Performance Analysis and Design of Plastic Chain Drive Wheel for Bicycles

The chain wheel currently being used for bicycles are made up of hot rolled steel and the crank is made up of forged steel, which leads to increase in cost of the product due to rise in market of steel materials. The manufacturing cost is also more because it incorporates lot of machining operations to maintain dimensional accuracy. If the chain-wheels are manufactured with plastic, the productivity can be increased as plastic molding is done for the development. Moreover, the usage of plastic reduces the weight of the component and the dimensional stability can be easily maintained. The model of the plastic chain wheel is developed for analysis. Pro/E is selected for the modeling the component because it provides an entry-level software solution that lays the perfect groundwork for effective replacement of components. Analysis of a model is carried out to determine the functional parameters like deflection, stress and strain before developing the prototype. ANSYS is a used to analyze the model created by Pro/E tool. After analysis using ANSYS, the model is also analyzed using Pro/E plastic advisor to simulate the flow pattern and enable easy analysis to study the distribution of temperature, pressure drop, fill time and other parameters for the required flow lines and conditions. In-order to increase the productivity, Injection moulding process is selected. Using the Pro/E model the mould is designed. Finally a prototype is developed using Fusion Deposition Modeling (FDM) machine.