Title: 3D Printing for Prototyping of special components in the Automotive Industry

Biography:

PhD student with a master's degree in industrial design and winner of a scholarship with a Transportation Design project. His passion for the automobile and modern technologies have led him to design innovative solutions that intertwine the two areas mentioned above, generating several activities also in the aeronautical and railway sectors with experimentation with new materials and hybrid methodologies for finishing surfaces produced through rapid prototyping. He is currently studying innovative technologies aimed at three-dimensional surveying and modeling.

Abstract

The evolution of innovative techniques in Industry 4.0 has characterized and defined the development of new materials for 3D printing, which have completely new properties, specifically new "material patterns." One of these is definitely TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane), the protagonist of an application for the following research in innovative Additive Manufacturing. This polymer has many advantages, such as high resistance to impact, wear, abrasion and cuts; moreover, it has a rather advanced adhesion of layers that allows for excellent mechanical homogeneity at the level of manufactured parts, making them isotropic. The proposed case study showed the results related to solving the problems caused by overheating of video devices used for test recordings and testing of racing vehicles, designing an innovative solution that can always be used while avoiding any kind of electrified technology to avoid an increase in failures and weight of the devices. A high level of attention was dedicated to respecting thermal stresses to bring the component to a high level of resistance to the high temperatures that are created in summer inside the cockpits exposed from the windshields to the sun. Important was the use of domestic 3D printers of low cost and performance with technical materials now also available at rather cheap prices. The tools used for the following research presents low-budget choices to take design to new levels of challenge in order to make 3D printing a usable tool for everyone to properly reproduce elements that cannot be mass-produced. The tools are: smartphones with high-resolution cameras, fluid-dynamic mechanical components, domestic 3D printers, TPU material spools, and computers with photogrammetry and 3D modeling software.