The purpose of this thesis is to simplify the construction or the selection of a suction cup for a certain household appliance. We found two different models in the literature that describe the necessary suction force for the detachment of suction cups. We described the basic principles of a suction cup operation and the choice of a necessary pulling force of the suction cup to meet the household appliance demands.
We designed a computer simulation of a suction cup operation in pushing phase to determine the amount of expelled air from the suction cup active volume. A 3D printer was used for making the molds for silicone prototypes with different parameters, such as the radius, wall thickness, material hardness and caps on the edge of the suction cups. The pulling force of prototypes was measured using a test rig. We used two surfaces with different roughness as the basis. The results were used to create a new theoretical model which predicts the necessary pulling force of the suction cup with certain parameters.
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