Authors: Austin Martel, Bethany Parkinson, Spencer Magleby
Mentors: Spencer Magleby
Insitution: Brigham Young University
Compliant mechanisms are gaining popularity for use in engineering systems due to their low cost, manufacturability, and predictability. These monolithic structures can accomplish the same function as rigid multi-body mechanisms and can improve the motion and performance of the mechanism. Because they are monolithic, 3D printing has proven to be a simple and favorable method of bringing compliant mechanisms from design to reality. However, fabricating these mechanisms using conventional approaches of 3D printing can negatively affect their mechanical properties.
To combat these adverse effects, we need to identify printing parameters that affect the mechanism’s material properties. Then, by adjusting the values of these parameters in the 3D printer’s slicer software we can minimize these adverse effects and create a better-suited set of guidelines to print compliant mechanisms.
In this study, multiple compliant mechanisms were designed and tested with different printer settings. The testing started with creating mechanisms and their force-deflection curves. The standard designs of each mechanism were then updated and printed using different parameters from the slicer software. Parameters such as orientation, infill, wall thickness, nozzle path, and ironing were considered and quantified. After printing, the mechanisms were tested on an INSTRON machine to get the experimental force-deflection curves. We iterated upon each design until there was less than a 5% error between the experimental and theoretical data.
With more knowledge of the effects of 3D-printing parameters, we can develop a set of guidelines for manufacturing more predictable compliant mechanisms. These guidelines can be applied to any compliant mechanism design for industrial or personal 3D printing.