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ADAMS : Bayer Diagnostics If you take One-A-Day vitamins, enjoy the plop-plop, fizz-fizz of Alka-Seltzer, or help a cut or abrasion heal faster with Bactine; or if you are a diabetic monitoring your blood sugar levels with Glucometer blood glucose systems and test strips, you are benefiting from Bayer's products. All of these health care products are manufactured at Bayer's facilities. Bayer Diagnostics, headquartered in Tarrytown, NY, is a member of the Bayer Group (Leverkusen, Germany), a global chemical and pharmaceutical company. (Bayer Corporation is the name of Bayer Group's U.S. operations). Bayer Diagnostics offers customers a complete line of products and services spanning the three major industry market segments Self-Testing, Near Patient Testing and Laboratory Testing, including technologies for Critical Care and Nucleic Acid Diagnostics (NAD). The company has more than 50 branch offices, seven major manufacturing plants and an extensive distribution network for reaching customers in over 100 countries. Bayer Diagnostics engineers at NPT (Near Patient Testing) facility in Elkhart, IN use computer-aided engineering tools to help simulate full motion behavior of real world engineering applications by building virtual prototypes of complex mechanical systems such as medical equipment and devices. According to Bayer senior research and development engineer Nazeer Shareef, "Understanding the influence of critical parameters in mechanical design plays a critical role in developing a reliably performing multi-body system. This element becomes particularly important when the system has dynamic interaction between parts." Shareef and his team recently investigated the possibility of improving the performance by conducting dynamic analysis on a medical device slider mechanism. Based on the results of the analysis, a new slider mechanism design was recommended. In the case of the old design, fluid lubrication was needed for smooth operation over its life cycle of 300,000 cycles. Without the lubrication, the device operated noisily. "The use of self-lubricating bearings with solid lubricant did not solve the problem," adds Shareef. "The challenge was to eliminate the need for any type of fluid lubrication and still maintain satisfactory functional performance." To do so, Shareef used ADAMS virtual prototyping software from Mechanical Dynamics (Ann Arbor, MI) to examine reaction forces at different critical joint locations in the original slider mechanism. "We simulated the motion in different situations and investigated the influence of critical parameters on the system's dynamic behavior," adds Shareef. A new slider crank mechanism with self-lubricating bearings with solid lubricant was designed using a commercial CAD product and then manufactured. Dynamic analysis of the new slider mechanism was performed and the reactions at different joints evaluated and compared against those of the original design. Shareef says, "The new system experienced significant reduction in reaction forces at critical joints. The new design was tested for 300,000 cycles of operations. It performed satisfactorily when tested without fluid lubrication." Author: Laura Carrabine |