@ WATERS | myportfolio

Projects at Water's Corporation

My experience at Waters Corporation as a mechanical engineer often included troubleshooting and analyzing problems to find different mechanical solutions. Using computer-aided design, I was able to use SolidWorks to model a variety of different company parts to help with analysis of components and proper documentation. I was able to use my creative ability in CAD software to design, model and document multiple fixtures to make engineering production and testing easier. I also played a lead role in designing test experiments in which I made use of in-house lab machinery and tools to help try and resolve any known issues with mechanical systems or parts.

Reverse Engineering

During my time at Water's, I was told to reverse engineer a pump. The pump head was legally given to the company, and I was in charge of full examination of its construction and composition. I was then told to use SolidWorks to create an identical model of the piece. Proper dimensioning was needed, and the model was created to its exact size.

Objective:

Reverse engineer a competitor's pump using SolidWorks.

Procedure:

I began by completely stripping the pump into singular components. This involved removing a variety of different screws and sliding multiple components apart.
One piece at a time, I used calipers and rulers to dimension and analyze each piece.
After dimensioning each piece onto a sketch, I then began creating each component in SolidWorks
The components consisted of: a pump head, a drip tray, a pump body, a spacer,a gasket, a plunger, a motor, as well as multiple types of screws which held the pump together.
After each part was made, I then placed all the parts into one assembly to resemble the complete pump.

Challenges:

Relatively new to SolidWorks at the time, there were some features of the parts that I have not yet learner or mastered
Dimensioning properly directly into SolidWorks
Some parts were not directly fitting into certain spaces in the assembly. This create conflicting surface contact points

Actions:

I took advantages of the many tutorials SolidWorks offers. There are step by step guides that teach you the processes to take when creating a certain feature on a part
I realized the importance of dimensioning every single feature on each part. This makes it much easier to fix in the long run if certain features have to be adjusted slightly. It also makes things much easier when assembling each component
By trial and error, I had to figure out the proper surfaces to connect when creating the assembly. There are certain features that need to be locked in their position while others should be able to move in x,y, or z direction.
I also made sure to reach out to my mentor if there was something I was consistently having trouble with. I would ask him specific questions and he would do a great job to help guide me in the right direction.

Collapsed view of assembly

Exploded view of assembly

Camera Angle

Testing Models

Background:

The system was set up that allowed a needle to inject fluids into a set of vials. Over the vials was a layer of film. With code provided by the system, the needle would move to each vial where a fork would hold down the plate of vials. With the fork holding the plate of vials, the needle pierced the film and injected the liquids into the vials.

Problem:

When a needle pierced the film that was either made of adhesive, foil or polyester material, the needle would sometimes pick up film material on the tip and therefore affect the injection of fluids.

Objective:

Take high speed video of a needle piercing through a film made of either polyester, foil or adhesive materials and determine the cause of contamination.

Challenges:

Determining the exact cause of contamination
Getting clear video of the needle piercing the film. At certain vials, the positioning of the fork used to hold down the plate would completely block the video of the needle.

Actions:

To determine the exact cause of contamination took a lot of time. There were a variety of different needle tips that I tested on all types of film. For each needle, I saw different types of contamination. The best thing I could do is try to find trends and see which needles contained the most contamination.
I used a high powered microscope to take still pictures of the needles with contamination on them.
To remove the obstructed view of the needle from the fork, I completely redesign the fork using SolidWorks so that the camera could get a complete view of the needle at all angles. I then handed the model to the machine shop so they could make it out of stainless steel.