Abstract: The drum support, an important part of drum washing machine, play an important role in the whole stiffness of inner drum system. However, severe cracks of the drum support are found in test and real usage, which leads to great risk to the reliability of the products, as well as negative effect on user safety. FEA (Finite Element Analysis) simulation is used to evaluate the mechanical behavior of drum support when suffer from working load. Based on the strength distribution, the design of drum support is optimized to achieve lower stress level. Finally, the stress results of both new design and original design are compared to demonstrate the optimized one could result in much lower stress level and minimized strength failure possibility.

Key words: Washing machine, Drum support, Strength, Optimization