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Renan Amaral
Professional Mechanical Engineer
Hi there! Welcome to my online CV! I have created this page to show some of the work I have been doing for the last years. I hope you enjoy what you will find here, and if you think I can help you somehow, contact me. It will be a pleasure to meet you!
If you want to check my detailed CV, just use the link below.
For the last 9 years, I have been working as a Mechanical Design Engineer. During this time, I had the opportunity to work in a wide range of fields like oil & gas, air medical evacuation, polymer recycling and paper and pulp industry. Therefore, in the following sections I show some of the work I have done.
What I have been doing...
Cutting Paper Roll Guillotine
Commonly during the paper formation process some issues may appear and impair the quality of the product. Usually, in order to not waste material, the wrongly manufactured product is reused by being reinserted at the first stage of the process, disaggregation. However, the whole paper rolls cannot be efficiently disaggregated, what creates the need to transform the rolls in reams. And the most common way is to cut it in the middle.
During this project, I had to customize a cutting paper roll guillotine in order to meet a specific customer expectations. Originally, the equipment was designed to undertake cuts of 650mm length subjected to a load of 15 metric tons. After the redesign, the equipment was undertaking cuts of 2000mm length subjected to a load of 45 metric tons.
At this project, I had played a wide range role. At start, I had to schedule several meetings with the sales team and the client in order to establish what exactly they were expecting. After that, we started redesign the equipment, manufacturing the new parts, and undertaking some tests. After some issues due to the significant increase of working load, I have done few CAE simulations at the critical parts and redesigned them in order to strengthen them. Finally, after the last tests we were able to ship the equipment to the client. And at this point, I was assigned to undertake the commissioning, workers operation training and providing work safety instructions.
Pulp Detrasher
A Pulp Detrasher is an equipment designed to extract the stock from a disaggregator, and then entrap and concentrate contaminants. Then, the stock is directed to the next steps of the process, cleaning and screening, while the contaminants trapped inside the Detrasher are purged out of the process.
At the time of this project, the company have had just changed its CAD software to SolidWorks, and many standard equipment needed to be rebuilt in this new software. Besides that, many of them were older projects that needed to be updated to accord with the last work safety standards. Therefore, I was assigned to rebuilt this equipment in the SolidWorks environment and take advantage to undertake any improvement required by the authorities. In short, my role at this project covered the 3D remodeling, the creation of 2D manufacturing drawings, developing operation and maintenance manuals and providing support to the workshop staff during its manufacturing.
Pulp Screening Equipment
The screening is the process that cleans the pulp with one or more screens. In a word, after the larger contaminants were removed by the Detrasher, the smaller sized contaminants are removed from the pulp suspension by a series of screening equipment. Due to the screen’s openings high obstruction incidence, this equipment uses a complex hydrodynamic foil system that generates a pulse frequency forcing de flow forward and backward in order to avoid any blockage at the openings. As this project also consisted in a modernization of an old equipment and recreation of it in the SolidWorks environment, my role during this project was to built the 3D model, generate the 2D drawings, develop the operation and maintenance documentation and provide support for the manufacturing sector.
High Speed Stock Washer
Based on a fast-moving belt conveyor supported by two drum pulleys, the equipment is designed to remove water and heavy particles from the pulp suspension by the centrifugal force during the moment on which the belt turn around the pulleys. It is widely used by the pulp and paper industry to remove ink, minerals and other dense particles from the recycling paper.
During this project, my colleagues and I worked as a team. At this time, due to the short time to develop and manufacture the equipment, each Engineer received a part of the machine to design. It ended up to me to develop the outlet screw conveyor and the upper cover of the equipment. Since we had all the process’ parameters it was easy to develop a screw conveyor to remove the thickened pulp from inside the equipment. However, due to the large size of the upper cover and its need of being significantly light-weighted, it was a interesting challenge to find the right geometry thereof.
In short, my role at this project was to design the parts which were assigned to me, create the 3D model and generate the manufacturing 2D drawings.
Pulp Screw Press
A quality of a tissue paper is measured by its strength, softness and, mainly, its appearance. For this reason, it is common in its process the use of deinking systems. After the pulp suspension got cleaned and screened, it needs to be thickened, what basically is the removal of the water existing in the suspension. For that, besides simple thickeners, like the High-Speed Washer, industries usually use equipment capable of a more intense water removal. One of them is the Pulp Screw Press. This equipment consists in a screw conveyor with variable pitch and inner diameter. This screw assembled inside of a reinforced screen cylinder removes the water of the processing material due to the volume reduction during its path along the equipment.
In this project, I received basic input parameters for this kind of equipment from the company’s application and sales Engineer. Based on this data, I have developed every single part of the equipment always basing the design on solid mechanic of solid principles. Besides the design calculations I also created the 3D model and the 2D drawings thereof.
Drying Cyllinder CAE Simulation
One of the last stages of the paper manufacturing is the drying section. In this step, the already formed paper is dried by being put in contact with a series of steam-heated cylinders. Due to this equipment steam based operation, it works as a pressure vessel, what can become a challenge sometimes.
This project started after a series of cracks that arisen in the welded joint of a freshly started Drying Cylinder supplied by the company I was working for. After several inconclusive meetings with sales, engineering and the board, I was assigned to create a CAE simulation of the welded joints in order to search for the problem. After some simulations, I could detect that the way the drum was being machined have leaved non-fillet corners that were starting those cracks. After that, I have redesigned the drum machining step and we could proceed with the manufacturing.
In short, my role at this project was fail evaluating, CAE simulating, 3D remodeling and the creation of the 2D manufacturing drawings.
Lathe Steady Rest
Lathe Steady Rests are devices designed to support lathe operations in order to prevent that long round parts rotate with eccentric movement. Although there is a wide range of this devices available at market, some specific, or too expensive, devices worth to be developed and manufactured. In this situation, the company I worked for was struggling to machine bigger rolls or drum pulleys due to the significant weight and length of them. Therefore, they requested me to develop a steady rest specifically design to their lathes. So, during this project I have to gather any information about this kind of device, collect the data about every lathe equipment existing at the workshop, and finally design, 3D model and create the 2D drawings.
Blast Rotor Impact Dry Mill
(PVC and Fiber Glass Composite - 480 kg/h - 30kW)
A Blast Rotor Grinding Mill is an equipment designed to transform bulk material into fine powder, usually used in industries that need to improve solubility or digestibility of its products. This equipment consists in a high-speed rotor, similar to an airplane turbine, that by suction attract the raw material to the grinding chamber. Inside of it, the particles of the material receive numerous impacts from the rotor, the stator and other particles, causing an intense turbulent environment. After a fraction of second these, now size-reduced, particles are thrown outside the equipment by the air flow caused by the rotor movement. In some cases, to improve throughput, a fan could be installed forcing even more the air flow in the system.
During this project, a client approached to my company looking for a solution for his reuse of fail casted PVC resin parts. This customer had an industrial fan manufacturing company, and the cases of his fans were casted using a mixture of PVC resin and fiber glass. However, during the casting process, it was usual to some of these parts ended up presenting porosity, cracks or any other failure. So, he wanted to crush these parts, grind them and reinsert them in the PVC resin mixture in order to not waste its material.
Therefore, after a sale introduction, the client accepted to ran some tests. He sent me some samples, which I tested on my own grinding test unit and then sent it back. The client got thrilled with the results and ordered a full grinding system. At this time, I had my own company, and did not have any employees or machines. So, I did everything supported by outsourced suppliers. Regarding the Engineering work, I undertook the whole project by myself. Firstly, I had to design every equipment, from the Blast Rotor Mill to the control panel. Then, supported by an outstanding supplier, I oversaw the whole mechanic manufacturing, from sheet bending, welding, machining, to painting and shipping. As the electric control panel, it was more economic to me build it myself, so I ordered the parts and assembled it in my home.
After almost 5 months of hard work, I could ship the whole system to the client’s unit, and them head there to undertake the commissioning. We took a whole week to start and adjust the equipment. And at the end, the client and his staff was really glad with the purchase and for the service I provided.
Blast Rotor Impact Dry Mill
(PET Recycling - 800 kg/h - 75 kW)
After some months I made contact with a PET recycling industry. This company, had as main product a thin powder of PET polymer designed to manufacture high quality mattresses. The industry at this time was based on a giant German grinding machine, which was not designed for grinding polymers. So, after an introduction of my equipment they requested some tests. As my model of grinding machine generates a high air flow in the process, it also presented an outstanding capacity of grinding their material due to the refrigeration caused by this air flow. What made awesome results with this particular client product.
After some meetings, we closed the deal and I started to design their future equipment. Since this machine was larger than the previous one, I had to reevaluate all calculations on which the design was based. After this, I designed the whole equipment in the CAD environment, simulating every step of assembling, welding or machining and then create the manufacturing drawings. As I still was a single man business, I looked for my outsourced suppliers to be able to manufacture this equipment.
Due to some political and social events in Brazil, we took almost 6 months to finish the equipment. However then, I was able to ship it to the client’s unit and them undertake the commissioning. The client at the end was happy with his new acquisition, and told me to prepare myself because he will order one more In the next months.
Blast Rotor Impact Dry Mill
(PVC and Fiber Glass Composite - 800 kg/h - 45kW)
As promised by the PVC resin client, he ordered a new equipment after six months. However, due to some improvements his company has made, he asked that the grinding machine would be driven by a 45kW electric motor. This change was requested because his staff found a specific amount of material and refrigerating water to be inserted on the equipment. And this specific proportion, has maintained the same throughput and decreased the electric current demand on the electric motor by 40%.
This project was especially hard, since it happened during the pandemic situation. Between 2020 and 2021 happened the peak of the pandemic in my country, Brazil. And unfortunately, it was right when I was manufacturing this equipment. Therefore, I have faced shortage in materials supplying, workers and outsourced suppliers. Although, due to the nice relationship I have made with this specific outsourced supplier, the one shown at the pictures, we made a deal so we could deliver the equipment to my client. Since he has the machines and equipment to produce the equipment, I had the expertise of it, and we did not have workers to support us, we decided to manufacture it by ourselves. So, during an initial meeting I explained every step of the manufacturing process to him, and then we created a strategy to start working. First, I had a really hard time find someone to supply us the metal, bended metal sheets and accessories, but after a month we already had everything, we need. Then, he, as an outstanding welder, started to assembling the welded parts while I was responsible by the machined parts. After two months using daily the lathe and the router, I was able to finish the parts. And as he had already finished the welding part, we started to assemble the equipment.
