Sieving dried soil samples

Do you want to design a machine which automates the proces of sieving dried soil?

In our laboratory, soil samples are dried at 40 degrees Celsius. These must then be sieved as part of the analysis. The sieving process is very labor-intensive and a solution to decrease the amount of physical strain is needed. The difficulty here is that pressure must be applied to the dried material to get it through the sieve, but the materials larger than the mesh size of the sieve must not be broken up into smaller pieces.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In our laboratory, soil samples are dried at 40 degrees Celsius. These must then be sieved as part of the analysis. This process is very labor-intensive and, moreover, the staff suffers physical complaints due to the repetitive handling activities. For that reason, we would like to have part shifted from manual labor to automation. Our group consists of a number of people who have been trained as laboratory technicians, but also a large number of untrained employees.

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

The sieving process is very labor-intensive and a solution to decrease the amount of physical strain is needed. The difficulty here is that pressure must be applied to the dried material to get it through the sieve, but the materials larger than the mesh size of the sieve must not be broken up into smaller pieces.

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION

Investigate whether there is a way to eliminate the manual sieving by the employees. The objective is to find a solution which will diminish the number of harmful handling activities the employees currently have to endure. When replacing manual-labor by automated devices, it will reduce the amount of physical complaints.

We would like to see a simulation or, if possible, a prototype of a solution together with a quote from a company that can realize this for us. This prototype must be cost effective and has to have the capacity of processing 800 samples of soil in 4 hours.

The new solution must be placed in the same room, so there is limited space available.

We have a workplace available for the student and a student trainee fee of €XXX. This project is a real innovation project where we hope to gain competitive advantage.