Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-19-2022
Department
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Abstract
As the additive manufacturing industry grows, it is compounding the global plastic waste problem. Distributed recycling and additive manufacturing (DRAM) offers an economic solution to this challenge, but it has been relegated to either small-volume 3D printers (limiting waste recycling throughput) or expensive industrial machines (limiting accessibility and lateral scaling). To overcome these challenges, this paper provides proof-of-concept for a novel, open-source hybrid 3D printer that combines a low-cost hanging printer design with a compression-screw-based end-effector that allows for the direct extrusion of recycled plastic waste in large expandable printing volumes. Mechanical testing of the resultant prints from 100% waste plastic, however, showed that combining the challenges of non-uniform feedstocks and a heavy printhead for a hangprinter reduced the strength of the parts compared to fused filament fabrication. The preliminary results are technologically promising, however, and provide opportunities to improve on the open-source design to help process the volumes of waste plastic needed for DRAM to address the negative environmental impacts of global plastic use.
Publication Title
Inventions
Recommended Citation
Petsiuk, A.,
Lavu, B.,
Dick, R.,
&
Pearce, J.
(2022).
Waste Plastic Direct Extrusion Hangprinter.
Inventions,
7(3).
http://doi.org/10.3390/inventions7030070
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p/16506
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Version
Publisher's PDF
Publisher's Statement
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.3390/inventions7030070