The articulating joint featured individual links connected together via laser welded springs, and demonstrates the precision capabilities of our stamped assemblies and components.
A major medical device manufacturer was developing an endoscopy device for minimally invasive surgeries. The design requirements specified a low-cost articulating tube that could be controlled by guide wires during surgery. The articulating tube, also known as the A-joint, would allow a surgeon to insert various instruments inside the tube while performing a procedure.
After several years of development and costly design proposals, the customer asked AVNA to help develop the A-joint as a patent-pending stamped stainless steel link-and-spring assembly to meet their cost/design goals. We began by partnering with the customer to understand the critical application requirements.
Manufacturing the A-joint is very challenging because of the complex welding assembly process, the tolerances on key dimensions and target cost. The initial manufacturing method our customer considered was laser cutting stainless steel tubing and welding springs to the individual links. For prototype laser cutting and low-volume applications this method is very cost effective. For higher-volume production requirements, however, a metal-stamped and welded assembly is much more cost effective.
AVNA invented a patent-pending process in which individual joint links are stamped and interconnected as a complete set to maintain their locations during the articulation joint welding assembly. First, all of the inter-connected flat links are joined together via laser-welded springs. Next, the links are separated. Then the assembled A-joint is formed into its finished diameter. To reconnect the open ends of each link, a laser operation seam welds the last row of internal springs across each link from end to end. This innovation keeps the (14) individual A-joint links in position prior to welding the (28) springs in place.
These proprietary manufacturing techniques built an A-joint at a significantly lower cost than other methods. Additionally, this new technique can help create solutions for a wide range of medical and non-medical articulation joint applications with two very significant benefits: consistent quality and lower cost.
Thanks toAVNA ’s Production Proven Prototyping® process we were able to utilize the same tooling concepts, sequence of operations and grain direction that will be used in the production tool. Replicating the stamping and manufacturing process during the prototype stage can minimize costly changes later in the project that would not have been identified using machining or other prototyping methods. For this application, component strength, cracking, surface finish, burrs/edge condition and feature tolerance capability are a few of the concerns we assessed and addressed.
Stamping and laser-welded assembly also significantly reduced the capital cost of tooling and pre-production over other manufacturing methods.
AVNA partnered across the engineering spectrum with our customer to develop a new way to manufacture a highly sophisticated component. Together, we significantly lowered the cost while maintaining critical features. The end-process is controlled, monitored and maintained to produce a high-quality part consistently. Most importantly, the customer got a better part for less.
