Vibration Isolation in 3D Printer Using Meta-Structures

Abstract

Reducing vibrations in a 3D printer is crucial in improving the quality of printed prototypes. Ideally, the noise from the actuators in 3D printers should not hinder the print quality. However, isolating the printer surface from vibrations is challenging. Therefore, in this paper, a novel vibration-isolating frame is designed for building a novel 3D printer. Such a structure would absorb external vibrations and isolate the print-plate, thereby improving the print quality.

The proposed frame is a meta-structure that absorbs vibrations over a frequency bandwidth. The structure is built with assembling multiple identical unit cells. Each unit cell is an assembly of 1D beams of varying cross-sections. The current paper’s objective is to design a fame that produces in-plane and out-of-plane bandgaps. Finite element models iterate over multiple designs, which are validated in the lab through robust experimentation. The paper discusses the design methodology and the corresponding results.

Keywords