Performance Evaluation and Optimization of Aluminium Can Crushing Machine Using Finite Element Analysis and Design Improvement Techniques

There is increasing demand for sustainable beverages Can disposal management and recycling technologies. This has led to the development of efficient aluminium Can crushing machine. This study presents the crashworthiness of piston-cylinder assemble and structural optimization of aluminium can crushing machine using finite element analysis in ANSYS Workbench. Static structural and explicit dynamic analyses were performed to investigate total deformation, stress distribution, strain energy, and factor of safety. Baseline design was optimized by reducing mass of components and material selection.  The result showed that optimized crusher design achieved lower stress concentration, reduced structural weight, improved crushing efficiency, and enhanced durability compared to the baseline design configuration. The optimized design parameters reduced displacement by 10.5%, decreased stress concentration by 53.7%, reduced elastic strain by 49.3%, reduced machine weight by 20.45% and improved crushing efficiency by approximately 78.5% compared to the baseline design with 70.4%. This implies that the optimized crusher achieved significant can volume reduction while maintaining stresses below allowable material limits.