Industry 4.0 is a revolution that has greater potential to connect machines to monitor and control them through data acquisition and analysis. It helps the industries in getting quality products at economic cost with flexibility and processability incorporated in it. 3D printing is a subset of Industry 4.0, which can support the digital manufacturing and sensors are devices, which can measure the physical parameters from the environment and play key role in implementing Industry 4.0. Thus, this paper aims to review the recent works carried out in 3D printed sensors. Here an overview of sensors and their fabrication methods practiced using 3D printing technology for various applications are discussed. From the review, it is found that there is major scope for fabricating the complete sensor with 3D printing.
Wire Electric Discharge Machining (WEDM) has become most popular among the non-conventional machining processes because of precise machining and accuracy of parts. The process is preferable for accurate machining of complex geometries in hard materials such as Aluminium Silicon Carbide metal matrix composite. In this work, an attempt is made to analyze and optimize the dielectric fluid parameters in machining of Al/SiCp 10% work material. The input variables such as volume flow rate, flow velocity and chemical composition of dielectric medium used in the WEDM are chosen for this. Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array is used to conduct experiments in WEDM machine and ANOVA results have confirmed the influence of chosen parameters on the output responses. Computer simulation model of the WEDM tank with dielectric fluid, work piece and nozzle is presented using Fluent software. The Fluent model is analyzed based on the maximum removal of debris in the work material. Optimization is carried out to maximize the Material Removal Rate (MRR) and minimize surface roughness. The results obtained from Taguchi’s optimization and Fluent analysis have been validated by carrying out tests on WEDM. The study shows that volume flow rate and flow pressure can adequately influence MRR and surface roughness.
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) have a portentous position in constructing modern electronic equipment. Currently, chemical etching is the process used to produce PCBs at huge volumes, which is not suitable for preparing prototypes. The working environment is also not an encouraging one. There is no economical way to manufacture PCBs in low volumes, which is the basic requirement for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs). Prototyping the desired circuit boards, prior to the mass production, is essential to avoid major losses by producing faulty designs. Developing a low-cost machine for prototyping PCBs may overcome these drawbacks. Hence, in this work, a machine capable of performing PCB mechanical milling operation on wide range of materials like copper/epoxy boards and flexible substrates has been developed. The machine developed is capable of milling lines that are 0.3 mm in width and 0.46 mm in depth. The performance of the machine reveals that it can mill any complex shapes and designs with expected accuracy. Selection of hardware components according to the needs would reduce the cost and programming snag further, which makes it affordable to SMEs.
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