Talk:Windshield wiper assembly

From DDL Wiki

We received your report, and you have some interesting results. We had some trouble relating some of the parts to the ADAMS model from the documentation, but the general mechanism is clear, and analysis appear good, although the LCA may need another look. Detailed comments follow:

• Nice executive summary
• Please include a picture of the product

The picture is added.

• User lack of maintenance is a very big and very common problem. Encouraging customers to maintain wipers is quite important for safety, but putting an encouragement in the user’s manual is not generally sufficient to get results. This is one potential area for improvement because it is a significant cause of failure.

In our research we found some statistics to back up the clam that lack of maintenance is common and problematic which you can look at in the Windshield wiper ideas page. We also found that in interviews people say that it was difficult or annoying to maintain wipers. We addressed this issue mainly in the Exchangeable Blades/Rubber section of our redesign.

• Nice description of wiper use. Some additional detail on common issues, such as leaves getting caught under wipers, running out of wiper fluid, ice, and inability to remove some substances would make the discussion more complete.

If you go to the Windshield wiper ideas page you can see some the research done on common things that cause windshield wipers to break or degraded, common things wipers are used to clean (from rain too bugs), and under interviews you can see the issues people have with wipers.

• The component list is interesting, but it is difficult in some pictures to tell which component is being shown. The animation is quite helpful, but a picture of the partially assembled mechanism may also help to understand where parts are located on the assembly. This would also help in describing functionality.

Pictures of each subassembly help demonstrate what each part is being used for and where it is located in the wiper assembly.

• Materials are also not included. You may reconsider manufacturing of some components with constant thickness but bent shape - these may more likely be stamped and bent rather than cast.

Materials are now included for all parts. The manufacturing process of links that are bent has been changed to stamped and bent..

• Functionality could be more specific in some places - for example, what is the “rubber cap” for? What is the (#7 + #8) notation?

This has been clarified on the parts list.

• Nice summary of DFMA issues
• When you say “decomposition”, do you mean “disassembly”?

Yes, this wording has been changed.

• For EIOLCA, “motor vehicle parts manufacturing” would be a more representative sector than “automobile manufacturing,” which is for full vehicles. You mention that use of the product does not release greenhouse gasses, but this is not correct - there would be at least two sources: 1) the additional fuel burned to provide electricity to run the wipers when they are in use and 2) the additional fuel burned to carry around the extra weight of the wiper assembly unit. Do you have any intuition about whether use or manufacturing would likely have greater impact?

"Motor vehicle parts manufacturing" is the sector windshield wiper assemblies fall into. EOA data has been updated to reflect results of this sector. The correction has been made about greenhouse gasses emitted during product use.

• How does the intermittent mode of the wipers work?

A description of the intermittent mode has been added under "Product Usage." When this setting is chosen the wiper blades pause in between each wipe. The intermittent mode is best used when the rain is drizzling rather than continuously raining.

• The ADAMS model is helpful in understanding the mechanism. The velocity analysis is interesting, but what does it tell us? Is this ratio good? bad? Should it be changed?

This question has been addressed in the report. The wiper-to-motor velocity ratio was found to be sufficient for the current design because a large amount of torque is not needed