Experimental and Numerical Study on Temperature Distribution …
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after the production of each layer instead of bulk curing which reduce the curing time
radically. To make this curing approach effective, the infrared heater should provide
uniform thermal energy over the printed layer. Therefore, in this study, the capability
of FTE serious ceramic infrared heater to deliver uniform temperature was evaluated
through the experimental and numerical approach.
2 Experimental Method
2.1 Slurry Synthesis
Owning high cost and the flammable nature of the solid propellant seeks extraordinary
safety measures during curing. The main intention of this work is to examine the
feasibility of uniform heating of each layer of the cured part that cured layer by layer
fashion by FTE serious ceramic infrared heater. Therefore, ordinary home salt viz.
NaCl was used as a solid loading powder during the preparation of printer slurry,
which tremendously minimizes the raw materials and process cost of experimental
investigation of this work. The preparation of slurry was started by uniform mixing
15.6 wt% of Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) acts as a binder, 2.2 wt%
of Diacetyl adipate (DOA) as a plasticizer and 0.03 wt% ferric acetylacetonate acts
as burn rate modifier for ten minutes. Next, 80 wt% of NaCl powder with particle
size range from 50 to 100 µm, which acts as solid loading, was added in the solution
and mixed for another ten minutes. Finally, 2.2 wt% curing agent namely Toluene
diisocyanate (TDI) was mixed with the slurry solution for ten minutes again.
2.2 Experimental Setup
Although the purpose of this study is to integrate the curing system into the
printing system, which simplifies the temperature distribution measurement process.
However, in this study, two separate experimental settings were arranged: one is
intended for the printing process and the other is for the curing and temperature distribution measurement process of each layer. The composition slurry is extruded over
the part build bed through a syringe with an internal nozzle diameter of 1.55 mm. As
shown in Fig. 1, the printing system was based on a modified desktop fused deposition
modeling (FDM) 3D printer and its slurry extrusion were driven by compressed air
supply. The ceramic infrared heater (FTE serious) was applied to build the heating
system as presented in Fig. 2. Precise temperature control was achieved by integrating closed-loop temperature control into the heating system, which consists
of PID autonics tcn4s temperature controller, RTD P100 temperature sensor, and
FOTEK SSR-25 DA solid state relay. In addition, the system is also equipped with
a single-phase AC supply synchronized with a wattmeter to set the required heater
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after the production of each layer instead of bulk curing which reduce the curing time
radically. To make this curing approach effective, the infrared heater should provide
uniform thermal energy over the printed layer. Therefore, in this study, the capability
of FTE serious ceramic infrared heater to deliver uniform temperature was evaluated
through the experimental and numerical approach.
2 Experimental Method
2.1 Slurry Synthesis
Owning high cost and the flammable nature of the solid propellant seeks extraordinary
safety measures during curing. The main intention of this work is to examine the
feasibility of uniform heating of each layer of the cured part that cured layer by layer
fashion by FTE serious ceramic infrared heater. Therefore, ordinary home salt viz.
NaCl was used as a solid loading powder during the preparation of printer slurry,
which tremendously minimizes the raw materials and process cost of experimental
investigation of this work. The preparation of slurry was started by uniform mixing
15.6 wt% of Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) acts as a binder, 2.2 wt%
of Diacetyl adipate (DOA) as a plasticizer and 0.03 wt% ferric acetylacetonate acts
as burn rate modifier for ten minutes. Next, 80 wt% of NaCl powder with particle
size range from 50 to 100 µm, which acts as solid loading, was added in the solution
and mixed for another ten minutes. Finally, 2.2 wt% curing agent namely Toluene
diisocyanate (TDI) was mixed with the slurry solution for ten minutes again.
2.2 Experimental Setup
Although the purpose of this study is to integrate the curing system into the
printing system, which simplifies the temperature distribution measurement process.
However, in this study, two separate experimental settings were arranged: one is
intended for the printing process and the other is for the curing and temperature distribution measurement process of each layer. The composition slurry is extruded over
the part build bed through a syringe with an internal nozzle diameter of 1.55 mm. As
shown in Fig. 1, the printing system was based on a modified desktop fused deposition
modeling (FDM) 3D printer and its slurry extrusion were driven by compressed air
supply. The ceramic infrared heater (FTE serious) was applied to build the heating
system as presented in Fig. 2. Precise temperature control was achieved by integrating closed-loop temperature control into the heating system, which consists
of PID autonics tcn4s temperature controller, RTD P100 temperature sensor, and
FOTEK SSR-25 DA solid state relay. In addition, the system is also equipped with
a single-phase AC supply synchronized with a wattmeter to set the required heater