Design of a Mechanically Driven, Hydraulic Piston Actuated Tilting Ore Rail Car

Justin Dodson1, Bryan Mercier1, Sean Motta1

1 USF

College of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Introduction

Approach

Results

Precision and design of each linkage

in a mechanism is critically important
in defining its behavior. The focus of
this poster is the design of a
Side Tipping Ore Car
mechanically driven, hydraulic piston
actuated tilting ore rail car. This project uses concepts
found in Kinematics/Dynamics of Mechanisms of
Machines.

Design

With a 20 CW rotation of the railcar we achieved the

desired behavior of the mechanism to within 0.13
and 0.73 of the design requirements for the top and
bottom doors respectively. It is believed that our
decision to carry only two significant digits past the
decimal point to SolidWorks resulted in this error.

Design Requirements
The latch must be released as link B rotates
upward.

To determine the necessary dimensions of the linkages

needed to complete the design objective for this
project, Solid Edge 2D drafting software was utilized.
Started with standard US rail gauge (4 8.5)
Used US railway tunnel dimensions for the maximum
width that would ensure the ability to transit railway
tunnels to form a basic outline of standard position of
the mechanism (closed).

The top door must rotate counter clockwise to an

angle of 45 (with respect to the bed).

Added constraints: 20 slant w.r.t the horizontal of the

railcar body and 45 and 90 constraints with respect
to the tilting portion of the railcar for the doors to draw
the second position of the mechanism (open) in
dashed lines.

The side door must rotate clockwise to an angle

of 90 (with respect to the bed).

Now have two points in space for each connection

that the linkages must connect to produce the desired
behavior.

An actuator was used to exert a force from the

car base onto the tilting bed.

Input arbitrary lines to represent all of the links that

connected the two phases, ignoring the dimensions.

Solid Edge 2D Model of Mechanism with Constraints

Began with linkage A, used relational constraints to

force the linkages of each phase to be the same.
Repeated this cycle with linkages B & C
Leaving the constraints for the extensions connecting
linkages to the rigid body blank allowed Solid Edge to
move and resize these pieces dynamically as
constraints were added to maintain the integrity of the
system.

Solid Edge 2D Model of Mechanism without Constraints

With all dimensions we were able to create a three

dimensional model of the system using SolidWorks to
verify that the system performed as expected.

SolidWorks Model - Closed

Sources

SolidWorks Model - Open

A full list of sources is available upon request.