Académique Documents
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1. Introduction
1.1 Abstracts
1.2. Scissor jack basics
1.3. History
1.4. Applications
1.5. Advantages
1.6. Disadvantages
3
4
5-7
8
9
10
2. Literature Review
2.1. Description of Mechanical Components
2.2. Description of Special Mechanism Implemented
2.3. Study of Scissor Jack and its Working
12-15
15-20
20-23
25
26
27-34
4. Problems Faced
35
5. Solutions Adapted
36
6. Conclusion
37
7. Bibliography
38
Page 1
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Abstract
1.3. History
1.4. Applications
1.5. Advantages
1.6. Disadvantages
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1.1 Abstracts:
With the increasing levels of technology, the efforts being put to produce any kind of
work has been continuously decreasing. The efforts required in achieving the desired
output can be effectively and economically be decreased by the implementation of better
designs.
Power screws are used to convert rotary motion into translatory motion. A screw jack is
an example of a power screw in which a small force applied in a horizontal plane is used
to raise or lower a large load. The principle on which it works is similar to that of an
inclined plane. The mechanical advantage of a screw jack is the ratio of the load applied
to the effort applied. The screw jack is operated by turning a lead screw. The height of
the jack is adjusted by turning a lead screw and this adjustment can be done either
manually or by integrating an electric motor.
A jack is mechanical device used to lift heavy loads or apply great forces. Jacks employ a
screw thread or hydraulic cylinder to apply very high linear forces.
A mechanical jack is a device which lifts heavy equipment. The most common form is a
car jack, floor jack or garage jack which lifts vehicles so that maintenance can be
performed. Car jacks usually use mechanical advantage to allow a human to lift a vehicle
by manual force alone. More powerful jacks use hydraulic power to provide more lift
over greater distances. Mechanical jacks are usually rated for a maximum lifting capacity.
As our area of concern is a screw jack used for lifting the car that is scissor jack, so only
the scissor jack and its background is discussed below.
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Fig 1.2.1
Conventional Scissor Jack
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1.3 History:
Screw type mechanical jacks were very common for jeeps and trucks of World War II
vintage. For example, the World War II jeeps (Willys MB and Ford GPW) were issued
the "Jack, Automobile, Screw type, Capacity 1 1/2 ton", Ordnance part number 41-J-66.
This jacks, and similar jacks for trucks, were activated by using the lug wrench as a
handle for the jack's ratchet action to of the jack. The 41-J-66 jack was carried in the
jeep's tool compartment. Screw type jack's continued in use for small capacity
requirements due to low cost of production raise or lower it. A control tab is marked
up/down and its position determines the direction of movement and almost no
maintenance.
The virtues of using a screw as a machine, essentially an inclined plane wound round a
cylinder, was first demonstrated by Archimedes in 200BC with his device used for
pumping water.
There is evidence of the use of screws in the Ancient Roman world but it was the great
Leonardo da Vinci, in the late 1400s, who first demonstrated the use of a screw jack for
lifting loads. Leonardos design used a threaded worm gear, supported on bearings, that
rotated by the turning of a worm shaft to drive a lifting screw to move the load - instantly
recognisable as the principle we use today.
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We cant be sure of the intended application of his invention, but it seems to have been
relegated to the history books, along with the helicopter and tank, for almost four
centuries. It is not until the late 1800s that we have evidence of the product being
developed further.
With the industrial revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries came the first use of
screws in machine tools, via English inventors such as John Wilkinson and Henry
Maudsley The most notable inventor in mechanical engineering from the early 1800s was
undoubtedly the mechanical genius Joseph Whitworth, who recognised the need for
precision had become as important in industry as the provision of power.
While he would eventually have over 50 British patents with titles ranging from knitting
machines to rifles, it was Whitworths work on screw cutting machines, accurate
measuring instruments and standards covering the angle and pitch of screw threads that
would most influence our industry today.
Meanwhile, in Alleghany County near Pittsburgh in 1883, an enterprising Mississippi
river boat captain named Josiah Barrett had an idea for a ratchet jack that would pull
barges together to form a tow. The idea was based on the familiar lever and fulcrum
principle and he needed someone to manufacture it. That person was Samuel Duff,
proprietor of a local machine shop.
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Over the next 30 years the Duff Manufacturing Company became the largest
manufacturer of lifting jacks in the world, developing many new types of jack for various
applications including its own version of the ball bearing screw jack. It was only natural
that in 1928, The Duff Manufacturing Company Inc. merged with A.O. Norton to create
the Duff-Norton Manufacturing Company.
Both companies had offered manually operated screw jacks but the first new product
manufactured under the joint venture was the air motor-operated power jack that
appeared in 1929. With the aid of the relatively new portable compressor technology,
users now could move and position loads without manual effort. The jack, used
predominantly in the railway industry, incorporated an air motor manufactured by The
Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company.
Air Motor Power Jack
There was clearly potential for using this technology for other applications and only 10
years later, in 1940, the first worm gear screw jack, that is instantly recognizable today,
was offered by Duff-Norton, for adjusting the heights of truck loading platforms and mill
tables. With the ability to be used individually or linked mechanically and driven by
either air or electric motors or even manually, the first model had a lifting capacity of 10
tons with raises of 2 or 4.
Worm Gear
Jack 4
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1.4 Applications:
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1.5 Advantages:
Power screws offer the following advantages:
(i) Power screw has large load carrying capacity.
(ii) The overall dimensions of the power screw are small, resulting in compact
construction.
(iii) Power screw is simple to design
(iv) The manufacturing of power screw is easy without requiring specialized machinery.
Square threads are turned on lathe. Trapezoidal threads are manufactured on thread
milling machine.
(v) Power screw provides large mechanical advantage. A load of 15 kN can be raised by
applying an effort as small as 400 N.Therefore, most of the power screws used in various
applications like screw-jacks, clamps, valves and vices are usually manually operated.
(vi) Power screws provide precisely controlled and highly accurate linear motion required
in machine tool applications.
(vii) Power screws give smooth and noiseless service without any maintenance.
(viii) There are only a few parts in power screw. This reduces cost and increases
reliability.
(ix) Power screw can be designed with self-locking property. In screw-jack application,
self locking characteristic is required to prevent the load from descending on its own.
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1.6 Disadvantages:
The disadvantages of power screws are as follows:
(i) Power screws have very poor efficiency; as low as 40%.Therefore, it is not used in
continuous power transmission in machine tools, with the exception of the lead screw.
Power screws are mainly used for intermittent motion that is occasionally required for
lifting the load or actuating the mechanism.
(ii) High friction in threads causes rapid wear of the screw or the nut. In case of square
threads, the nut is usually made of soft material and replaced when worn out. In
trapezoidal threads, a split- type of nut is used to compensate for the wear. Therefore,
wear is a serious problem in power screws.
(iii) The most common problem encountered while using scissor jack is the instability of
jack while giving jerks to loosen the wheel nut. Also the common jack having small base
is unable to provide proper support on uneven surface esp. off-road and no inclination in
that jack is tolerable.
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2.2
2.3
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Frame
Power screw
Rivets
Coupling nut
Crank
Frame:
The entire frame of the scissor jack consists of links(top and bottom), base frame, support
frame. The frame is manufactured by sheet metal processes and forming by low-medium
carbon steel.
Power screw:
Power screws are used to convert rotary motion in to translational motion. It is also called
translational screw. They find use in machines such as universal tensile testing machines,
machine tools, automotive jacks, vises; aircraft flap extenders, trench braces, linear
actuators, adjustable floor posts, micrometers, and C-clamps. A screw thread is formed
by cutting a continuous helical groove around the cylinder. These grooves are cut either
left hand or right hand.
The majority of screws are tightened by clockwise rotation, which is termed a right-hand
thread. Screws with left-hand threads are used in exceptional cases. For example,
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anticlockwise forces are applied to the screw (which would work to undo a right-hand
thread), a left-hand-threaded screw would be an appropriate choice.
Power screws are typically made from carbon steel, alloy steel, or stainless steel and they
are usually used with bronze, plastic, or steel mating nuts. Bronze and plastic nuts are
popular for higher duty applications and they provide low coefficients of friction for
minimizing drive torques.
There are important terms and figures that need to be understood before designing power
screws:
1. Pitch: is the distance from a point on one thread to the corresponding thread on the
next adjacent thread, measured parallel to the axial plane.
2. Lead: is the distance the screw would advance relative to the nut in one rotation. For
single thread screw, lead is equal to pitch.
3. Helix Angle: is related to the lead and the mean radius by the equation below;
Fig 2.1.1
Power screw
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Fig1.
Fig2.
1.
Square threads:
Is used for power transmission in either direction
Results in maximum efficiency and minimum
It is employed in screw jacks and clamps
2.
Acme threads:
It is a modification of square thread
Efficiency is lower than square threads
The slope increases the area for shear
It is easily manufactured
3.
Buttress Thread:
It is used when large forces act along the screw axis in one direction only.
It has higher efficiency like square threads and ease of cutting like acme threads.
It is the strongest thread of all
It has limited use of power transmission
Rivets:
A coupling nut is a threaded fastener for joining two male threads, most commonly
threaded rod. The outside of the fastener is usually a hex so a wrench can hold it.
Variations include reducing coupling nuts, for joining two different size threads; sight
hole coupling nuts, which have a sight hole for observing the amount of engagement; and
coupling nuts with left-handed threads.
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Crank:
It is an arm keyed at right angles to the end of a shaft, by which motion is imparted to the
power screw .It mainly suffers from torsional stresses so medium carbon steel is used as
it combines merits of malleability and sufficient torsional strength.
2.2
It can be seen that the overall concept of the scissor jack is constant and that any new
product will be based on that concept. The products above lack support from the sides,
so there is the possibility of the jack tipping (especially on an uneven surface. Ultimately
we come up with a design with of scissor jack with side supports.
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Fig 2.2.1
Mechanically Advanced Scissor Jack
We would like to incorporate some type of side support in my jack because it enhances
safety and redistributes stress, enhancing product life and functionality.
The designs above also lacked interchangeability. In my design I would like the make it
possible for the user to operate the jack with tools other than the crank provided.
Preliminary Designs
As stated before, the basic design and mechanics of the scissor jack are simplistic and
lend little room for drastic change, so any change will be a modification on this base
model. Below are three preliminary design concepts sketched :
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(a)
Design #1 represents the base model of the scissor jack, it is the most
simple.
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(b)
(c)
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Design #3 Also aims to prevent tipping, but also adds stability between
the top and bottom of the jack.
The stabilizing arms on design #3 raise and lower with the jack, lock into place while
rising, and, when the jack is lowered, rotate to compact its shape and make storage easier.
Design
Pros
Light weight
Simple design (less
places for failure)
Cheap
Uses little material
Easy to store
Cons
Small base makes
tipping a risk.
No added stability
between the top risks a
collapse
No added stability
between the top and
bottom risks a collapse
Shape is not compact,
makes storage difficult.
Added material, cost
weight
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Added complexity
creates more areas for
problems
Added components add
cost
Design #1
3
Design #2
2
Design #3
1
Safety
10
15
Weight
Storage
Total
14
14
20
Attribute
Cost
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Design #1 uses the least amount of material, so it scored high in cost, weight and storage,
but, because of the small amount of material, it is not as safe as the other designs. Design
#2 adds safety but also weight, cost and poor storage. Design #3 adds safety without
compromising on weight and storage, but adds cost because it has the most parts.
The term "scissor jack" describes a wide variety of tools that all follow the same
principle: using crossed beams to lift something. They do this by acting on the object they
are lifting in a diagonal manner; the lift on the right side lifts the object from its left side
and vice versa. This allows the user to store the jack when it is not in use (with the
diagonal beams flat) and to expand it when it is needed.
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Fig 2.3.1
Scissor jack
The major specification of scissor lifts is that they are all symmetrical. In order to
work, the distance from the loaded point to the cross point must be the same as the
distance from the cross point to the ground. This ensures that weight is distributed
equally throughout the scissor lift beams.
Since scissor lifts have such a wide variety of use, they also have a wide variety of
power sources. Scissor lifts for lifting cars can be powered electrically, hydraulically and
of course mechanically. On the other end of the spectrum, industrial scissor lifts that
people stand on are often powered by diesel, although electrical options do exist.
Scissor lifts basically fall into two categories: single scissor lifts and multiple
scissor lifts. A single scissor lift has just two crossbeams and one "x." This means it can
only go so high because the length of the crossbeams restricts the height of the lift, and
making them too long would make it unstable.
On the other hand, multiple lifts have beams crossing each other, and then attaching to
more beams that go the opposite direction. This allows the scissor lift to rise higher.
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Assembly
A scissor jack has four main pieces of metal and two base ends. The four metal pieces are
all connected at the corners with a bolt that allows the corners to swivel. A screw thread
runs across this assembly and through the corners. As the screw thread is turned, the jack
arms travel across it and collapse or come together, forming a straight line when closed.
Then, moving back the other way, they raise and come together. When opened, the four
metal arms contract together, coming together at the middle, raising the jack. When
closed, the arms spread back apart and the jack closes or flattens out again.
Working
A scissor jack uses a simple theory of gears to get its power. As the screw section is
turned, two ends of the jack move closer together. Because the gears of the screw are
pushing up the arms, the amount of force being applied is multiplied. It takes a very small
amount of force to turn the crank handle, yet that action causes the brace arms to slide
across and together.
As this happens the arms extend upward. The car's gravitational weight is not enough to
prevent the jack from opening or to stop the screw from turning, since it is not applying
force directly to it. If you were to put pressure directly on the crank, or lean your weight
against the crank, the person would not be able to turn it, even though your weight is a
small percentage of cars.
Product Comparison
Picture
Features
Pros
Cons
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Figure 1
Can lift up
to 990kg
Electric
motor
powered
by a 12V
DC power
source.
Extends
13,
compacts
to less than
5.
7 power
cord.
Weighs
9kgs.
Lifts 1133
kg.
Extends
from 3.7515.4.
Mechanical
input
required.
simple
design
minimizes
cost , size
and weight,
so it can be
stored
easily.
Does not
rely on
electricity.
figure 2
Operating the
crank can be
difficult.
Required to be
near (practically
underneath a
2,000kg object to
operate.
Like the product
above, there is no
stability provided
from the sides.
Tools to raise the
jack are not
interchangeable.
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3.1
The load for which the jack is to be employed has to be considered first. For very
heavy loads we have to deal with heavy duty jacks and in those situations scissor
jacks do not work efficiently and most probably fail. While in case of low and
medium intensity loads, scissor jack works efficiently and smoothly without much
effort. Also the jack is handy enough to carry in the vehicle.
So considering the above situation, making a scissor jack for low and moderate
dead loads will be a good idea.
Estimated vehicle weight: 1105kg/2440 kgs(weight of swift in unloaded condition.
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Assembly
A scissor jack has four main pieces of metal and two base ends. The four metal pieces
are all connected at the corners with a bolt that allows the corners to swivel. A screw
thread runs across this assembly and through the corners. As the screw thread is turned,
the jack arms travel across it and collapse or come together, forming a straight line
when closed. Then, moving back the other way, they raise and come together. When
opened, the four metal arms contract together, coming together at the middle, raising
the jack. When closed, the arms spread back apart and the jack closes or flattens out
again.
3.2
Material selection:
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Parts
Base frame
Bottom link
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Bottom packing
Bottom rivet
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Link rivet
Screw shaft
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Coupling nut
Top link
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Support frame
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Assembly
Closed assembly
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Open Assembly
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To fabricate the conventional jack, heavy thickened steel sheet and heavy press is
required which was not available in the nearby market.
Arc welding in thin metal sheet completely melts the sheet and makes the joint weak.
Using permanent joint with pantograph arrangement makes the problem in working of the
pantograph.
As the press working on heavy metal sheet is difficult as there is no press machine
available in nearby market hence the conventional mechanical jack is not fabricated and
readymade jack is taken for further mechanically advanced attachment.
As arc welding melts the thin sheet, the Amperage rating of the arc welding is set to
minimum position but the problem still persists, then the thickness of the sheet is
increases.
As permanent joint in pantograph arrangement makes the link rigid hence we used
pivoted joints for implementing the mechanism.
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Locking system mechanism was difficult to fabricate but with better design and better
mechanism using the threaded shaft the problem of slipping is eliminated.
Chapter 6:Conclusion
Scissor jacks are the ideal product to push, pull, lift, lower and position loads of anything from a
couple of kilograms to hundreds of tonnes. The need has long existed for an improved portable
jack for automotive vehicles. It is highly desirable that a jack become available that can be
operated alternatively from inside the vehicle or from a location of safety off the road on which
the vehicle is located. Such a jack should desirably be light enough and be compact enough so
that it can be stored in an automobile trunk, can be lifted up and carried by most adults to its
position of use, and yet be capable of lifting a wheel of a 4,000-5,000 pound vehicle off the
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ground. Further, it should be stable and easily controllable by a switch so that jacking can be
done from a position of safety. It should be easily movable either to a position underneath the
axle of the vehicle or some other reinforced support surface designed to be engaged by a
mechanically advanced scissor jack.
This project proved to be most valuable in terms of teamwork and management to us. Also we
explored new territories in technical creation. We faced new challenges while designing and
analyzing scissor jack. The experience gained has provided us confidence in dealing with
practical aspects of engineering and will prove to be invaluable for future mechanical
advancement.
Chapter 6:Bibliography
3. Websites
www.google.com
www.scribd.com
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki
www.seminarprojects.com
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