BMS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Course: Elements of Mechanical Engineering

Compilation by:

Sreekanth N V, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,BMSCE

Prof. Sreekanth N V , Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, BMS

College of Engineering, Benglauru has a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, Bachelors
in Industrial Engineering and Management and holds an M.Tech degree in Manufacturing
Science and Engineering.

He is presently the lab manager of the 3D Printing Lab in BMSCE and is a lab member of the Product
Innovation Lab in the college supported by Dassault Systemes and 3D PLM Bengaluru. He is also mentoring
startups in the field of Additive Manufacturing and Product Development fields. His research interests are in
the field of Additive Manufacturing and New Product Development.

Topic: Additive Manufacturing

Teaching Hours: 3-6 Hrs

Course Outcomes:

At the end of the course the students will be able to:

1. Recognize various Additive manufacturing processes

Topics to be covered:

Topic Topic Hours

No.
1 Introduction to CAD, 1 hour
2 AM, Eight Steps in AM 1 hour
3 Materials used in AM, Types of AM processes- FFF and DLP 1 hour
process
4 Applications of AM processes in various industries 1 hour

Text Books & References:

1. Ian Gibson, David Rosen, Brent Stucker (auth.)-Additive Manufacturing

Technologies_ 3D Printing, Springer-Verlag New York (2015)
2. Andreas Gebhardt (Auth.)-Understanding Additive Manufacturing. Rapid Prototyping
- Rapid Tooling - Rapid Manufacturing-HANSER-GARDEN PUBLICATION 2011

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Detailed literature for the course:

1. Introduction to CAD

1.1 Definition:

Computer Aided Design and Drawing (CAD) is defined as “the digitalized format of the
imagination of creative designers, engineers, architects and scientists in the form of drawings
that are created using computer hardware and software”.

Computer Aided Drawing utilizes the graphics module of the computer software to generate
virtual prototypes of real world objects and designs of engineering of various domains. CAD
has replaced drawing many drafting tools and has ability to create two dimensional and three
dimensional designs and drawings that are used widely in the industries.

There is variety of software available in the market which helps designers, engineers and
architects to choose from. Some of the software available in the market is listed in the
Table.1. The list is only a snapshot of the available software in the market and does not cover
all the software.
Table1. A list of the available software for CAD

Sl No. Company Software Applications

1 Dassault CATIA Aerospace and allied industries uses
Systemes high end computing for graphical
interfaces and curves
2 Dassault Solidworks Electrical, Mechanical, Civil etc,
Systemes Startups
3 Dassault 3D Experience Bio, Electrical, Civil, Mechanical etc
Systemes high end integration of design,
analysis and product lifecycle
4 PTC Creo Electrical, Mechanical, Civil etc
5 PTC Windchill Product life cycle product
6 Autodesk Auto Cad 2D and Wireframe designing
7 Autodesk Inventor Mechanical design and CAD
8 Autodesk 3DS Max 3D modeling, animation and
rendering
9 Autodesk REVIT Architectural and civil
10 Autodesk Fusion 360 3D CAD, CAM and CAE
11 Autodesk Civil 3D Civil CAD
12 Trimble Sketchup Architecture and civil field
13 Onshape Onshape Designers, Engineers in design field
14 Ansys Spaceclaim Designers, Analysis work on models
15 Others TinkerCAD, Starters, 3D printing enthusiasts.
SculptGL, FreeCAD,
Blender,
Designspark,Openscad

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contact [email protected]
The change from manual drafting techniques to Computer Aided Drafting techniques has
disrupted the industries involved in manual drafting. Once there were dozens of draftsmen
who were responsible for developing maps in civil engineering, large industrial scale
drawings of parts, layouts, machines and assemblies.

The use of CAD drawings have also been utilized in the late 80s and 90s for machines to
directly load the work in the machine for manufacturing in CNCs and now are being widely
utilized in the 3D printing field which was initially called rapid prototyping and now coined
to a term called Additive Manufacturing.

2. Additive Manufacturing:

The advent of stepper motors and servos which helped automate the industry from manual
labor to advanced machines also contributed to the development of CAD based
manufacturing called Additive Manufacturing (AM). AM is a technology which is opposed to
subtractive manufacturing takes the CAD based drawing as an input and provides a three
dimensional part or an assembly as the output without much human intervention.

2.1 Definition:

Additive manufacturing also called as 3D printing is defined as a process of converting CAD

based three dimensional models into real world product with the help of layer by layer
processing of the required three dimensional parts or an assembly. It is a process that involves
the use of interfaced software and hardware components with actuators and sensors to
provide a near net shape of the conceived product.

Additive Manufacturing has changed the way the industry operates as it has a lot of
advantages in comparison with traditional manufacturing. We can compare the working of
AM machines with CNC and the following advantages show the disruptive nature of the
technology.

Some of the advantages of Additive manufacturing are:

1. Reduces material wastage as compared to traditional subtractive process where

material is removed from the stock to get the desired product dimensions
2. Reduces the number of operations as compared to traditional product manufacturing
3. Reduces the skill required by the operator for multiple machine operations
4. Reduces the time of product development as compared to traditional processes.
Hence, the name of AM was initially rapid prototyping which is even today used in
some industrial segments for AM.
5. Reduces the cost of raw materials as the process has minimum or zero wastage
6. Provides designers freedom to design parts that were not possible to manufacture in
traditional manufacturing processes.

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Additive Manufacturing in general follows few steps by which the manufacturing process can
be described. These steps are mostly common for all types of additive manufacturing
processes and are followed by most of the 3D printers/AM machines.

2.2 Steps in AM

The various steps in AM are as follows:

Step 1: Computer Aided Design and Drawing

Step 2: Conversion of the CAD part to STL(*.stl) files

Step 3: Slicing of the STL files into layers using standard slicing software

Step 4: Create a G-code which is understood by the machine

Step 5: Setting up the machine

Step 6: Layer by layer printing of the job

Step 7: Removal of the part

Step 8: Post processing to get the final product as visualized

•Idea generated
STEP 1 •CAD Drawings to define the idea into a dimensional part

•CAD to STL
STEP 2 •Use of softwares to convert drawing into Standard Tessallation Language file

•Slicing the STL file

STEP 3 •using standard softwares and the surface finish requirement the part is sliced into corresponding layers

•Create G code
STEP 4 •based on the sliced data a software converts the sliced parts into a Gcode which is understood by machine

•Setting up the machine by intializing the machine and switching on the machine for printing
STEP 5

•Printing of the part layer by layer is carried out for obtaining the requisite part
STEP 6

•Removal of the part after printing and cleaning of the part and removal of support structures of part
STEP 7

•Post processing
STEP 8 •After removal of the completed part the part can be post processed to remove unnecessary material.

Figure1. Schematic showing the stepwise process of AM

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3. Materials used in AM:

There are various materials that are being used in Additive Manufacturing process. The
materials that are used in this technology are as follows:

1. Polymers
2. Metals & Alloys
3. Composites
4. Ceramics
5. Elastomers

3.1 Polymers: Many long chain polymers are used in this process ranging from epoxies
to Acrylates and polyamides. The use of epoxy shows a lot of variations but a stable
material as compared to acryaltes. A mixture of acrylate and epoxies are an ideal
candidate for application in prototypes. Acrylo-nitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) is used in
additive manufacturing applications. Poly Lactic Acid and Polycarboneates (PC) are also
used in 3D printers. There are a lot of research possibilities in application of new
polymers in this field which is evolving at a very fast rate.

3.2 Metals: Most of the metals like Aluminium, Mild steel and structural materials can be
manufactured using layer by layer process. This manufacturing process occurs by
partially melting or bringing the metal powders to a phase transition from solid to liquid
and then solidification using lasers or electron beams. Hence the materials are expected to
be in powder or in the form of wires in geometry for easy handling and processing.
Researchers like GE Additive have worked on various metals such as Aluminium and its
alloys, Cobalt and Chrome alloys, Titanium alloys, Nickel-based alloys, stainless steels.
There materials are used on production of aerospace and automotive parts that are
traditionally manufactured using multiple setups and larger leadtimes.

3.3 Composites: ULTEM 1010 which is a trademark product of Stratasys has been
extensively used in Fiber reinforced composites in conjuction with hand layup process
and has shown good amount of results in manufacturing of aero parts that require
lightweight honeycomb structure. Manufacturing of wood and textiles are examples of
printing natural fibre composites and synthetic composites using nylon and other
materials. A new 3D printer also prints Kevlar as a composite into three dimensional
shapes. Some filaments like willowflex provides natural fiber printing commercially.

3.4 Ceramics: Various materials in ceramics are being developed commercially and in
laboratories for the use of ceramics in manufacturing of high temperature parts. 3d Ceram
is a company that has developed printers capable of printing Zirconia, Alumina,
hydroxiapatite/TCP, Silicon Nitride, Zirconsilica and other silica materials. WASP has
developed 3D printing of clay parts in 3D printers using extrusion based systems.Using
binder jetting clay is printed and then sintered at high temperatures to achieve surface

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 integrity. Form labs have worked to release the ceramic resins that are ideal for
photopolymerization.

3.5 Elastomers: These are materials which behave as sunthetic rubber and polymer based
materials which gives its name elastomers. They are very useful in FMCG sector as it
gives good elasticity and compressive strength as rubber like materials. Elastomers can
replace many human like artifacts and work as an external skin on certain materials.
Liquid Pilydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is used for printing in a method called EGO from
Carniege Mellon University(CMU) which can be used in medical devices and wearables.

3.6 Types of AM Process:

Additive manufacturing can be classified into many types. The processes are elaborate and
developing at a very fast pace. However, we shall restrict the study in this to two important
and low cost processing techniques which are fused filament fabrication and Digital Light
Processing techniques in this course.

3.6.1 Classification of AM process

a. Fused Filament Fabrication

b. Stereolithography / Digital Light Processing
c. Powder bed fusion
d. Sheet Lamination techniques
e. Solid Ground Curing
f. Material Jetting Technology
g. Direct Write
h. Direct Energy Deposition

3.7 Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)/ Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

FFF uses the principle of extrusion along X and Y directions for material delivery layer by
layer on a bed that moves in Z direction. The surface finish of the process is dependent on
resolution of the Z movement. The various materials used in this process are ABS polymer,
Polylactic acid (PLA), PC(polycarbonate), PEEK(PolyEthylene Ether Ketone) and various
other thermoplastics.

3.7.1 Construction:

General construction of the machine is as shown in the figure 2. The various parts of the
machine include a bed which is sometimes heated and moves in Z direction, a minimum of
four stepper motors for driving the motion in the printer and the feeding of material through
pressure and feed rolls, a material extruder with a nozzle size ranging from 0.2 to 0.4mm
which has an heater inside which can extrude material at a range of 150 to 300 degree
Celsius. A toothed belt drive and pulley set to drive the extruder on smooth rods, a lead
screw to move the table, stepper drivers to control the driver motors and the extruder motor,

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an array of cooling fans for temperature regulation and a motherboard to store, process and
control the movements of the machine as per the G-code.

3.7.2 Process:

The machine is initially warmed up to bring the temperature of the bed to a temperature of
around 50 to 90 degree Celsius and extruder to a temperature of 180 to 280 degree Celsius.
Later the extruder needs to come close to the table and calibrate for a leveled surface distance
between the extruder and bed surface. Once the leveling is carried out the extruder feed roll
with the help of the support roll pushes the material into the extruder which is hot enough to
create a liquid polymer pool at the extruder nozzle. The viscosity of the polymer needs to be
maintained for extrusion which is regulated by a set of cooling fans fitted close to the
extruder.

3.8 Digital Light Processing (DLP)/ Stereolithography (SLA):

DLP process is a vat polymerization technique where a photo sensitive polymer is used as the
raw material and light is passed on the polymer which is held on a tank to create a three
dimensional part. The figure 3 shows the working principle of DLP based system which
consists of a light source and polymer. The various materials used in this process are
polyester acrylates, epoxy acrylates, urethane acrylates, amino acrylates and cycloaliphatic
epoxies.

3.8.1 Construction:

The construction of the photo polymerization vat based system used in DLP is as shown in
figure 3. It consists of a digital light processing unit which consists of an image engine for
processing and projecting images of the sliced data, optical system consisting of mirrors to
transmit the image at various sizes and pixels, a mainboard with processor to process the
operations, a power source to power the lamps and a controller to control the cooling fan and

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electrical systems. The DLP system also consists of a tank that stores the photosensitive
resins and the initiator for resin polymerization, a lead screw to which the build plate is fixed
where the part is built layer upon layer.

3.8.2 Process:

The DLP process of AM works in the opposite way of FFF. Here, the bed/buildplate moves
upwards after each layer as compared to FFF where the bed moves downwards after each
layer. The build plate in the initial position is dipped inside the resin which is stored in the
resin tank. Below the resin tank a light source with mirrors are placed in such a way that the
light is projected through the transparent resin tank on to the build plate. The resins which are
mixed with photo initiators and catalysts when exposed to light are sensitive to light and will
form a polymer of a long chain turning into solid part. After the first layer is solidified the
build plate moves upwards using a stepper motor and again dips the next layer to the surface
of the resin. Then the second sliced image of the part is projected on to the build plate to
create the second layer on the build plate. The same procedure repeats until the final layer
gets solidified. This principle is used in patterns used for manufacturing of jewellery and
dental parts.

Z axis lead screw

Computer

Build Plate

Transparent
Resin tank

Projected
digital light Light source
with optics

Figure 3. DLP based 3D Printer

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4. Applications of AM process

Additive Manufacturing in the recent years has gained lot of traction due to extensive media
coverage and development in scientific field. The rapid development of the field has made
AM to be applied in various processes and fields. Today AM is part of the entire engineering
industry and is considered to be the next disruptive technology the industry will experience.

4.1 Applications in Civil Engineering field

- In construction of bridges
- Building 3D printed houses
- Small size building aids for workers and laborers
- Building plans for easy understanding
- Building material to optimize space

4.2 Applications in Electrical and Electronics field

- Building of printed microelectronics

- Enclosures to Printed Circuit Boards
- Printing of fixtures for accommodating motors and sensors
- Use of printed robotics for evaluation
- Printed electronics and electrical devices
- Manufacture of printed boards, panels
- Manufacture of printed electronic elements, electrical ducts, hoses and enclosures
- Building robotic arms, prototypes
- Building enclosures for PCBs and supporting structures
4.3 Applications in Mechanical Engineering field

- Used for prototyping ideas in the field of new mechanical parts and applicances.
- Development of Manufacturing fixtures
- Hybrid manufacturing application in CNC s and Flexible manufacturing systems
- Automotive parts and material handling systems
- Next generation robots and grippers
- Dies and moulds in injection moulding applications

4.4 Applications in Medical industry

- Quick development of equipments

- Product prototypes for operating electronics
- Prototypes of human parts used for training
- Development of aids for differently abled people
- Manufacturing of artificial bones in replacement of hip and knee joints and implants

4.5 Applications in Biotechnology

- Development of 3D printed organs using enhanced gene studies

- Development of molecular level assembly studies

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 - Development of aids in study of molecular and atomic level organisms
- Studies on development of genetics using bio ink

4.6 Applications in Chemical Engineering field

- Development of smart materials using 3d printing

- Development of new materials accepted by 3D Printing
- Use of aerosols with various chemical combinations to develop 3d printed parts
- Manufacture of resins for faster processing and food grade 3D printing materials

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Sreekanth N V For any suggestions and Review

contact [email protected]