scholarly journals Fabrication and Compressive Behavior of a Micro-Lattice Composite by High Resolution DLP Stereolithography

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 785
Author(s):  
Chow Shing Shin ◽  
Yu Chia Chang

Lattice structures are superior to stochastic foams in mechanical properties and are finding increasing applications. Their properties can be tailored in a wide range through adjusting the design and dimensions of the unit cell, changing the constituent materials as well as forming into hierarchical structures. In order to achieve more levels of hierarchy, the dimensions of the fundamental lattice have to be small enough. Although lattice size of several microns can be fabricated using the two-photon polymerization technique, sophisticated and costly equipment is required. To balance cost and performance, a low-cost high resolution micro-stereolithographic system has been developed in this work based on a commercial digital light processing (DLP) projector. Unit cell lengths as small as 100 μm have been successfully fabricated. Decreasing the unit cell size from 150 to 100 μm increased the compressive stiffness by 26%. Different pretreatments to facilitate the electroless plating of nickel on the lattice structure have been attempted. A pretreatment of dip coating in a graphene suspension is the most successful and increased the strength and stiffness by 5.3 and 3.6 times, respectively. Even a very light and incomplete nickel plating in the interior has increase the structural stiffness and strength by more than twofold.

Author(s):  
Mahmoud A. Alzahrani ◽  
Seung-Kyum Choi

With rapid developments and advances in additive manufacturing technology, lattice structures have gained considerable attention. Lattice structures are capable of providing parts with a high strength to weight ratio. Most work done to reduce computational complexity is concerned with determining the optimal size of each strut within the lattice unit-cells but not with the size of the unit-cell itself. The objective of this paper is to develop a method to determine the optimal unit-cell size for homogenous periodic and conformal lattice structures based on the strain energy of a given structure. The method utilizes solid body finite element analysis (FEA) of a solid counter-part with a similar shape as the desired lattice structure. The displacement vector of the lattice structure is then matched to the solid body FEA displacement results to predict the structure’s strain energy. This process significantly reduces the computational costs of determining the optimal size of the unit cell since it eliminates FEA on the actual lattice structure. Furthermore, the method can provide the measurement of relative performances from different types of unit-cells. The developed examples clearly demonstrate how we can determine the optimal size of the unit-cell based on the strain energy. Moreover, the computational cost efficacy is also clearly demonstrated through comparison with the FEA and the proposed method.


Author(s):  
Lara Rebaioli ◽  
Irene Fassi

Abstract Lab on Chips (LOCs) are devices, mostly based on microfluidics, that allow to perform one or several chemical, biochemical or biological analysis in a miniaturized format on a single chip. The Additive Manufacturing processes, and in particular the Digital Light Processing stereolithography (DLP-SLA), could quickly produce a complete LOC with high resolution 3D features in a single step, i.e. without the need for assembly processes, and using low cost and user-friendly desktop machines. However, the potential of DLP-SLA to produce non-planar channels or channels with complex sections has not been fully investigated yet. This study proposes a benchmark artifact (including also some channels with their axis lying in a plane parallel to the machine building platform) aiming at assessing the capability and performance of DLP-SLA for manufacturing microfeatures for microfluidic devices. A proper experimental campaign was performed to evaluate the effect of the main process parameters (namely, layer thickness and exposure time) on the process performance. The results pointed out that both the process parameters influence the quality and dimensional accuracy of the analyzed features.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teja Kattenborn ◽  
Jana Eichel ◽  
Fabian Ewald Fassnacht

AbstractRecent technological advances in remote sensing sensors and platforms, such as high-resolution satellite imagers or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), facilitate the availability of fine-grained earth observation data. Such data reveal vegetation canopies in high spatial detail. Efficient methods are needed to fully harness this unpreceded source of information for vegetation mapping. Deep learning algorithms such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are currently paving new avenues in the field of image analysis and computer vision. Using multiple datasets, we test a CNN-based segmentation approach (U-net) in combination with training data directly derived from visual interpretation of UAV-based high-resolution RGB imagery for fine-grained mapping of vegetation species and communities. We demonstrate that this approach indeed accurately segments and maps vegetation species and communities (at least 84% accuracy). The fact that we only used RGB imagery suggests that plant identification at very high spatial resolutions is facilitated through spatial patterns rather than spectral information. Accordingly, the presented approach is compatible with low-cost UAV systems that are easy to operate and thus applicable to a wide range of users.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Semple ◽  
Ashwin K. Iyer

AbstractSurface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy is an important technique for improving the signal-to-noise ratio of spectroscopic material identification measurements in the mid-infrared fingerprinting region. However, the lower bound of the fingerprinting region receives much less attention due to a scarcity of transparent materials, more expensive sources, and weaker plasmonic effects. In this paper, we present a miniaturized metasurface unit cell for surface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy of the 15-$$\upmu$$ μ m vibrational band of CO$$_{2}$$ 2 . The unit cell consists of a gold disc, patterned along the edge with fine gaps/wires to create a resonant metamaterial liner. In simulation, our plasmonic metamaterial-lined disc achieves greater than $$4\times$$ 4 × the average field intensity enhancement of a comparable dipole array and a miniaturized size of $$\lambda _0/5$$ λ 0 / 5 using complex, 100-nm features that are patterned using 100-kV electron-beam lithography. In a simple experiment, the metamaterial-lined disc metasurface shows a high tolerance to fabrication imperfections and enhances the absorption of CO$$_{2}$$ 2 at 15 $$\upmu$$ μ m. The resonant wavelength and reflection magnitude can be tuned over a wide range by adjusting the liner feature sizes and the metasurface array pitch to target other vibrational bands. This work is a step toward low-cost, more compact on-chip integrated gas sensors.


Author(s):  
Terry Tianya Zhang ◽  
Mengyang Guo ◽  
Peter J. Jin ◽  
Yi Ge ◽  
Jie Gong

High-resolution vehicle trajectory data can be used to generate a wide range of performance measures and facilitate many smart mobility applications for traffic operations and management. In this paper, a Longitudinal Scanline LiDAR-Camera model is explored for trajectory extraction at urban arterial intersections. The proposed model can efficiently detect vehicle trajectories under the complex, noisy conditions (e.g., hanging cables, lane markings, crossing traffic) typical of an arterial intersection environment. Traces within video footage are then converted into trajectories in world coordinates by matching a video image with a 3D LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) model through key infrastructure points. Using 3D LiDAR data will significantly improve the camera calibration process for real-world trajectory extraction. The pan-tilt-zoom effects of the traffic camera can be handled automatically by a proposed motion estimation algorithm. The results demonstrate the potential of integrating longitudinal-scanline-based vehicle trajectory detection and the 3D LiDAR point cloud to provide lane-by-lane high-resolution trajectory data. The resulting system has the potential to become a low-cost but reliable measure for future smart mobility systems.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (07) ◽  
pp. 2050111
Author(s):  
Basma H. Mohamed ◽  
Ahmed Taha ◽  
Ahmed Shawky ◽  
Essraa Ahmed ◽  
Ali Mohamed ◽  
...  

With the new age of technology and the release of the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution, there is a need to connect a wide range of devices with varying throughput and performance requirements. In this paper, a digital transmitter of NarrowBand Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is proposed targeting very low power and delay-insensitive IoT applications with low throughput requirements. NB-IoT is a new cellular technology introduced by 3GPP in release 13 to provide wide-area coverage for the IoT. The low-cost receivers for such devices should have very low complexity, consume low power and hence run for several years. In this paper, the implementation of the data path chain of digital uplink transmitter is presented. The standard specifications are studied carefully to determine the required design parameters for each block. And the design is synthesized in UMC 130-nm technology.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hafizur Rahman ◽  
Ebrahim Yarali ◽  
Ali Zolfagharian ◽  
Ahmad Serjouei ◽  
Mahdi Bodaghi

Today, the rational combination of materials and design has enabled the development of bio-inspired lattice structures with unprecedented properties to mimic biological features. The present study aims to investigate the mechanical performance and energy absorption capacity of such sophisticated hybrid soft–hard structures with gradient lattices. The structures are designed based on the diversity of materials and graded size of the unit cells. By changing the unit cell size and arrangement, five different graded lattice structures with various relative densities made of soft and hard materials are numerically investigated. The simulations are implemented using ANSYS finite element modeling (FEM) (2020 R1, 2020, ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA, USA) considering elastic-plastic and the hardening behavior of the materials and geometrical non-linearity. The numerical results are validated against experimental data on three-dimensional (3D)-printed lattices revealing the high accuracy of the FEM. Then, by combination of the dissimilar soft and hard polymeric materials in a homogenous hexagonal lattice structure, two dual-material mechanical lattice statures are designed, and their mechanical performance and energy absorption are studied. The results reveal that not only gradual changes in the unit cell size provide more energy absorption and improve mechanical performance, but also the rational combination of soft and hard materials make the lattice structure with the maximum energy absorption and stiffness, in comparison to those structures with a single material, interesting for multi-functional applications.


Author(s):  
Fritz A Francisco ◽  
Paul Nührenberg ◽  
Alex Jordan

AbstractAcquiring high resolution quantitative behavioural data underwater often involves installation of costly infrastructure, or capture and manipulation animals. Aquatic movement ecology can therefore be limited in scope of taxonomic and ecological coverage. Here we present a novel deep-learning based, multi-individual tracking approach, which incorporates Structure-from-Motion in order to determine the 3D location, body position and the visual environment of every recorded individual. The application is based on low-cost cameras and does not require the animals to be confined or handled in any way. Using this approach, single individuals, small heterospecific groups and schools of fish were tracked in freshwater and marine environments of varying complexity. Further, we established accuracy measures, resulting in positional tracking errors as low as 1.09 ± 0.47 cm (RSME) in underwater areas up to 500 m2. This cost-effective and open-source framework allows the analysis of animal behaviour in aquatic systems at an unprecedented resolution. Implementing this versatile approach, quantitative behavioural analysis can employed in a wide range of natural contexts, vastly expanding our potential for examining non-model systems and species.


Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 719
Author(s):  
Myunghoi Kim

In this study, we propose and analyze a dual-perforation (DP) technique to improve an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure in thin and low-cost printed circuit boards (PCBs). The proposed DP–EBG structure includes a power plane with a square aperture and a patch with an L-shape slot that overcomes efficiently the problems resulting from the low-inductance and the characteristic impedance of the EBG structure developed for parallel-plate noise suppression in thin PCBs. The effects of the proposed dual-perforation technique on the stopband characteristics and unit cell size are analyzed using an analytical dispersion method and full-wave simulations. The closed-form expressions for the main design parameters of the proposed DP–EBG structure are extracted as a design guide. It is verified based on full-wave simulations and measurements that the DP technique is a cost-effective method that can be used to achieve a size reduction and a stopband extension of the EBG structure in thin PCBs. For the same unit cell size and low cut-off frequency, the DP–EBG structure increases the stopband bandwidth by up to 473% compared to an inductance-enhanced EBG structure. In addition, the unit cell size is substantially reduced by up to 94.2% compared to the metallo–dielectric EBG structure. The proposed DP–EBG technique achieves the wideband suppression of parallel plate noise and miniaturization of the EBG structure in thin and low-cost PCBs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 371 ◽  
pp. 280-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Voicu Mager ◽  
Nicolae Bâlc ◽  
Dan Leordean ◽  
Mircea Cristian Dudescu ◽  
Mathias Fockele

This study evaluates the manufacturability and performances of periodic cellular lattice structures designed by repeating a cubic unit cell and produced by SLM using titanium powder. The effects of unit cell size on the manufacturability, density, compression and bending properties of the manufactured cellular lattice structures were investigated. Lattice structures manufactured with various unit cell sizes ranging from 0.5 to 1.2 mm could be produced free of defects by the SLM process, with a novel type of supports. By the increasing of the cell size, a decrease of the applied load together with an enhancement of the flexure extension were observed. Specimens with a cell size higher than 1 mm manifested an excellent flexibility by flexure tests.


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