Engineering Commons^™

Surface Topography Formation And Thermographic Analysis In Laser Polishing Of H13 Tool Steel, Joshua D. Miller

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Laser polishing, in its simplest form, is the melting of a small layer of material via laser radiation. This creates a small molten pool which is re-distrusted across the surface, resulting in a much smoother finished surface. Although this process has been around for decades now, there has been a recent insurgence into industrial applications. Despite this, the phenomena that occur during the process are still not fully understood. Therefore, increasing the knowledge surrounding the process would be ideal.

To accomplish this, various input parameters of the process are altered to analyze the effect on the finished polished surface. Through …

3d Printing Of Functional Materials: Surface Technology And Structural Optimization, Dongxing Zhang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There has been a surge in interest of 3D printing technology in the recent 5 years with respect to the equipment and materials, because this technology allows one to create sophisticated and customized parts in a manner that is more efficient regarding both material and time consumption. However, 3D printing has not yet become a mainstream technology within the established manufacturing routes. One primary factor accounting for this slow progress is the lack of a broad variety of 3D printable materials, resulting in limited functions of 3D printed parts.

To bridge this gap, I present an integrated strategy to fabricate …

Ultraprecise Single Point Inverted Cutting Of Right Triangular Prismatic Retroreflectors: Process Enhancements And Cutting Mechanics, Nicolas Milliken

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Automotive lighting industry relies on retroreflective components to increase driver awareness in low-light conditions since their primary functionality is to return incident light back to the source and/or observer with minimal scatter.

Presently, industry makes use of conventional pin-bundling techniques for the fabrication of the retroreflective components. This method is time consuming, labour intensive, and restrictive with respect to the design process. For these reasons, the ultraprecise single point inverted cutting (USPIC) technology was developed as an efficient alternative for manufacturing novel right triangular prismatic (RTP) retroreflective structures.

This thesis outlines a number of enhancements that improve both the quality …

Additive Manufacturing Process Of 3d Polyaniline Transducers Via Direct Ink Writing, Frederick Benjamin Holness

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Electroactive polymers exhibit a change in properties, typically size or shape, in response to electrical stimuli. One class of electroactive polymer of particular interest are the conjugated polymers, whose conjugated backbone structure imparts electrical conductivity. However, this structure imposes processing limitations restricting their form to 2D structures. To overcome this, we develop specially formulated polyaniline- based blends via counter-ion induced thermal doping for the fabrication of 3D conductive structures via direct ink writing. This approach employs multi-material extrusion for the production of structures with passive and active features, rapid device fabrication, and improved design freedom. A model of the thermal …