Using Old Tires as 3D-Printing Material
Developing a Tire Mill for 3D-printing With Recycled Materials
Author
Summary, in English
Like with printers, material used for 3Dprinting is what makes it expensive, especially if the printer is meant to be lowcost. Can used tires be the solution? This thesis proves that old tires can be turned into a usable granulate, with simple means. Then 3Dprinting could be made accessible to people of lesser means.
Summary, in English
The Department of Design Sciences at LTH is developing a 3Dprinter meant for use in the developing world. When using a printer, 2D or 3D, the major cost is the toner or filament. For the vision of a lowcost, availabletoall, 3D printer to come alive the the rawmaterial has to be lowcost as well. With such a material available the 3Dprinter could be the driver for great socioeconomic change.
The project at LTH has been split up into several projects, each given a part of the challenge. This project was tasked with proving a method to produce pulverised vulcanised rubber from used tires. All the thesisprojects, each contributing to the completion of the overall development project are managed by the Department of Design Sciences.
One of the previous parts to the larger project was Charlotta Engstrand’s work, confirmed that it was possible to 3Dprint using pulverised vulcanised rubber mixed with pulverised PETbottles. The PET would melt and glue the tire granulate together, and the tire granulate wouldn’t melt and therefore stabilized the structure.
One of the challenges this project was faced with was developing a repeatable method that made it easy to pulverise vulcanised rubber from used tires. On top of this, the developed method also had to be cheap and simple to recreate with limited resources. That the method had to meet this last criteria was just as important as its ease of use, since it was meant for the developing world.
The solution is a mill able to produce rubber powder of equivalent grain size to that which Engstrand used for testing. Both of these powders would be used as 3Dprinting material for the 3Dprinter that Engstrand produced in her Master’s Thesis project. For the tire pulverisation, a low cost proof of concept was developed.
In this report, I have presented a method that shows that it is possible to produce a vulcanised rubber granulate, as well as a working mill. Together with thermoplastic granulate and the findings of Engstrand’s project, this could be used as 3Dprinting material with a very low cost, and a positive environmental impact, as it is using what would otherwise be considered environmentally hazardous waste. It would introduce 3Dprinting to people of the developing world, as well as using environmentally taxing waste as a previously untapped potential.
The project at LTH has been split up into several projects, each given a part of the challenge. This project was tasked with proving a method to produce pulverised vulcanised rubber from used tires. All the thesisprojects, each contributing to the completion of the overall development project are managed by the Department of Design Sciences.
One of the previous parts to the larger project was Charlotta Engstrand’s work, confirmed that it was possible to 3Dprint using pulverised vulcanised rubber mixed with pulverised PETbottles. The PET would melt and glue the tire granulate together, and the tire granulate wouldn’t melt and therefore stabilized the structure.
One of the challenges this project was faced with was developing a repeatable method that made it easy to pulverise vulcanised rubber from used tires. On top of this, the developed method also had to be cheap and simple to recreate with limited resources. That the method had to meet this last criteria was just as important as its ease of use, since it was meant for the developing world.
The solution is a mill able to produce rubber powder of equivalent grain size to that which Engstrand used for testing. Both of these powders would be used as 3Dprinting material for the 3Dprinter that Engstrand produced in her Master’s Thesis project. For the tire pulverisation, a low cost proof of concept was developed.
In this report, I have presented a method that shows that it is possible to produce a vulcanised rubber granulate, as well as a working mill. Together with thermoplastic granulate and the findings of Engstrand’s project, this could be used as 3Dprinting material with a very low cost, and a positive environmental impact, as it is using what would otherwise be considered environmentally hazardous waste. It would introduce 3Dprinting to people of the developing world, as well as using environmentally taxing waste as a previously untapped potential.
Department/s
Publishing year
2016
Language
English
Full text
Document type
Student publication for Master's degree (two years)
Topic
- Technology and Engineering
Keywords
- 3D-printing
- recycling
- low-cost
Supervisor
- Olaf Diegel