abstract: Traditionally, for applications that require heat transfer (e.g. heat exchangers),metals have been the go-to material for manufacturers because of their high thermal as well as structural properties. However, metals have some notable drawbacks. They are not corrosion-resistant, offer no freedom of design, have a high cost of production, and sourcing the material itself. Even though polymers on their own don’t show great prospects in the field of thermal applications, their composites perform better than their counterparts. Nanofillers, when added to a polymer matrix not only increase their structural strength but also their thermal performance. This work aims to tackle two of those problems by using the additive manufacturing method, stereolithography to solve the problem of design freedom, and the use of polymer nanocomposite material for corrosion-resistance and increase their overall thermal performance. In this work, three different concentrations of polymer composite materials were studied: 0.25 wt%, 0.5 wt%, and 1wt% for their thermal conductivity. The samples were prepared by magnetically stirring them for a period of 10 to 24 hours depending on their concentrations and then sonicating in an ice bath further for a period of 2 to 3 hours. These samples were then tested for their thermal conductivities using a Hot Disk TPS 2500S. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to study the dispersion of the nanoparticles in the matrix. Different theoretical models were studied and used to compare experimental data to the predicted values of effective thermal conductivity. An increase of 7.9 % in thermal conductivity of the composite material was recorded for just 1 wt% addition of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Mechanical Engineering 2020

Diploma thesis is focused on design of stereolithography 3D printer, which includes new technology and innovations to achive larger workspace and easy and comfortable manipulation. Great part of thesis is focused on shaping and aesthetic effect with respect of functional, safety, ergonomic and technical claims.

Stereolithography printing is one of the most popular 3D printing technologies. This printers use a UV light source for photopolymer curing and can be used for a wide range of applications with high precision and excellent print quality. Commercially available printers do not allow the modifications of the optical and mechanical parameters of the instrument. For this reason, a DLP printer has been designed to allow the optical system modifications and thus changing the printing field and resolution. Another advantage is the possibility to modify already designed mechanical parts. The DLP printer has been designed and tested. The recommended printer parameters settings are listed, which are based on the performed experiments.

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Ceramic manufacturing is an expensive process with long lead times between the initial design and final manufactured part. This limits the use of ceramic as a viable material unless there is a large project budget or high production volume associated with the part. Ceramic stereolithography is an alternative to producing low cost parts through the mixing of a photo curable resin and ceramic particles. This is an additive manufacturing process in which each layer is built upon the previous to produce a green body that can be sintered for a fully dense ceramic part. This thesis introduces a new approach to ceramic stereolithography with a top mask projection light source which is much more economical compared to current vector scanning methods. The research goes through the design and development of a stereolithography printer prototype capable of handling ceramics and the testing of different mixtures to provide the best printing results with varying viscosities. The initial testing of this printer has created a starting point for top mask projection as an economical alternative to current ceramic manufacturing techniques.

To facilitate the transition of Stereolithography (SLA) into the manufacturing domain and to increase its appeal to the micro manufacturing industry, process repeatability and surface finish need to be improved. Researchers have mostly focused on improving SLA surface finish within the capabilities of commercially available SLA machines. The capabilities of these machines are limited and a machine-specific approach for improving surface finish is based purely on empirical data. In order to improve surface finish of the SLA process, a more systematic approach that will incorporate process parameters is needed. To achieve this, the contribution of different laser and process parameters, such as laser beam angle, irradiance distribution, and scan speed, to SLA resolution and indirectly to surface finish, need to be quantified and incorporated into an analytical model. In response, a dynamic analytical SLA cure model has been developed. This model has been applied to SLA geometries of interest. Using flat surfaces, the efficacy of the model has been computationally and experimentally demonstrated. The model has been applied to process planning as a computational inverse design method by using parameter estimation techniques, where surface finish improvement on slanted surfaces has been achieved. The efficacy of this model and its improvement over the traditional cure models has been demonstrated computationally and experimentally. Based on the experimental results, use of the analytical model in process planning achieves an order of magnitude improvement in surface roughness average of SLA parts. The intellectual contributions of this research are the development of an analytical SLA cure model and the application of this model to process planning along with inverse design techniques for parameter estimation and subsequent surface finish improvement.

This thesis aims to investigate the use of additive manufacturing (AM) as a novel manufacturing process for the production of milli-scale chemical reaction systems. Five well developed additive manufacturing techniques; stereolithography (SL), selective laser melting (SLM), fused deposition modelling (FDM), ultrasonic additive manufacture (UAM) and selective laser sintering (SLS) were used to manufacture a number of miniaturised flow devices which were tested using a range of organic and inorganic reactions. SL was used to manufacture a range of functioning milli-scale flow devices from Accura 60 photoresin, with both simple and complex internal channel networks. These devices were used to perform a range of organic and inorganic reactions, including aldehyde and ketone functional group interconversions. Conversion of products within these reactors, were shown to be comparable to commercially available milli-scale coil reactors. More complex designs, which allowed SL parts to be integrated to existing flow and analytical instrumentation, allowed us to develop an automated reaction analysis and optimisation platform. This platform allowed precise control over the reaction conditions, including flow rate, temperature and reagent composition. We also designed a simplex type reaction optimisation software package that could input data in the form of reaction conversions, peak intensities, and thermocouple data, and generate a new set of optimal reaction conditions. SL parts which incorporated embedded analytical components were also manufactured, which allowed us to perform inline reaction analysis as a feedback method for input into the optimisation platform. Stereolithography was shown to be a highly versatile manufacturing method for designing and producing these flow devices, however the process was shown to be still limited by the range of processable materials currently commercially available. SLM was also used to manufacture a number of functioning milli-scale flow devices from stainless steel and titanium, which had simplistic internal channel designs of diameters ranging from 1 to 3 mm. Again, SLM parts were manufactured which incorporated embedded analytical components, which could be integrated into an automated reaction platform. These devices, unlike parts produced via SL, could be attached to heating platforms to allow us to perform high temperature reactions. This control over the reaction temperature formed an essential part of the reaction optimisation platform. These parts were again used to perform a ketone functional group interconversion. Internal structures of these SLM parts were also visualised via micro computed tomography (μCT or microCT) scanning as well as optical microscopy. FDM was used throughout the project as an inexpensive method of prototyping parts which were to be manufactured via more expensive manufacturing processes. This prototyping allowed the optimisation of intricate design features, such as the manufacture of an inline spectroscopic flow cell for integration with a commercially available LC system. FDM was also proposed as a customisable approach to designing and manufacturing flow devices with embedded components, however the current limitations in build resolution and materials choices severely limited the use of FDM for this application. UAM was also proposed as a novel manufacturing process whereby the build process would allow discrete components to be embedded directly into a flow channel. This was demonstrated by embedding a type-k thermocouple across a 2 mm channel. The data from this thermocouple was monitored during a heated reaction, and used as a method of determining the exact reaction conditions the reaction medium was being exposed to. SLS was also proposed as a possible manufacturing method for milli-scale flow devices, however it proved difficult to remove un-sintered powder from parts with internal channel diameters as high as 5 mm. It was shown that this powder was forming a dense semi solid, due to the large degree of shrinkage upon cooling of the SLS parts, which was compressing the powder. More research into optimum processing conditions is required before SLS could be used for the production of intricate channel networks.

Les télécommunications sont devenus indispensables dans notre monde actuel. De plus, le volume des données échangées ne cesse de croître. En effet, nous pouvons transmettre nos photos, nos vidéos au monde entier. Nonobstant, nous ne voulons pas attendre pour les avoir, ce qui exige un débit de données très important et par conséquent des signaux avec des bandes passantes plus larges. Les satellites de télécommunications doivent donc s’adapter, c'est pourquoi nous proposons dans ces travaux la recherche de filtre à large bande avec une recherche de compacité et de faibles pertes. Nous nous sommes intéressés à l'utilisation de matériaux céramiques qui permettent d'obtenir de bonnes performances vis à vis de nos besoins. Notre travail est aussi rendu possible par le développement de procédés de fabrication additifs, comme par exemple la stéréolithographie, qui va nous permettre de nous affranchir fortement de règles de dessin contraignantes que nous pourrions avoir en utilisant des procédés classiques. Nous avons développé des filtres avec de larges bandes passantes autour de 4GHz. Une première étude nous a permis de rechercher des concepts qui permettent d'obtenir de forts couplages, conditions sine qua non pour réaliser ces filtres. Plusieurs concepts sont présentés ainsi que leur fabrication et leur mesures. Nous avons ainsi démontré expérimentalement que les concepts proposés, à base de pièces monoblocs céramiques, sont capables de produire des filtres à bandes passantes supérieures à 60 % (voire même 110 % pour une version améliorée). / Every day, the data exchanges increase thanks to the new technologies. We can keep our files, our pictures, our videos online to have an access anywhere on the planet (for now). In this way, the data output of the telecommunication systems has to be increased in order to satisfy the more and more demanding users. One way to allow this is to increase the bandwidths of the different signals, making possible to transmit more data at the same time. In this work, we will develop wide bandpass filters dedicated to space telecommunications. For that purpose, we need them to be compact, with low insertion loss and a limited number of parts to assemble. Consequently, we are interested to use resonators made with ceramic materials that permits to reach such properties. Moreover, these materials are compatible with stereolithography, an additive manufacturing process. Such technology is here very useful for our purpose since its design freedom allows the creation of almost all kind of geometries. To realize such wide bandpass filters, we need strong couplings between the different resonators and also for the accesses, so we will present our studies focused on reaching these specific objectives. Then, we will present different designs of wide bandpass filter around 4GHz. After different generation of ceramic based components, we are be able to experimentally create a 60% bandwidth (even 100% for our last version) very compact bandpass filter filling the objectives of this PhD thesis.

Now a days. additive Manufacturing is becoming a major part of the manufacturing industries all around the world. Even, it is still a developing field.Its main advantage is its ability to print different types of shapes, in different sizesand good quality. The additive manufacturing technologies is capable of bring down the costs of the manufacturing when compared to other traditional methodsof manufacturing. This technology gives the flexibility to making complex shapesaccording to the clients and customers requirements also this technology canreduce time and human effort/involvement needed in the manufacturing industries. Now 3D printing has more influence in Swedish market more than ever and thisthesis is a part of a project of DiSAM – Digitalization of supply chain in Swedish Additive Manufacturing to implement 3D Printing into Swedish market. This thesis describe how advance materials and new manufacturingtechnologies can play a very important role in building the future and from thisstudy we are trying to find out whether the additive manufacturing technology can replace the traditional manufacturing process like injection molding. The main aim of the thesis is to design and fabricate a simple mould geometry for producing Silicone Rubber products using additive manufacturing and to assess the quality ofthe obtained product in terms of surface topography. Our project partner UnimerPlast & Gummi AB who is a major producer of plastics and rubber products is facing a problem in the production of silicone rubber products. They want to produce a mould for producing silicone rubber products using additivemanufacturing. In this thesis we had made the study in two parts, a design part and ananalysis part. In the design part we sorted out one material which is suitable for our application that is to produce a mould for making silicone products while in analysis part we made a study about the surface topology and its quality to see whether 3D printed moulds could produce silicone rubber products with same or better surface quality than the one which are produced using conventional injection moulding process. As a result of our study we came to know that high temperature resin can be used for making moulds to produce silicone products and only factor affecting the quality of the surface of mould or silicone product is built orientation and other factors like layer thickness, curing temperature and time does not have any impact on the surface quality.

<p>With the extreme increases in power density of electronic devices, the contact thermal resistance imposed at interfaces between mating solids becomes a major challenge in thermal management. This contact thermal resistance is mainly caused by micro-scale surface asperities (roughness) and wavy profile of surface (nonflatness) which severely reduce the contact area available for heat conduction. High contact pressures (1~100 MPa) can be used to deform the surface asperities to increase contact area. Besides, a variety of conventional thermal interface materials (TIM), such as greases and pastes, are used to improve the contact thermal conductance by filling the remaining air gaps. However, there are still some applications where such TIMs are disallowed for reworkability concerns. For example, heat must be transferred across dry interfaces to a heat sink in pluggable opto-electronic transceivers which needs to repeatedly slide into / out of contact with the heat sink. Dry contact and low contact pressures are required for this sliding application.</p> <p>This dissertation presents a metallized micro-spring array as a surface coating to enhance dry contact thermal conductance under ultra-low interfacial contact pressure. The shape of the micro-springs is designed to be mechanically compliant to achieve conformal contact between nonflat surfaces. The polymer scaffolds of the micro-structured TIMs are fabricated by using a custom projection micro-stereolithography (μSL) system. By applying the projection scheme, this method is more cost-effective and high-throughput than other 3D micro-fabrication methods using a scanning scheme. The thermal conductance of polymer micro-springs is further enhanced by metallization using plating and surface polishing on their top surfaces. The measured mechanical compliance of TIMs indicates that they can deform ~10s μm under ~10s kPa contact pressures over their footprint area, which is large enough to accommodate most of surface nonflatness of electronic packages. The measured thermal resistances of the TIM at different fabrication stages confirms the enhanced thermal conductance by applying metallization and surface polishing. Thermal resistances of the TIMs are compared to direct metal-to-metal contact thermal resistance for flat and nonflat mating surfaces, which confirms that the TIM outperforms direct contact. A thin layer of soft polymer is coated on the top surfaces of the TIMs to accommodate surface roughness that has a smaller spatial period than the micro-springs. For rough surfaces, the polymer-coated TIM has reduced thermal resistance which is comparable to a benchmark case where the top surfaces of the TIM are glued to the mating surface. A polymer base is designed under the micro-spring array which can provide the advantages for handling as a standalone material or integration convenience, at the toll of an increased insertion resistance. Through-holes are designed in the base layer and coated with thermally conductive metal after metallization to enhance thermal conductance of the base layer; a thin layer of epoxy is applied between the base layer and the working surface to reduce contact thermal resistance exposed on the base layer. Cycling tests are conducted on the TIMs; the results show good early-stage reliability of the TIM under normal pressure, sliding contact, and temperature cycles. The TIM is thermally demonstrated on a pluggable application, namely, a CFP4 module, which shows enhanced thermal conductance by applying the TIM. </p> To further enhance the potential mechanical compliance of microstructured surfaces, a stable double curved beam structure with near-zero stiffness composed of intrinsic negative and positive stiffness elastic elements is designed and fabricated by introducing residual stresses. Stiffness measurements shows that the positive-stiffness single curved beam, which is the same as the top beam in the double curved beam, is stiffer than the double curved beam, which confirms the negative stiffness of the bottom beam in the double curved beam. Layered near zero-stiffness materials made of these structures are built to demonstrate the scalability of the zero-stiffness zone.