Design and Development of a Gyro Machine for Industrial Applications

Abstract

Gyroscopes have generated considerable research interest leading to number of commercial applications. In the present investigation, a new approach to build the mechanical gyroscope with a hollow spherical container as a spinning mass is proposed for industrial applications such as washing machine, mixing ceramic powders or different granular materials, in mixing a variety of chemicals or paints. The main objective of this research is to rotate the spherical container about all the three axes using gyroscopic principles. In this study, a hollow sphere was mounted on the inner gimbal, and this sub-assembly was further mounted on the outer gimbal. Based on the degrees of freedom concept, the dynamic mechanism was developed using Pro-Engineering software. Based on the results obtained from the dynamic mechanism the micro-controller was developed to automate the gyro machine. Magnetic field was introduced to operate the system (to spin the spherical container as well as to rotate the outer gimbal with just single input, using DC motor) based on gimbal lock concept. Springs were used to energize the sphere after equal intervals by changing the rotational direction of outer gimbal in the interval of 15 to 20 seconds. The experimentation was carried out to analyze the relative motion between sphere, inner gimbal, and outer gimbal using high-speed photography technique. It is shown that the relative motions due to gyroscopic effect leads to rotation and oscillations of sphere about all the three axes. Based on these relative motions different cycles were developed.