Mechanical Design of a Pneumatic Transport Carrier

Key Engineering Contributions

1. 01
   Mechanical Design: Engineered the physical CAD model of the transport carrier, optimizing its geometry to safely house medical payloads while navigating a 0.11 m diameter tube infrastructure.
2. 02
   Pneumatic Sealing Constraints: Designed the carrier's external seal rings to maintain a constant 5 Pa contact pressure against the tube walls, successfully balancing an airtight pneumatic seal with minimized kinetic friction (μk = 0.1).
3. 03
   Structural Validation (FEA): Conducted rigorous static stress analyses to evaluate the von Mises stress distribution across the carrier body under extreme loading conditions.
4. 04
   High-Velocity Performance: Verified that the carrier's structural frame could safely withstand the intense pressure gradients required to achieve maximum vertical transport velocities of 7 m/s without material yielding.

Visual Documentation

Figure 1

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Final SolidWorks Model and its summarized properties

Figure 2

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High/mid level controller of pneumatic tube system which produces the instantaneous pressure gradient to achieve the desired motion

Figure 3

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> 3> 3 / Worst case FEA analysis on the SolidWorks model of the pneumatic tube carrier

Figure 4

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Arena model of the pneumatic tube system in the hospital to validate the design of the pneumatic carrier and its controller. The results of the simulation were a success and saw negligible tube queue,