The advantages of 3D printing in undergraduate mechanical engineering research

In 2008 the Mechanical Engineering Science department at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) purchased a "Dimension Elite" 3D printer to be used in student design and research projects. The opportunities for application of the 3D printing technology were immediately apparent in the area of design but not so for research projects. Undergraduate students have specifically struggled with the capstone research projects which often become paper projects and lack practical measurement and research quality outputs. This paper reviews some of the advantages of using rapid prototyping techniques such as 3D printing in such a capstone research course. The primary advantage being the ability to verify different hypothesis research parameters and allowing for improved project completion while reducing the costs of manufacture of instrumentation and testing setups, shortening the design-test-revise cycle time in complex projects and introducing students to more practical research problems. The only disadvantage is that in certain cases the research components have been replaced with printed objects that often lack the specific strength / stiffness of the actual devices being investigated. This requires of the student the ability to recognize that scale effects are more important in such models than in normal research testing.