Optimum Design of Washing Machine Flange using Design of Experiment

To meet demand of big capacity and high speed rotation for washing machine, more stress from bending and twisting are complexly loaded onto the shaft supporting the horizontal drum, causing problems in fracture strength and fatigue life. Shafting system is mainly divided into flange and shaft. Flange is located between the drum and shaft, transferring power from the shaft to drum, and acting as a supporter of the back of the drum. Because section of flange has various design factors according to configuration of flange, the optimum conditions can't be easily determined. Using a design of experiment (DOE), this study was performed investigating the interaction effect between factors as well as the main effect of the each design factor under bending and twist and proposed optimum condition using center composition method among response surface derived from regression equation of simulation-based DOE.