Design and direct manufacture of non-assembly abacus by Selective Laser Melting

摘要

Selective Laser Melting (SLM), as an additive manufacturing technology, can directly manufacture desired functional metal parts. With the ability to freeform manufacture, SLM has had breakthroughs on design and manufacture compared with traditional methods. SLM apparatus in Dimetal series, DiMetal-100 developed by SCUT research group, has been used to study non-assembly mechanism. Taking copper cash abacus and collapsible abacus as examples, this article had studied the design rules and the key points to manufacture the non-assembly mechanism based on the SLM. An investigation into the capability of SLM technology, such as the geometric features resolution, critical incline angle, provided theoretical basis for designing the clearance of the joint and manufacturing direction of non-assembly mechanism. Then, the experiment of manufacturing copper cash abacus and collapsible abacus were conducted. The results proved that non-assembly mechanism can be well manufactured by SLM. This study provides basis for designing and manufacturing of creative non-assembly mechanism based on SLM technique.