them against a negligible deflection for the 2” diameter main roller reference concept or datum. Pluses were used to compared to the 1.5” diameter fusing roller. This indicate when a concept was more advantageous means all the deflection occurs on the 1.5” diameter against the datum for a specific metric. Minuses were fusing roller. Patents 381, 814 [1] and 387,061 [2] used to indicate when a concept was less advantageous support this assumption. Finally, the assumption, that against the datum for a specific metric. Metrics were the skewed support rollers would assist decreasing the chosen based on the customer needs and engineering deflection of the fusing roller and generate uniform specifications discussed with Xerox. The PUGH pressure, was kept. Information from patents 381,814 concept selection was used for skew mechanism, skew [1] and 387,061 [2] helped support this assumption. support, paper weight adjustability and compliance. One of the previous group’s assumptions that The first PUGH concept selection compared wasn’t used was that only 24 lb paper would be used. ideas of how the skew angle would be adjusted on the Our DOE accommodates paper weight as a parameter device. Three concepts were investigated including that could potentially affect pressure uniformity and swappable endblocks, adjustable endblocks, and fusing. It was also assumed that the optimal skew endblocks with multiple holes for the desired skew angle was inside the range that the self-alignment ball angles. Based on our metrics and scoring system the bearings were designed to (0 – 3°). Finally energy adjustable endblock design was chosen. Finally a consumption values to compare against the new design secondary concept selection was done on the method were assumed to be values from a Work Centre 7346. of adjusting the adjustable endblocks. Both the sliding A Work Centre 7346 consumes 1080 watts of power channel and crank adjustment were chosen. while running and 200 watts in standby [3].

Customer Needs : After discussions with Xerox a list of customer needs could be formulated. Below is a list of the most customer needs for this project.

Project P10505 Proceedings of the Multi-Disciplinary Senior Design Conference Page 3

Figure 3: Paper Weight Adjustability Concept Selection

Finally, the fourth PUGH concept selection compared ideas for how the compliance would be implemented in the device. Concepts that were investigated were washers of various materials, springs, manually adjusting the pressure and coated elastomer rollers. Based on cost, durability and ease of adjustment washers and springs were chosen over the other concepts.

Figure 1: Preliminary (top) and Secondary (bottom) Skew Concept Selections.

The second PUGH concept selection compared ideas of how the skew rollers would be supported in the device. Ideas that were considered was a push bolt design, a “pull bolt and channel” design and a “pull shelf with bolt” design. Based on cost, complexity and other metrics, the “pull bolt and Figure 4: Compliance Concept Selection channel” design was chosen. The skew support concept selection is shown below in Figure 2. Based on our concept selection our final design entering our System Level Design Review looked as what is pictured in Figure 5.

Figure 2: Skew Support Concept Selection

The third PUGH concept selection compared ideas for adjusting the device to accommodate 20 lb and 24 lb paper weights. Five concepts including Figure 5: System Level Design compliance, speed, paper filler, and others were compared against the datum with metrics such as Detailed Design : calendaring, print fusing and visual defects. Significant design issues began to appear in Compliance was chosen as the best concept for the system level design once the detailed design work adjusting for various paper weights. Figure 3 below had started. Space constraints between the skew depicts our paper weight adjustability concept rollers, fusing roller and bearings were realized. selection. Attempts to overcome the space limitations quickly turned into complex new designs and the devices structural integrity began to be apparent. Due to the large and numerous amounts of changes that would

Project P10505 Proceedings of the Multi-Disciplinary Senior Design Conference Page 4 have had to be done our group revisited our concept When selecting springs to be used for the selection. It was decided to return to the previous testing the effects of compliance on uniform pressure group’s design but implement the self alignment ball stability calculations were performed to anticipate if bearings and use swappable endblocks for the desired the springs would buckle in the range of expected skew angles. deformation. The new design kept the 2” diameter main Calculations to estimate the max and average roller, 1.5” diameter fusing roller and 2 x 1” diameter amount of energy that the motor would consume were skew rollers. The main roller includes a step to a 0.5” also done. This is critical in proving the new design diameter in order to connect to a coupling which then would produce a significant reduction in energy usage connects to the motor shaft. The rollers would be compared to tradition heat/pressure fusing devices. housed in the endblocks using shell cup needle bearings for the large rollers and self alignment ball Test Performed: bearings for the support (skew) rollers. Shoulders were A design of experiment for the testing was added to the outside edges of the endblocks to allow conducting using 4 factors with 2 levels each. The easier removal of the dowel pins when swapping the exception was the skew angle factor which included 3 bottom endblocks. Hex head cap screws also assist in levels per customer requirement. A total of 24 runs holding the endblocks together as well as providing a was performed. Below is a table summarizing our mounting location for the springs and load cells. For DOE factors and levels. stable operation plates were added to sides of the assembly. Figure 6 below shows the entire Pro/E 3-D Factors Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Units reference drawing. Skew Angle 1.4 1.9 2.4 degrees Paper Landscape Portrait - - Orientation Load - lbf Light Spring Compliance Purple - Gray Color Table 1: Design of Experiment Factors & Levels

Hardware for Testing/DAQ : Pictured below is the hardware portion of the DAQ used for testing.

Figure 7: Testing Hardware

On the hardware there are signal conditioners that monitor the load on each of the load cells. Each signal condition corresponds to a particular load cell. Figure 6: Final Design An emergency stop button was added for safety purposes. The torque transducer from the previous Engineering Calculations & Analysis : project was removed for cleaner wiring and the fact Due to the final design shown in Figure 6 that the hardware also monitors the motor torque. being similar to the previous group’s prototype the On the software side, LabView was the assumption was made that stresses & deflections program of choice and pictured below is the user would be similar as well. Testing rather than design interface. work became the most important task of this project. Analysis was done when choosing self Figure 8: LabView Interface alignment ball bearings for the device. The misalignment range, OD, ID and static/dynamic load A software stop button was added to the ratings were all critical values that were taken into LabView interface as an extra layer of redundancy for account. safety purposes. A “black box” proprietary software was provided by Xerox to assist in calculating how much RESULTS AND DISCUSSION force per inch of roller was needed to generate the necessary uniform pressure for fusing. Paper and This section should describe your final product or Roller material properties were the primary inputs into process, whether it met specs (results of testing), and the program. The program results were validated by how you evaluated its success. Most conference hand calculating the nip width and resulting max papers include enough information for your work to be pressure at a given load. ANSYS was also reproducible. implemented but due to complex geometry and meshing issues, results could not be obtained.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS References: This section should include a critical evaluation of project successes and failures, and what you would do [1] Calabrese, Richard A. Cold Pressure Fusing differently if you could repeat the project. It’s also Apparatus. Pitney Bowes Inc, assignee. Patent important to provide recommendations for future 381,814. 1981. work.

REFERENCES [2] Monkelbaan, Edwin R. Three‐roll Cold Pressure Within the text, references should be cited in numerical order by order of appearance. The numbered reference should be enclosed in brackets. Fuse For Fixing Toner Images to Copy Substrates For example: “It was shown by Prusa [1] that the Including an Overskewed Roll. Xerox Corporation, width of the plume decreases under these conditions.” assignee. Patent 387,061. 1982. In the case of two citations, the numbers should be separated by a comma [1,2]. In the case of more than [3] Work Centre 7328/7335/7345/7346 Detailed two references, the numbers should be separated by a Specifications Sheet. pp. 17. 2009. dash [5-7]. [1] Ning, X., and Lovell, M. R., 2002, "On the Sliding References to original sources should be listed Friction Characteristics of Unidirectional Continuous together at the end of the paper, and should include FRP Composites," ASME J. Tribol., 124(1), pp. 5-13. papers, technical reports, books, prior team projects, [2] Barnes, M., 2001, "Stresses in Solenoids," J. Appl. personal discussions, websites (not Wikipedia), and Phys., 48(5), pp. 2000–2008. software. References should be arranged in numerical [3] Jones, J., 2000, Contact Mechanics, Cambridge order according to the sequence of citations within the University Press, Cambridge, UK, Chap. 6. text. Each reference should include the last name of [4] Lee, Y., Korpela, S. A., and Horne, R. N., 1982, each author followed by his initials. "Structure of Multi-Cellular Natural Convection in a Tall Vertical Annulus," Proc. 7th International Heat (1) References to journal articles and papers in serial Transfer Conference, U. Grigul et al., eds., publications should include: last name of each author Hemisphere, Washington, DC, 2, pp. 221–226. followed by their initials, year, full title of the article [5] Hashish, M., 2000, "600 MPa Waterjet Technology in quotes, full name of the publication (abbreviated), Development," High Pressure Technology, PVP-Vol. volume number (if any) in bold (do not include the 406, pp. 135-140. abbreviation, "Vol."), issue number (if any) in [5] Watson, D. W., 1997, "Thermodynamic Analysis," parentheses (do not include the abbreviation, "No."), ASME Paper No. 97-GT-288. inclusive page numbers using “pp.". (2) Reference to textbooks and monographs should [6] Tung, C. Y., 1982, "Evaporative Heat Transfer in include: last name of each author followed by their the Contact Line of a Mixture," Ph.D. thesis, initials, year of publication, full title of the publication Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. in italics, publisher, city of publication, inclusive page [7] Kwon, O. K., and Pletcher, R. H., 1981, numbers using "pp.", chapter number (if any) at the "Prediction of the Incompressible Flow Over A end of the citation following the abbreviation, "Chap." Rearward-Facing Step," Technical Report No. HTL- (3) Reference to individual conference papers, papers 26, CFD-4, Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA. in compiled conference proceedings, or any other collection of works by numerous authors should ACKNOWLEDGMENTS include: last name of each author followed by their P10505 would like to first thank our faculty initials, year of publication, full title of the cited paper guide & Xerox employee, Mr. Bill Nowak who has in quotes, individual paper number (if any), full title of been an enormous help in supporting and guiding our the publication in italics initials followed by last name project. Others that we would like to specifically thank of editors (if any) followed by the abbreviation, "eds.", are: Xerox employees, Tony Condello & Grace city of publication, volume number (if any) in Brewington. We would also like to thank the staff at boldface – include, "Vol." if part of larger identifier RIT’s machine shop for allowing us to use the shop (e.g., "PVP-Vol. 254") – inclusive page numbers of equipment and providing support and advice. using "pp.". (4) Reference to theses and technical reports should include: last name of each author followed by their initials, year of publication, full title in quotes, report number (if any), publisher or institution name, city.

Project P10505