Development Of 3d Printed Electrical Component Using Polylatic Acid Filament As Feed Stock

ABSTRACT

 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a technology that enables the fabrication of 3D data by depositing a thin layer of material layer-by-layer until a final product is produced. Design and development of a 3D printer that is capable of converting used PET bottles into pow dered form was carried out using solidworks software. The application of the software was to simulate the machine designed to confirm the free and easy movement of all rotating parts. Performance evaluation of the developed machine showed that at higher hammermill speeds, finer grains were produced for both grades ofplastic processed (PET] and PET2) while lower hammermill speed produced coarser grains. Also, throughput of the machine was found to increase as the hammermill speed increased while conversion efficiency of the machine decreased with increase in hammermill speed. Characterization of the plastic powder produced by the machine gave values of bulk density, coefficient offriction, fiexural strength and tensile strength as 0.16 g/m3, 0.43, 82.1 MPa and 63.4 MPa respecti velyfor PET] and 0.15 g/m3, 0.22, 82. 7MPa and 57.8 MPa respectively for PET2.