News & Highlights

Workshop: Additive Manufacturing of Electromagnetic Shields and Guiding Structures with UV 3D Printers

Wireless chargers for electric vehicles and mobile devices have become attractive for researchers all over the world. This is because wireless chargers totally abolish the hassle of long charging cables. For example, a parking lot with individual wireless chargers implemented at each parking spot is sought to be more sustainable than its counterpart that has wired chargers with long thick cables scattered all over the place. This increased sustainability comes at the cost of a higher safety and health risk associated with the leakage of electromagnetic fields from wireless chargers. Thus, high efficiency electromagnetic shields and guiding structures have become of great importance. There are few recently developed ideas about how to build underground wireless chargers with fairly good shielding characteristics. In this workshop, these ideas are going to be presented in details. Additive manufacturing techniques used to build such electromagnetic structures are the main focus of this workshop. An ultraviolet 3D printer with liquid resin as the printing material is used in this workshop. The workshop is based on a hands-on approach to give the audience a practical experience with sustainable low-cost manufacturing techniques of complex electric conducting systems

Content / Activity

Time [min]

Introduction

10

Recently developed ideas of wireless chargers for EV

30

Description of electromagnetic shields and guiding structures

20

Break

10

Introduction to 3D printing with liquid materials

20

Software / CAD tools used for building and pre-processing models

40

Printing of prototypes / Break (while the machine is printing)

20

Electric conductor painting and electroplating

30

Assessment of the process and conclusion

20

Total

200

Objectives and learning outcomes:

1-      Describe the recently developed ideas of wireless chargers and the need for electromagnetic shields

2-      State the concept of 3D printing with ultraviolet light and liquid resin material.

3-      Describe the process of electroplating of UV healed resin.

4-      Assess the sustainability of the process in terms of cost of raw material and manufacturing utilities.