1/22/2017 Ceramic Capacitor Manufacturing

Ceramic Capacitor Manufacturing

Project Overview
The Problem: Manufacturers of ceramic capacitors need to manufacture millions of
ceramic capacitors with the same dimensions and electrical properties as cost efficiently as
possible. There is a need to therefore optimize the manufacturing process to maximize both
yield and profit. The problem is to determine some of the parameters for the manufacturing
process.

Areas of Application:

Problem solving
Basic arithmetic skills
Rates and ratios

Alignment with Standards:

Massachusetts Framework
Number Sense and Operations
8.N.3
8.N.10
Patterns, Relations, and Algebra
AI.P.2
AI.P.4
8.P.7
Measurement
8.M.1-2
8.M.4-5

NCTM Mathematics Standards

Number and Operations
8.N.1
8.N.4
8.N.7
8.N.11
8.N.14
Algebra
8.A.2
8.A.4
8.A.6
8.A.7
12.A.9
12.A.12
12.A.14
Measurement
8.M.2 -3
8.M.8-9
12.M.1

Material Included:
Four problems dealing with the heating process and manufacturing of capacitors.

Background Information & Assumptions:

In the manufacturing of ceramic capacitors, the process involves many steps, some time
consuming, that need to be controlled. The manufacturing engineers need to develop the
parameters for the most cost effective manufacturing process. The steps involved are:
Ceramic powder is mixed with an organic binder and cast into tapes (called
greenware) that measure 1m wide by 100m long. These strips of greenware
have the consistency and thickness of an old 5 inch floppy disk.
These greenware tapes are then striped with conductive ink. This allows for
the electrical connection after processing.
The striped tapes are stacked and pressed into blocks 1 cm high. Each block
is then cut into smaller blocks approximately 50cm wide and 50cm long.
This stacked material is then put through a heating cycle on a continuously
moving conveyor belt through a series of ovens. During the cycle:
The organic binder is slowly removed from the 50cm x 50cm blocks
The remaining material (ceramic powder) is then sintered into the hard
final ceramic material.
The sintered blocks are then cooled slowly back to room temperature.
There is a 16% shrinkage in the block after the completed heating cycle.
The sintered material is then cut into the final dimensions of the capacitor:
0.1cm x 0.1cm (+/- 10%) on each side and height 0.5cm (+/- 5%)
The stacked greenware material cannot be cut into final dimensions prior to
the heating process due to the instability of the small size.

Table of Contents

Project Overview.............................................................................................................................1
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................3
Background Information..................................................................................................................4
Problem Statements.........................................................................................................................5
Problem Solutions........................................................................................................................6
Problem #1................................................................................................................................6
Problem #3................................................................................................................................8
Problem #4..............................................................................................................................10

Background Information
The heating process involves placing the stacked greenware material onto a conveyor belt
that moves through a series of ovens. The stacked greenware material is placed continuously on
the belt with less than one inch between stacks. There are 100 ovens, each 10 meters long, that
make up the heating area. The individual ovens can be adjusted (or simply turned off) by
controllers that monitor and regulate the temperatures for the ovens.

Limitations in the Heating Process:

1. The maximum time that is allowed for a block to undergo the entire heating process
(binder removal and sintering) is 48 hours.
2. The organic binder, if removed too quickly, will cause the stacked greenware material
to bubble and burst apart. Therefore, the minimum duration for the binder removal
process is 40 hours.
a) The organic binder diffuses horizontally through the stacked greenware
material at approximately 0.02 cm/hr. It cannot diffuse vertically because of
the conductive ink layer.
b) There are two temperatures as which the majority of the organic binder
(greater than 98%) is removed: 60 C and 150 C. The stacked greenware
material must remain at these temperatures for 20 hours minimum each.
3. The maximum temperature for sintering is 1200 C. The ceramic must remain at that
temperature for a minimum of 2 hours.
4. After sintering, a minimum of 2 hours is needed to cool down the pieces to room
temperature of 20 C.
5. The time necessary to increase the temperature of the ovens from 150 C to 1200 C
should be maximized.

Limitations on Manufacturing:
If it is necessary to cut the 50cm x 50cm block either prior to entering the heating cycle or
following the heating cycle, there is a loss of 0.1 cm/cut.

Problem Statements
These problems will help students reach the project goal.

Problem #1:
Determine the optimal dimensions of the stacked greenware material placed into the oven
to produce the maximum number of usable capacitors.

Problem #2:
Determine the speed of the conveyor belt.

Problem #3:
Determine the temperature profile (temperatures of each oven) for the heating process.

Problem #4:
Determine the maximum number of capacitors that can be produced from the original
50 cm x 50 cm stacked greenware material.
Hint: Height of the capacitors is not a consideration in any of these problems.

Problem Solutions
Problem #1 Suggestions & Solution:
Since we know the rate of diffusion for the organic binder is 0.02 cm/hr, and the total binder
removal time is 40 hours, the maximum distance that the binder can travel and still diffuse
completely is:
Therefore one dimension of the stacked greenware material cannot be greater than twice this
amount (1.6 cm). This is because the organic binder can diffuse in both horizontal directions.
The original 50cm x 50cm block must be cut into smaller units with one dimension not greater
than 1.6 cm. There is no restriction on the other dimension, so it can remain 50cm.
Because the final capacitors have dimension 0.1cm x 0.1cm, and there is a 16% shrinkage during
the heating process, the original block should be cut into strips with one dimension which will
shrink to the desires 0.1cm after heating. The equation to be solved is:

Since 0.12 < 1.6cm (the restriction based on diffusion), we can safely slice the stacked greenware
material into strips with dimension 0.12cm x 50cm.
These strips will then be placed onto the conveyor belt for processing through the ovens.

Final Solutions:
The optimal dimensions for the stacked greenware material for processing are:
0.12cm x 50cm x 1cm

Problem #2 Suggestions & Solution:

The heating process runs on a conveyor belt through a series of 100 ovens each 10 meters long
over 48 hours. A strip of stacked greenware material therefore travels 100*10 = 1000 meters in
48 hours. The conveyor belt must be moving at a rate of:

Problem #3 Suggestions & Solution:

Given the rate from Problem #2 of 20.83 m/hr, the time to pass through an individual oven is:

From the limitations, we know the stacked greenware material must remain at 60 C and 150 C
for 10 hours each, we can determine how many ovens at these temperatures the material passes
through to meet these requirements.

Since the temperature is constant throughout an oven, the material must pass through 42 ovens at
60 C and an additional 42 ovens at 150 C.
Similarly, the stacked greenware material must be kept at 1200 C for 2 hours.

For the same reasons as before, the material must pass through 5 ovens at 1200 C.
Cooling requires 2 hours, which is also 5 ovens.
The requirements for heating account for 94 of the 100 ovens.
The requirements for heating and cooling account for 44 of the maximum 48 hours.
The remaining 4 hours and 11 ovens are used to increase the temperature from room temperature
to 60 C, from 60 C to 150 C, and from 150 C to 1200 C.
Since we want to maximize the rise time from 150 C to 1200 C, we allow one oven for each of
the first two rises, leaving us with 4 ovens and approximately 3 hours.
8

Temperature profile graph:

Temperature Profile
1400

1200

800

600

400

200

Oven Number

97
10
0

94

91

88

85

82

79

76

73

70

67

64

61

58

55

52

49

46

43

40

37

34

31

28

25

22

19

16

13

10

0
1

Degrees Celcius

1000

Problem #4 Suggestions & Solution:

From problem #1, we know that the width of a strip of stacked greenware material is 0.12 cm.
Since each cut also requires 0.1cm loss of stacked greenware material, the total amount of
material (remaining and lost) per cut is 0.12 + 0.1 = 0.22cm. Therefore the maximum number of
strips that can be cut from the original 50cm x 50cm greenware block is:

Since there cannot be a fraction of a strip, the maximum number of strips per greenware block is
227.
Due to a shrinkage of 16% during the heating process, the 50cm strip shrinks to:

The final dimension of each strip is therefore 0.1cm x 42cm.

The 42cm length can then be cut to the desired 0.1cm dimension. As before, each cut must take
into account the 0.1cm of lost material. The total amount of material (remaining and lost) per cut
is 0.1 + 0.1 = 0.2cm. Therefore the maximum number of capacitors that can be cut from the
0.1cm x 42cm strip is:

The total number of capacitors is:

10