Automation and Management of Design Process of the Main Drive for an Innovative Fruits and Vegetables Washer

A new technique is described, used by the authors to automate the design process of the main drive of a new generation machine intended for industrial washing of fruits and vegetables. To solve the problem of multi-criteria design, the original approach is proposed that uses interconnected mathematical models describing the dynamic behavior, strength reliability and functional characteristics of the machine in a unified information space. The generalized mathematical model includes 12 controlled parameters, 16 functional constraints, and 3 quality criteria. A genetic algorithm was used to find the space of Pareto-optimal solutions. The situational approach was used to select the final rational solution from a set of solutions belonging to the Pareto-optimal domain. The rational design of option the washer found using the proposed approach is compared with the existing ones. The proposed design methodology can be recommended for the design of a wide range of similar mechanical structures.