Posted on

3D Printing in Africa: 3D Printing in Ghana

3D printed hydraulic robot

3D printing in Ghana can be considered to be in transition from the early to middle stage of development. This is in comparison with other active countries such as South Africa or Kenya. Despite the slow development, the West African country has brought quite unique and interesting innovations to the 3D printing ecosystem.

Klaks 3D printer

When one looks at Ghana’s 3D printing landscape, the most outstanding story is the university students who built a 3D printer from electronic waste. The students identified as Klaks 3D took two weeks to build a 3D printer using electronic waste for the bulk of the components. The innovation was intended to enhance teaching and learning basics in schools, particularly in 3D printing. From an African viewpoint, this is encouraging and motivating and even from an environmental worldview, this could be an inspiration. The students approach aligns very well with the principle of zero waste: make a printer from waste and print objects at zero waste.

Student flying 3D printed drone

Another interesting development from Ghana’s 3D printing landscape is the building of a drone by students from a private university. The students at Ashesi University constructed the drone using 3D printed parts and actually posted a video on their Facebook wall showing its flight. The drone is still more of a prototype but is more than good enough to further democratize drone technology. It is not known how long it took the students to build the drone but at least it’s a very positive start.

Little girl with 3D printed arm prosthesis.

A very recent development worth mentioning is the partnership between Tech Era (award winning tech non-profit based in Ghana) and Dextra (Canadian based social enterprise and engineering company) for the creation of an Assistive Technology Makerspace in Ashesi University. The purpose for this development is to create and develop teaching and learning materials for learners with disabilities. Using 3D printing, students working in the Ashesi D-lab will design and develop learning materials for assistive technologies for children with disability. This is a promising development for children with disabilities as they will be able to participate in STEM related programs and make use of the assistive technologies in the future. One can only imagine the joy and relief such an initiative will bring to both the parents and their children with disabilities. The thought of developing learning materials so that they are equipped to be able to participate in the economy is more than blessing if one would put that way. This initiative by Ghana should surely spread to the rest of the continent. I am positive it will make a massive impact not only in Ghana but the continent at large.

Ghana is still treading the journey in utilizing 3D printing technology and with the above mentioned developments they are getting there. The West African country is also on a positive growth phase and so a market based approach would work for Ghana considering the kind of development that it wishes to pursue with 3D printing technology. Delivery of products and services to underprivileged and undeserved markets is very important and required for economic growth and improving standard of living. Funding and resource mobilisation may be important for Ghana in its pursuit to applying 3D printing. The young generation has great interest and are enthusiastic with an eagerness to provide solutions. This is a very healthy condition for 3D printing and an innovative community will emerge as the technology develops.

Posted on

Examining the Effectiveness of 3D Printing for Drone Construction (MALE UAVs)

Drones are becoming more and more a part of modern life, being used for everything from military applications to delivering pizza, not to mention the growing number of hobbyists using them personally. Drones have come of age, so to speak, alongside 3D printing, and therefore 3D printing is commonly used to construct drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs. In a paper entitled “Implementation of FDM technology in MALE UAVs,” a group of researchers discuss the advantages of using 3D printing for drone manufacture.

MALE stands for Medium Altitude Long Endurance. According to the researchers, there are numerous advantages of using 3D printing over other methods of fabrication. Using PLA makes UAVs more eco-friendly, for one thing, and also improves their strength to weight ratio. 3D printing allows designers to densify certain areas, such as the landing gear or nose tip, that will experience greater impact, while compensating by reducing weight elsewhere. The technology also makes it easier to create an aerodynamic design, and saves time, money and effort compared to other manufacturing methods.

In the study, the researchers developed a 3D printed drone fuselage, which is described as the “backbone” of the drone. It serves as a housing for payload as well as many other components, so there are several weight, aerodynamic and structural constraints that have to be considered in its design. The length of the fuselage also affects the stability of the drone, and it is important to streamline the body so that air can flow around it in such a way as to keep the drag effects low.

Other techniques are sometimes used for manufacturing the body of the drone, such as subtractive manufacturing of Styrofoam or Balsa wood, and while they have their own advantages they also have several disadvantages: a Styrofoam sheet is non-aerodynamic, while constructing a drone out of Balsa wood is “cumbersome as well as time-consuming.” In contrast, 3D printing a fuselage is easy and allows for a great deal of design freedom.

The researchers 3D printed several iterations of the drone before arriving at the final version, which was “aerodynamically stable as well as mechanically robust.” Stress analysis was performed using FEA simulations through an ANSYS tool. They analyzed both nose impact and belly impact.

In the nose impact analysis, the maximum force applied was 25 N and the maximum deformation was 1.09 mm.

Nose impact analysis

“The analysis is oriented in such a manner that the wing berth is taken as fixed support thereas, the motor mount is assumed to have a ramped up force impact on it,” the researchers state. “The feature shows that the maximum deformation would occur at the joint of two different parts which were manufactured separately and then joined together using cyanoacrylate.”

For the belly impact analysis, the maximum force applied was 25 N and the maximum deformation was 1.1435 mm.

Belly impact analysis

“As the fuselage is deemed to land on its belly during the landing approach,” the researchers continue. “Moreover, in any case the first impact would be on the bottom surface only. Considering the purview of the given problem statement, the analysis is shown above where the impacts on grilled bottom and wall surfaces have been shown.”

The researchers conclude that FDM 3D printing technology is an effective way of constructing drones, with excellent build precision and high strength to weight ratio. It allows varied material composition on different parts of the drone, and is overall simple, cost-effective and time-saving.

Authors of the paper include Ankur Dwivedi, Darshit Desai and Deepesh Agarwal.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below. 

 

Posted on

3D Printed Drone Saves Thousands of Crops per Year

The corn borer is a pest that attacks maize stalks, causing the loss of thousands of crops every year. Rather than drenching said crops with chemicals, a company called Soleon is taking a natural approach – the SoleonAgro drone, which distributes trichogramma wasp eggs. The trichogramma wasp eats corn borers, offering an eco-friendly pest control alternative. The SoleonAgro drone has specialized arms that can distribute the eggs in three different directions at once, spreading them evenly and quickly across fields.

To build the drone’s unique design, Soleon turned to 3D printing by way of Materialise, which had been working with the company for years to create its wide range of drones for aerial photography, thermal mapping, civil defense and more. Each drone has a different design according to its purpose: a photography drone, for example, would need camera mounting points while a pest control drone like the SoleonAgro requires arms that move in different directions to distribute the eggs efficiently and evenly. 3D printing allows Soleon to rapidly prototype these drones, quickly moving through different iterations until the final product is achieved.

Using 3D printing also results in a much more lightweight drone than would be possible with other technologies.

“When we came to Materialise for end-use 3D-printed parts, our key requirement was that the parts needed to be lightweight (in order to maximize battery power),” said Soleon Founder Michael Überbacher. “The design of the drone body was very complex, since we customized it completely for the purpose of an efficient distribution system. We had already worked with Materialise for years for rapid prototyping on various projects, and had arrived at a design that we were happy with for the SoleonAgro.”

Because of the complexity of the design, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) was chosen to 3D print the SoleonAgro. It was 3D printed mostly in PA 12, a lightweight, durable material, which would allow for the weight reduction needed as well as the strength and toughness required for the drone’s operation. PA-GF, a polyamide filled with glass particles, was used for parts closer to the drone’s motor, as the material has higher rigidity and is less vulnerable to vibration.

“The big advantage of 3D Printing is that we can very quickly create complex systems, even in small quantities,” said Überbacher. “Normally the parts are printed and sent within one week. As a small company, this offers us the opportunity to react very quickly to the changes and wishes of our customers. Working with Materialise has been great, due to their wide range of technologies and large machine capacity, as well as their in-house design and engineering support. With this, we’ve managed to make the SoleonAgro the most cost-efficient and best performant solution on the market.”

Soleon is based in Italy and has been in business since 2009. It’s one of a growing number of companies that have been employing 3D printing in the manufacture of drones. Because drones tend to have complex designs, and because they need to be lightweight, 3D printing is the technology that makes the most sense for these machines. Thanks to the SoleonAgro’s unique 3D printed design, Soleon can save thousands of maize crops – and be faster than its competitors in doing so.

Speaking of agricultural drones, check out this project in progress as well.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below. 

[Source: Materialise/Images: Soleon]