iNetic Ltd
Mechanical Engineering Intern, July-Sept 2021

iNetic Ltd design and manufacture electric machines, rotors and stators

During my time at iNetic, I worked on three projects. The first focused around designing tooling to manufacture components for a project in the automotive sector. My focus for these components was simplicity. I avoided unneccessarily complicated geometries wherever possible, as these add add to the manufacturing costs of the tooling, often without improving functionality. Shapes that allow easy manufacture, such as prismatic shapes, are advantageous. Selecting appropriate materials, whether that be steels, aluminium or polymers, was also key.

The second project was to design and manufacture a stainless steel oven for curing adhesive. The objective was to replace the existing commerically available ovens with a cheaper, more durable design. The oven was manufactured out of lasercut sheet steel, and then folded and rivited together. The panels were designed so that all the fold lines were parallel, as this means it's easy to fold. The panel arrangement also ensured that the visible faces of the oven looked good, so flanges and joints were hidden wherever possible. The oven used a multilayer insulation, meaning it was much more heavily insulated than the product it was replacing, and came in at a fraction of the cost. The design is also easy to adapt and develop to match use cases.

The third project I worked on was carrying out Finite Element Analysis (FEA) on rotor assemblies using ANSYS mechanical. This was to ensure the rotor did not yield or fracture at the maximum operating speed. I tested 2D and 3D designs, identified stress concentrations areas where improvement could be made, altered the design and retested in an iterative process.