Development of an Intelligent Mobile Metal Scrap Separating and Cleaning System Model

Abstract

The development of an intelligent mobile metal scrap separating and cleaning system model is the focus of this work. Over the years, huge man power and other resources were required to run an industrial scrap metals separating process, and a great amount of process time was wasted in handling operations such as sorting, screening and cleaning of the scrap metals separately. The need to transfer the metal scrap from one point of operation to another makes human labour tedious and energy wastage. An already existing single unit scrap metal separating and single unit cleaning system are adapted in this design. These two different systems are adopted for a combine operation and a microcontroller introduced to give it a full automated system status. This designed device was developed using olidWorks CAD/CAM software, for the mechanical design; Proteus and Arduino IDE, for the schematic modelling and programming of the control system. The simulated model for both the solidWorks design and the Proteus design with the program code reveals the system simultaneous functionality as it is capable of sorting, screening and cleaning of the metals scrap. The virtual implementation of the developed model with its intelligent and mobile functionality has proven that the metal scrap separating and cleaning system can be put together for a self-driven, low energy consumption, less human effort, profit maximization and efficient time management system. Monitoring and control was made possible with Android Apps. Further research advancement can be made in converting the simulated model into a physical industrial machine.