Wood Furniture Waste-Based

3-D Printing Filament

ADAM PRINGLE

MARK RUDNICKI

JOSHUA M. PEARCE

1

MOST

Abstract/Forecast2

• Repurpose waste meant for burning

• Increase sustainability and design efficiency

• Integrated composite filament process development

• Striving for up to 40 wt% wood

Outline/Structure of Talk3

• Background

• 3-D printing

• Related work

• Methods

• 4 step process

• Results

• Directions

• Conclusions

Background 1/2 - Wood4

• Wood and Michigan

• 150 tons of wood-based furniture waste per day

• Versatile material

• Limitations - subtractive

Background 2/2 – 3D Printing5

PETG(1.75mm-black), PLA(3mm-orange,

1.75mm-green), and Wood (1.7mm-brown)

Biomaterial PLA

chemical monomer

Athena build Reprap 3-D Printer (Delta)

Nearly 100% biomaterials

Related Work6

• Commercial Wood Polymer Composite

• ColorFabb

• Hatchbox

• Laywood

• Conceptual composite filament

• Marble

• Sand

• Metal

Laywood Printed example

Methods Step 1 - 1/127

• Wood size refinement

• Bulk wood to wood flour

Wood chipper Grinding mill

Vibratory sifter(210 to 80 micron mesh)

Methods Step 1 - 2/128

• Particle size distribution

Methods Step 2 - 3/129

• Mixing of filler into polymer matrix

• Homogenous mixture

Mixing on heater

Mixed solid for chipper

Methods Step 2 - 4/1210

First extrusion for homogeneity

Methods Step 3 - 5/1211

• Filament extrusion

• Consistency and uniformity

PLA pellets pre process in hopper

Vertical Recycle bot

Spooling action

Methods Step 4 - 6/1212

OpenSCAD Cura Franklin

.scad to .stl .stl to .gcode .gcode to 3D part

• 3D printing open source mentality of design

Methods Step 4 - 7/1213

OpenSCAD

Methods Step 4 - 8/1214

Cura

Methods Step 4 - 9/1215

Layer Height

Methods Step 4 – 10/12 16

MTU has 5X

Head gigabot

for mini-mass

production

Methods Step 4 – 11/1217

Franklin

Methods Step 4 – 12/1218

• Step 4

• Printing wood

• Parameter optimization

Gigabot – 1mm nozzleDelta - reprap – 0.5mm nozzle

First 20 layers (0.2mm per layer)

Results 1/5 – Filament/Mass parts19

Results 2/5 - Defects20

Results 3/5 – Inner/outer Geometry21

Results 4/5 – Practical usage 22

Results 5/5: Advantages23

• Vary temperature and/or print speed to introduce “wood grain”

• Recycles waste material – multiple cycles

• Reduces cost of overall filament

• Smells and looks like wood

• Sand it, stain it, paint it

Conclusions24

• Technically viable to recycle furniture wood waste into 3-D printing

filament and value-added products even within the furniture

industry.

• Methodology here can be scaled up

• Recycled furniture wood waste filament can get up to 40% waste

• PLA sells for $5/kg

• Current wood filament costs $35-70/kg

• Appears to be a significant economic opportunity

• Future work needed to optimize process

Acknowledgements – 3D printing

wood waste Research

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