Formulation of a generalized experimental model for a manually driven flywheel motor and its optimization

A manually driven brick-making machine has recently been developed without the benefit of any design data. The machine consists of three main units: a pedal-driven flywheel motor; the transmission between the flywheel shaft and the input shaft of the process machine; and the process unit, consisting of auger, cone and die. The machine was essentially developed on the basis of general mechanical design experience and intuition. In spite of this, it proved to be functional and economically viable. However, it was felt essential to develop it scientifically. This paper reports on the full development of the pedal-driven flywheel motor. As this is a human-machine system it is highly unlikely that a logic-based model can be established. Therefore an experimental method is adopted to evolve a generalized experimental model, which is further optimized to satisfy several objective functions.