Paper Title
Structural Analysis of Main Shaft with Three Different Materials for Oat Flake Rolling Machine
Abstract
This paper examines the structural integrity and performance of the main shaft in an oat flake rolling machine by
conducting a comparative analysis of three different materials. The oat flaking machine operates by compressing oat grains
between two horizontally aligned rollers, which rotate at 400 rpm with a gap of 0.45 mm. The rollers are driven by spur
gears connected to an electric motor through a belt transmission system. The main shaft is a critical component that transmits
the rotational power necessary for the rollers to process oats into flakes. Failure of the shaft occurs due to combined tensile,
shear, bending, and torsional stresses, making material selection crucial for reliability and performance. In this study, the
structural behavior of three different materials—Aluminium Alloy (7075-T6), Grey Cast Iron (ASTM 25), and Magnesium
Alloy (HK31XA-0)—is evaluated using both theoretical calculations and numerical simulations through ANSYS
Workbench. The shaft model is designed in SolidWorks and imported into ANSYS for structural analysis. von-Mises stress
and effective strain are calculated for each material under typical operating conditions. Results show that Grey Cast Iron
provides an optimal balance between stress resistance, mechanical durability, and cost, making it the most suitable material
for the main shaft in this application.
Keywords - Main Shaft, Structural Analysis, Finite Element Analysis, Grey Cast Iron, Material Selection