Utilização da metodologia Ashby no projeto de seleção de materiais para um carrinho de rolimã

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to employ the Ashby approach for material selection in a soapbox cart. Given the wide range of materials currently available in the market, the researcher Michael Farries Ashby developed a systematic methodology, known as the Ashby Methodology, to guide the selection of materials in projects. This case study applied this methodology with the main goal of optimizing the project's weight, while also describing the development of the Ashby Methodology and encouraging its application in the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum at UFPB. The application of the methodology was carried out through the analysis of material property charts provided in Ashby’s book, without relying on specialized material selection software. Furthermore, the project was primarily focused on the choice of material to meet the mechanical requirements and the objective of minimizing the cart’s weight, without considering the geometry, manufacturing process, machining, or forming of the material for this application. Thus, the cart was divided into two parts: the central panel and the support beams. For both parts, the material that stood out and yielded the best results, among all classified and documented materials, was bamboo. A fast-growing renewable material that is inexpensive and already used for similar applications.