COSMOS helps chuck manufacturer take on new projects with confidence

Company Speedgrip Chuck, Ltd. Industry Machinery Location U.S.A. Product Used COSMOSWorks™   More Details

The Challenge

Founded just after World War II, Speedgrip makes precision workholding devices known as chucks. These chucks hold parts and other objects while they're being manufactured. Speedgrip's chucks are used in production tools such as lathes and grinding, balancing, and welding machines.

An example of a chuck is the ring you twist to clamp a bit in a hand drill. Speedgrip has manufactured chucks for products as diverse as garden hoses and cameras for inspecting radioactive waste. Most of its chucks are for the automotive and aerospace industries-things like transmission parts, gear holders, and diesel engine cylinder linings.

Speedgrip received a call from a major automotive manufacturer with 75 or so machine tools. A competitor's chuck was breaking prematurely and no one could figure out why. Because the plant's production line threatened to grind to a halt, they needed a solution fast.

The Solution
They e-mailed Dave Stokely, chief engineer at Speedgrip Chuck, Inc., a drawing of the competitor's chuck at 1:00 pm. He drew it on SolidWorks, ran an FEA study on it with COSMOSWorks, and by 4:00 that afternoon had an answer. He had found stress areas exceeding the steel's fatigue limit. The machines were applying too much pressure to the chucks.

Stokely's same-day report made several recommendations. He suggested the client 1) partly redesign the chuck, 2) restrict the chuck assembly's motion to reduce the stress, and 3) make the chuck of forged bar rather than cold-rolled steel because of its structural properties. Since the chuck was a $3,000 item and required 8-10 weeks of lead-time to remanufacture, the quick response was crucial.

Summary and Metrics:

• Allowed Speedgrip to bid on and win jobs they would've skipped in the past