Analysis of Printing Parameters on the Performance of Robotic Gripper Jaws

The additive manufacturing process is widely used to create physical objects of complex shapes from a 3D CAD model. This paper is focused on producing robotic grippers for material handling systems using 3D printing technology by optimising the printing parameters. The simultaneous effect of printing speed and infill density is investigated by printing samples at various printing speeds and infill densities. Print speed is varied from 30 to 90 mm/s in the range of 15 mm/s, while the infill percentage is varied from 20 to 100% with a gap of 20%. The elastic modulus of different samples is obtained and analysed. Elastic modulus in tension increases from 496 to 883 MPa when the infill percentage increases from 20 to 100%, keeping the printing speed constant at 75 mm/s. The magnitude of peak stress in tension decreases from 18.2 to 15.9 MPa when the printing speed is increased from 30 to 90 mm/s at 20% infill density. At the same time, in compression, the peak stress rises from 20.84 to 23 MPa on increasing the speed at 20% infill volume. Similarly, the magnitudes of tensile and compressive strengths at different printing speeds and infill percentages are also obtained and discussed.