Parametric Tool to Design Excavator Digging Bucket

A parametric tool is developed to design general purpose and medium duty digging buckets for excavator. This is an excel based tool linked with CREO using VB API Toolkit feature of CREO. Critical parameters in determining lift ratio (such as vehicle tonnage, OEM bucket details, OEM maximum lift at full reach etc.) are defined as input parameters in the excel. Formulae set in this excel are used to calculate lift ratio which is used to determine if this newly developed bucket can be used with specified vehicle tonnage. It will auto generate 3D CAD model and 2D print in PDF format. This tool will also help to standardize the design process. Further, the developed 3D model is analyzed in ANSYS to check if stresses induced in bucket due to its working conditions are less than the material limit thereby assessing the robustness of design. Thus, it will help to reduce turnaround time for design iterations.