Estudo de elementos finitos para obtenção de valor de esforços nas uniões montadas por conformação em gabinetes de lavadoras de roupa

Abstract

White goods companies aim to achieve customer loyalty by implementing the most suitable and practical methods while applying processes for increased productivity and cost efficiency to generate satisfactory profit margins with quality products. In this context, a well-established process in industries is addressed: the joining of metal sheets through clinching. This is a recent process applied nationally in the assembly lines of automobiles, computers, and household appliances, involving localized cold forming of sheets to reduce costs and enhance productivity. This work focuses on the application of clinching in the manufacturing of washing machine cabinets, proposing a study of the forces present in the joined areas during machine operation using the Finite Element Method (FEM) to obtain values of forces at the joining points. The main objective was to quantify the physical forces in the washing machine cabinet joints through FEM simulations, such as Siemens NX or Ansys, as well as to formulate the main parameters that these forces generate based on experiments and directions of stresses and critical frequencies that disturb the connections. The results were divided into the following categories: acquisition of critical load data from modeling Clinch points in FEM; analysis of forces in the joints through modeling of the washing machine cabinet structure using FEM; comparison of permissible and applied forces, obtaining safety coefficients and thus validating the evaluated models.