PSI - Issue 37

Tiago Domingues et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 37 (2022) 847–856 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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monitored by placing a thermocouple attached to the plastic side surface of the X-axis stepper motor, which is the last motor on the cooling circuit. The methodology used to perform these two tests was the same. For both, the main control board was used to gradually increase the ambient temperature in 5 ºC intervals while monitoring the stepper motor temperature readings to ensure it did not exceed well beyond the 50 ºC threshold. In the test performed using only the hot air blowing system, the maximum ambient temperature reached was 110 ºC, for which the surface temperature of the stepper motor was 57 ºC, and the part surface temperature was of 123 ºC. For the second test, where the same procedure was repeated, but with the radiation system operating at all times, the relationship between the environment and the stepper motor temperature was the same, which means the results of 110 ºC for the environment temperature and 57 ºC for the stepper motor temperature were achieved, but the recorded part surface temperature was 154 ºC.

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Figure 5 -(a) Enclosure temperature evaluation experiment; (b) Part surface measurement thermocouple assembly

3.2. Produced Parts

Using the developed equipment, four PEI and three PEEK calibration cubes of 20 x 20 x 20 mm were printed, as shown in Figure 6. The number of parts printed was the result of an iterative process necessary to obtain a part deemed acceptable for each material.