Design for Manufacture and Assembly of an Automated Dish Washing Machine

This paper was a research done at a local university in Zimbabwe. Dishwashing by hand involves scrubbing, rinsing and drying of dishes which is time consuming and laborious when done on a large scale. Each dining hall at the university uses about one thousand plates per meal and the university is understaffed thus the dishes are not thoroughly cleaned. A dishwashing machine is thus a necessity for the university. Researching of literature was done and information on the current designs of dishwashers, their operations, merits and demerits was gathered. A case study on the university was carried out using interviews and questionnaire. The dishwasher for the university was designed and it uses pressurised water jets to clean the plates. The pressurised water jets are produced by a pump installed in the dishwasher. The plates are put into the dishwashing using a rake conveyer system which is automatically controlled. The von Mises stresses of the system were analysed using Solidworks and they were in the desired range. Deflections were also done using Solidworks. Specifications and drawings of the dishwashing machine were developed. Materials of the design were selected concentrating on reduction of cost through minimising the number of parts retaining its function.