Clog-busting Fused Granule Fabrication
May's FGF User Group presenter is Dr. Chistopher Pannier and his team. In the theme of "printing from trash" or advancing a more circular economy of thermoplastic polymers using mechanical recycling through 3D printing, this talk describes work at University of Michigan-Dearborn to improve gravity driven feeding of polymer granules and flakes into extruders of the re:3D Gigabot X 3D printer and Noztek Xcalibur filament-making extruder by using a fluidized bed with pulsed flow. This approach leverages in-lab compressed air supply and pneumatic automation to prevent clogging in the feed throat. The design and prototyping of the systems will be discussed as well as pros and cons of the current designs. The fluidized bed feeding system on the Gigabot X enabled the printing of PLA polymer with four passes of recycling and mechanical characterization after each recycling pass.
Here are the links to the two short videos that the senior design team made.
• April 10, 2024
• April 10, 2024