The influence of the change of the structure of a tension keeper, which is an essential part of a wire winding machine, is analyzed and on optimal design of the tension keeper is performed to provide a desirable tension characteristics.
The structures of the tension keeper are catagorized according to the number of the springs and the connecting conditions of the pulleys and their performances of the catagorized structures are evaluated by numerical simulations. Based on the preminary studies, several structures are selected and further implovements are made by the optimization process to maximize minimum wire tensions.
For the optimal design process, the steepest desent method was not successful because of erratic design sensitivity data time to time. Thus, in this study, an iterative Taguchi method is used, which provides a much improved solution but not necessary an optimal one.
