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ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF SPECIAL PURPOSE

MACHINE FOR THE AUTOMATED WELDING OF
BICYCLE FRONT FORK
Conference Paper March 2014

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ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF SPECIAL PURPOSE

MACHINE FOR THE AUTOMATED WELDING OF
BICYCLE FRONT FORK
Use of motion simulation and generation of concept for 3D cam and custom made copying
mechanism to trace a complex weld path of the mitered tube components

D. Bharath Raja, G. Shibu

K. Rajarajan, R. Sridharan

Engineering Design Division

Department of Mechanical engineering
College of Engineering, Guindy
Chennai 600 025, India
BharathRajaD@gmail.com

SPM Corporate Technology Center

Tube Investment of India Ltd.
Avadi, Chennai 600 054, India

AbstractWelding of bicycle front fork which comes under the

cycle steering in front wheel is made up of welding the arms to
the main steering stem. The process involves welding a 3D
contour weld path which is time consuming and also involves
skilled workmanship. This project deals with the analysis and
design of the special purpose machine which can cater to the
increased production by automating this weld process. The
parameters involved in the welding process and various
mechanisms to achieve the said objective were studied. The
optimization of the parameters in the welding process and
integrate it with the design of the special purpose machine to
make high quality weld repeatedly is attempted considering a
high volume production and be adaptable to the future changes
in the work piece.
MIG Welding automation, SPM, Kinematic synthesis, Motion
Simulation, 3D Cam, Copying mechanism. (Key words)

I. INTRODUCTION
The Figure 1, bicycle front fork image shows the 3D model
of the work piece. The single steering stem is welded with the
two arms. The arms hold the bicycle wheels. The bicycle front
fork is made of two steel tubes bent and mitre cut which form
the arms. The straight steel tube forms the central steering
stem. The arms are to be welded to the steering stem.

Fig.1. Bicycle front fork

Fig. 2 Weld path on fork arm

The weld path is highlighted in red colour in fig.2 .The

weld path between the bent mitre cut tube and the steering stem
and doesnt follow any exact mathematical equation due to the
ovalization of tube, bending induced compression and tension,
high nonlinearity due to shearing while mitre cutting, tolerance
involved in the manufacturing of the tube. All these factors
make the weld path highly complex due to this highly skilled
welder is needed to weld both the pieces. The time consumed
to weld the pieces is high and also due to the fatigue of the
operator the quality of the weld seam is of lower standard. This
called for the necessity of the automation in the fork welding.
The automation of the welding can be done easily using the
welding robots and seam tracking using cameras. But the cost
of the robotics, electronics and the fixture used are of high cost,
approximately Rs 40 lakhs/-. So, low cost automation is sought
after and the automation is made entirely relying upon the
mechanical system which brings the cost down to
approximately Rs 50,000/-.The Mechanical systems made for
this purpose uses the 3D Cam and the copying mechanism
which guides the torch which welds along the weld path on the
work piece. The detailed conceptualisation and design of the
cam and copying mechanism is explained below.

II. SPECIAL PURPOSE MACHINE

Special Purpose Machine is a custom made machine
catering to a very specialized need. There is no existing
machine to provide the functionality the new SPM would
provide. The main application of the SPM is automation of
production in the industries. Traditionally all the parts are
manufactured by hands using lathe. Now they have been
replaced by CNC which is can be programmed to fabricate
parts.
The usage of SPM has a lot of advantages such as increase
in production, reduction of defects due to labour fatigue,
around the clock production with minimal interference, higher
accuracy of work. There are a few disadvantages such as high
designing time, correcting with trial and error.
The SPM also had sensors and PLC to have a closed
feedback system where using PID control the error can be
effectively reduced during operation.

The cross section change due to ovalization along the tube

length and the bending before mitre cut is show in figure 3.
Then the approximate 3D model in generated and the weld
path cloud points coordinates are taken which gives theoretical
cloud points.
The actual cloud points are taken from two samples in
CMM with the accuracy of 4 microns. Total no of points taken
is 97 around the contour of work piece. The curvature is
checked by drawing a spline is shown in figure 4.

III. DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SPM

The first step is the generation of concept. Two concepts
are identified for the welding automation which is the copying
mechanism and robotic control of the welding automation.
Based on the feasibility study conducted with regard to the
operational aspects of these concepts, the copying mechanism
was selected to employ in the present work as it suggested a
low cost solution. The jig and fixture to hold the part and the
mechanism to move the welding torch automatically along the
given complex weld path was developed in digital frame work
called Solid Works
The design of the special purpose machine consists of the
following components 3D Cam (1), copying mechanism (2),
fixture holding the work piece (3).

Fig 4. Abrupt curvature changes

Due to the abrupt curvature changes the smooth cam profile

cannot be generator. To smoothen the curvature the weld path
is approximated with 10 points as shown in the figure 5.

IV. 3D CAM
The theoretical weld path is created geometrically using
solid works. It is done by bending 3D model to the given angle
and the change in the horizontal and the vertical diameter is
given using the cubical variation. This is due to ovalization of
tube as no flexible mandrel is used during tube bending.
Finally the mitre cut is done by extrude cutting the model.

Fig 5. Curvature Smoothed Spline approximation

Fig 3 Cross Section Change and bending

The approximated spline is taken as the path and using

sweep cut the 3D cam is generated as show in the figure 6.

V. COPYING MECHANISM
The copying mechanism which pivots the follower around
the cam should rotate and also translate. This movement in
certain direction and constrain in other is made possible by
synthesizing a pivoting mechanism which also effectively
copies the path from cam to MIG torch.

Fig 6. Isometric View of 3D Cam

The linear translation of the follower is made by using the

groove that changes perpendicular to the axis of the cam. This
corresponds to the torch front and back movement.

Fig 9. Line diagram of the pivoting mechanism

The line diagram shown in figure 9 shows three links

connected by two sliding joint on either side. The link 1 is
fixed and cam is attached to it. The link two slides front and
back as well as rotates around link 1 because of the 1-2 sliding
joint. Similarly the link 2 and 3 are connected by a sliding joint
2-3. The link 3 can move up and down. The follower is fixed to
the link 3. This effectively constrains the follower inside the
cam groove which guides it in 3D space.

Fig 7. Side View of 3D Cam

The depth of the cam also varies according to the angular

change of the follower. The change in depth is denoted in dark
line closely resembling an inverted triangle as shown in the
figure 8.

Fig 10. Standardized Pivoting mechanism

The conceptual line diagram is developed into a

standardized pivoting system shown in figure 10. All the parts
used here such as bush, bush holder, strut, shaft, splits are of
standards. There is a single torch pivot system shown here.
However is reality there are two such systems at 180 degrees. It
divides the welding between two torches to 180 degrees each.
This will avoid the interference between the torch and the work
piece. As the fork arm will restrict the 360 degree movement of
the torch.
Fig 8. Front view of 3D Cam

VI. WORK PIECE FIXTURE

Fig 11. Fixture holding work piece

The work piece fork is denoted in blue and the fixture in

red inside figure 11. The fixture successfully constrains the
height of the fork with the help of gravity. The side plates will
constrain the angular orientation of the arm with respect to the
steering stem as its center. The fixture will be aligned with the
copying mechanism using tenon slot provided at the base.
VII. MOTION SIMULATION
The 3D parts are drawn and respective mates are given to
each parts and the motion simulation is done using the frontend
Solid works. The backend engine is Adams.

VIII. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

The progressive blunting of the mitre cutting tool gives rise
to the change in the offset of the cut in the bent tube. This
deviation from the standard dimension of cut gives rise to the
increase in the weld gap between the work pieces. Due to this
there must be an oscillating movement perpendicular to the
direction of the welding path. A mechanism can be synthesized
to create this movement which can also be adjustable with
respect to the weld gap which gives more robustness to this
welding automation.
The change of the work piece results in the change in weld
path which results in the design and fabrication of a new cam.
A flexible mechanical follower tracking system can be made
which would be spring loaded. It tracks the abrupt changes in
the work piece topology which effectively zeroes into the weld
path. Because of this the work piece itself acts as the cam and
the cost of the entire system reduces further and increasing the
accuracy of the welding.
IX. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
A novel conceptual method for the design and development
of a low cost automation of a special purpose machine to weld
the arms to the main steering stem of bicycle front fork was
arrived. In this regard various mechanisms and tis relevance to
the present work were studied. Based on the study, it is
proposed to chiefly combine the radial and cylindrical cams
and the pivot mechanism which can provide constrained
motion of the weld path,
This design can be made flexible with change in sizes of
the fork which is to be welded; this can be achieved by
appropriately designing the profile of cam of the copying
mechanism and can be integrated with the existing machines.
This is low cost as it avoids the usage of highly expensive
industrial robots. This welding control mechanism can also be
horizontally deployed in the company thus reducing the lead
time and increasing the accuracy of the fork welding process.
REFERENCES

Fig 12 Copying mechanism with output weld path

The figure 12 shows the output path traced by the torch in

black line. This output is compared with the input values
produced slight variation due to the sine error as the roller
follower is used. This can be avoided by using ball follower
which traces the path more accurately depending upon the size
of the ball used.

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