Design rules for stability in a small washing machine
Our client asked:
Our client asked, ‘What causes washing machine instability, and how can the design be modified to avoid it?’
The project story:
- Our client developed a small washing machine for European users with limited kitchen space. Prototype machines occasionally developed severe instability during testing
- The client was using an industry-standard simulation package, but it was slower than real-time; the spin-up process for a single load condition could take 30 minutes to run. This made it challenging to extract insight into the root cause of the instability
- Sagentia Innovation developed an optimised mathematical model, coupling the linear rotor dynamics to a non-linear but analytical model for the dampers. This reproduced the dynamics accurately but ran 100 times faster
- We could then explore the design efficiently, which enabled us to identify the nature of the instability
- The model was progressively simplified, preserving the instability, until an equation was obtained that related the instability to the critical design parameter
Client benefit:
- We delivered a diagnosis of the instability and simple design rules for how to avoid it – this enabled our client to modify the design successfully. We also delivered the dynamical systems model, which enabled our client to assess potential risks over the full range of speeds and loads as their design progressed towards production
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