Mustaffa Ibrahim

Development of Wood-Based Composites Material for 3D Printing Process

This paper presents the development of wood-based composites material for 3D Printing process. The aim is to characterize the waste material from wood powder (WD) as an alternative material and low cost production for rapid prototyping product. The powder blends containing wood powder (90-120µm) with commercial ZP102 material from Z Corporation was used as the composite material. The materials were mechanically blended to produce composition of WD/ZP102(vol.%) 25:70, 50:50 and 75:25 respectively. The material was successfully processed on 3D printers machine, to produce three-dimensional components and followed by post-treatment with ZMax solution to enhance the mechanical properties. The mechanical properties, dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the components were evaluated and the results were compared with the standard ZP102 material. The result shows that the mechanical properties improved with the increased of wood powder content up to 50 (vol.%). However, dimensional accuracy and surface quality were decreased as the wood content increased. Further work on powder preparation is continued for surface quality improvement.

Differential Ceramic Shell Thickness Evaluation for Direct Rapid Investment Casting

Rapid prototyping (RP) process offers a promising economical way as a sacrificial pattern in investment casting (IC) at high speed and low cost for low volume part manufacturing. However direct sacrificial RP pattern have encountered shell cracking during burnout process due to polymer based materials. Shell mould thickness was need to be concerned to have strong enough to withstand RP part expansion for employing direct method. The aim of present research was to compare the efficacy of different shell thickness for aluminum casting part fabricated from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and acrylate based material made from FDM and MJM respectively. The hollow RP pattern has been used directly to produce ceramic moulds. The feasibility of ceramic mould has been assessed in term of burnout ability and crack defect. Dimensional accuracies and surface roughness of the castings part have been observed in this investigation. Result shows thicker mould with proposed stuco procedure resulted without any crack defect for botRP part and no residual ash remained when firing higher than 870°C of temperature.In addition, FDM produced better accuracy for overall mould thickness, but MJM have better surface roughness. Therefore both direct RP pattern were suitable to be used in IC process with proposed shell thickness.

Direct Fabrication of IC Sacrificial Patterns via Rapid Prototyping Approaches

Patterns made from conventional wax materials in the Investment Casting (IC) process can easily be distorted, damaged, or broken in transportation or routine handling or due to exposure to heat. Alternatively, the strength and toughness of most Rapid Prototyping (RP) materials virtually eliminates this drawback due to their resistance to heat, humidity, and post curing. The current study is conducted to investigate the feasibility of using RP processes such as FDM and MJM to fabricate IC patterns from Acrylonitrile Butadine Styrene (ABS) and acrylate based materials respectively to be used directly in IC process. Evaluation of the effects of different internal pattern designs of the RP parts are conducted based on the thermal analysis approach and burnout properties of the RP patterns. Ceramic shell molds are fabricated on both RP patterns and subsequently placed in an oven which is gradually heated to 1000 °C. The decomposition temperature and the residual ash of the RP pattern materials is determined and analyzed. Results show that the acrylate pattern ofMJMdecomposes rapidly compared to the ABS pattern from the FDM process. It is also observed that quasi and square hollow internal structures show better collapsibility or burnout properties, with no cracks, compared to cross pattern and cross hatch designs.

A Study on the Mechanical Properties of Polymer-Ceramic Composite Using Injection Moulding

This paper presents the development of a new polymer-ceramic composite material for use in injection molding machine. The material consists of palm oil fly ash (POFA) in a high density polyethylene (HDPE) powder. In this study, the effect of POFA was investigated as a filler material in polymer-ceramic matrix composite and HDPE was chosen as a matrix material. The detailed formulations of mixing ratio with various combinations of the new polymer-ceramic composite are investigated experimentally. Based on the result obtained, it was found that, the weight percentage increment of POFA filler affected the flexural and hardness strength. This work represents a major development in recycling of waste material from palm oil empty fruit bunch out of the refinery to produce polymer/ceramic matrix composite.

Evaluation on the Photoabsorber Composition Effect in Projection Microstereolithography

This paper presents a research progress on composition photoabsorber effect the solidification time and layer thickness of 3D structures fabrication using Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) projector as energy light source to initiate the photoreactive polymer. The polymer based material with composition of 1,6-Hexanediol dicrylate, Phenylbis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)- phosphine oxide with varied Sudan I concentrations was used to build 3D structures. The structure was fabricated using a three different photo absorber composition of Sudan I then the photoreactive polymer solidification phe¬nomena was evaluated. Based on the result obtained, higher exposed time of the photo absorber will reduced the surface roughness values and increased the solidification layer time. This work represents that photo absorber composition solution gave a different characteristics for 3D microstructure fabrication.

Mechanical Properties of Highly Filled Iron-ABS Composites in Injection Molding for FDM Wire Filament

This paper presents the development of a new polymer matrix composite (PMC) material for use in injection molding machine. The material consists of iron powder filled in an acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and surfactant powder material. In this study, the effect of iron powder was investigated as a filler material in polymer matrix composite and ABS was chosen as a matrix material. The detailed formulations of compounding ratio by volume percentage (vol. %) with various combinations of the new PMC are investigated experimentally. Based on the result obtained, it was found that, vol. % increment of iron filler effected on the hardness, tensile and flexural strength. With highly filled iron content in ABS composites increase the hardness and tensile strength of PMC material through an injection molding process.

Evaluation of Different Internal Structure and Build Orientation for Multijet Modeling Process

Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology has proven its capability to produce complex parts with shorter lead time. This advantage could benefit tremendously in application such as the Investment Casting (IC) process. The focus of the study is the production of sacrificial IC patterns produced using Multijet Modeling (MJM) RP technology. It includes the evaluation of dimensional accuracy and the surface roughness of part with a hollow and quasi hollow inner support patterns. Different internal structures pattern were developed using CAD software, and the part were fabricated using MJM technique in two different build orientations. Analyses were done using Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) and the surface roughness tester. Results show that part built with 90º orientation is better than part built with 0º orientation both in terms of accuracies and roughness. Different internal structure similarly affects the final part quality, though the post processing steps also have their influence, thus making it no clear different among the parts. However, it demonstrated parts with square structure produced the best dimensional accuracy and the part with hatch structure produced the best surface roughness.

Evaluation of Direct Rapid Prototyping Pattern for Investment Casting

The ability of rapid prototyping (RP) technology to fabricate direct part of any complex shape as a sacrificial pattern in shorter lead time has benefited the foundry industries significantly. The quality of investment casting (IC) parts is directly related to the master pattern fabricated from RP process. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the quality characteristics of various RP patterns that were fabricated by various RP processes which include 3D Printer (3DP), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Multijet Modeling (MJM). Evaluation of the RP patterns was carried out on dimensional accuracy, surface roughness and pattern shrinkage. Different internal pattern designs for the RP parts were developed using Insight software for FDM process and Solidworks 2011 for other RP systems. In addition to the quality assessments, the effect of the internal pattern designs on the burn out behaviour of the RP patterns was also evaluated. Experimental results showed that FDM and MJM produced patterns with better accuracy, surface roughness and part shrinkage when compared to 3DP. It was evident that the internal pattern structure improved the accuracy of the patterns produced from all RP processes. Results showed that FDM and MJM processes were superior in terms of mold cleanliness when no residual ash was observed during the burn out stage. Significant oxidation of ceramic powder was observed on the molds of the 3DP patterns which need to be removed manually from the molds.

Fabrication of MMC material for EDM electrode

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the commonly used nontraditional machining methods to produce die cavities by the erosive effect of electrical discharges. This method is popular due to the fact that a relatively soft electrically conductive tool electrode can machine hard workpiece. However, production cost increase with the complexity of the eroded cavity. Recently, new approach for fabrication of EDM electrodes using rapid prototyping (RP) technology has been investigated with one main objective which is to reduce production cost, due to RP technologys ability to produce three dimensional objects from its CAD data source regardless the complexity. This research focus on fabrication of metal matrix composite (MMC) electrode by mixing copper powder with Al2O3 powder.

Investigation of DLP Projector as an Energy Light Source to Cure Silver Conductive Ink

Conductive ink has been widely used in many application of electronic parts. It normally comes in liquid form and will need to be cured usually by conventional oven or laser irradiation after it is drawn to expose its metallic contents. But, these curing processes suffer from numerous problems consist of laser is a costly process and a warping defect when cured using conventional oven. Thus, alternative process is prominent and DLP projector has been seen capable of polymerised photopolymer materials. By making use of its potential associated with a proper control of the light intensity, exposure time and distance, it could provides sufficent heat to cure conductive ink. This study investigates the curing process of silver conductive ink on polymer substrate using DLP projector light with a variation of curing time and distance. Electrical resistance, hardness and adhesion level of cured sample were measured to determine its functionality. The conductive ink is deposited on the substrate using a doctor blade method and Microsoft Powerpoint slide is used to shape the light image produced by the projector. It was found that the conductivity and curing level of the sample cured were higher at the distance which getting the sharpest light image. The performances of the samples were also greater as the curing time increased. DLP projector is able to cure the conductive track efficiently with shorter curing time apart from the cheap preparation and setup cost.