Design of air conveyor system with the air slit and the composite grooved surface

Abstract

Recently, the flat panel displays such as LCD (Liquid crystal display) and PDP (Plasma display panel) have been substituted for CRT (Cathode ray tube) display because they have small volume, light weight and low power consumption. The productivity of flat panel displays is greatly dependent on the area of glass panel because flat panel displays are fabricated by cutting large glass panel with patterns to the required product dimensions, therefore, electronic industries are trying to increase the area of glass panel. However, the productivity of flat panel displays could not be increased effectively due to the problem of cassettes, robots and AGV (Automated guided vehicle) transfer systems, which induced large panel deflection as the glass panel area increased. The one plausible solution for this problem is an air conveyor system, which transfer the large glass panel levitated by air pressure with negligible panel deflection. The conventional air conveyor system with porous pads was design by trial and error method because the governing equations of both the panel deflection and the air pressure under the levitated panel are coupled. Also, it was designed without considering the reliability when the glass panel contacts the conveyor surface due to malfunction of equipments. In this thesis, the air flows both in the air slit and in the porous pad were modeled and analyzed, from which the air consumption and panel deflection of both structures were compared. Also, the grooved carbon/epoxy composite surface which has self-lubricating characteristics was investigated and compared with that of flat carbon/epoxy composite surface. Then, the systematic design method of the air conveyor system with the air slit and the grooved composite flange was developed for the less air consumption and panel deflection and increasing reliability when the glass panel contacts the conveyor surface due to malfunction of equipments.