Integrated 3-D Printable Temperature Sensor for Advanced Manufacturing
- Publication Type:
- Conference Proceeding
- Citation:
- 2020
- Issue Date:
- 2020-12-08
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As technology continues to develop at a rapid pace, the world progresses towards the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, with advancements in automation and machine intelligence, as well as manufacturing breakthroughs leading to more efficient and advanced methods. Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a type of manufacturing method that has experienced great development and has revolutionised end-product manufacturing. The authors are involved in a project to develop a large-scale industrial 3D printer to print equipment called a Gravity Separation Spiral (GSS), and in an effort to make the equipment "smart", sensors need to be embedded inside to monitor the operating conditions remotely. This paper presents a temperature sensor able to be printed by a multi-material 3D printer, into 3D printed equipment. In this method, a conductive carbon-based filament has been used to print temperature-sensitive traces inside a Polylactic Acid (PLA) base. The printed sensor was temperature tested in a controlled environment using a programmable heat pad, and the change in resistance has been measured as a voltage change using a data acquisition device. Tests were conducted within in the expected operating range, between 25 °C and 36 °C , and the absolute temperature error was found to be less than ±2°C.
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