Manufacturing Systems Management and Automation

This paper compares the simulation and experimental results for robust part handling by radially symmetric cylindrical electromagnetic gripper heads, that are used in foundry manufacturing assembly operation. Knowledge of the direct holding force is essential to determine if a given electromagnet is capable of preventing part slipping during pick and place operation. Energy based model and the magnetic circuit model have been described. The latter is developed further and compared with results from a FEA software. It was found that the magnetic circuit model, although simple in form, was limited in its ability to accurately predict the holding force over the entire range of conditions investigated. The shortcomings in the model were attributed to its inability to accurately model the leakage flux and non-uniform distribution of the magnetic flux. A finite element allowed for the ability to couple the mechanical and magnetic models. The finite element model was used to predict the magnetic field based off the solutions to the mechanical (σ ) and the magnetic model (B).