Manufacturing of instructional aids for students at low cost by means of 3D printing

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on 3D printing of compound elements, fully connected components or elements, which can be used as instructional aids for students. By means of traditional manufacturing technologies such as machining, forming, or molding, the manufacturing cost of such items would be high, and in addition they would be sometimes difficult to feasible. The majority of the low-cost 3D printers are operated on the basis of the fused deposition modeling technology. In addition, students can be involved in making their own teaching aids. The study of machine components and systems often requires the use of 3D gear models, especially planetary gears or centrifugal compressors. In the article, the numerical optimization of preparing and executing of 3D prints of models of the planetary gear and centrifugal compressor is proposed by the use of genetic algorithm.

KEYWORDS:

• Algorithm
• deposition
• fused
• genetic
• layered
• manufacturing
• modeling
• 3D-printing
• prototyping
• rapid