Abstract

RAMIREZ-CECALDI, M.R.. Fabrication of agricultural nozzle with additive manufacturing. RIIIT. Rev. int. investig. innov. tecnol. [online]. 2018, vol.6, n.31. ISSN 2007-9753.

Additive manufacturing is a technology that breaks with restrictions that exist in certain complex geometries, it can generate prototypes faster, build final parts, molds and personalized products. Taking advantage of its characteristics, it will be applied to a new irrigation nozzle design. The new nozzle should produce smaller drops that stay longer on the leaves, bigger drops gather together increasing their weight, causing them to slip off the leaves. With a defined irrigation area and using the same amount of liquid, small drops cover homogenously the foliage while big drops concentrate at certain points. The mix composed by water and insecticide, pesticide or fertilizer is better used instead of wasted in the ground. To obtain a new design several tools were used, CAD to generate a virtual prototype, finite element analysis to validate the structural integrity of the proposed design. Topological optimization was applied to obtain an optimal design that meets the requirements, saves material and production time. The nozzles produced required less material, but Polyjet and SLS, technologies selected to manufacture the nozzles, lacked resolution to include all the details required for the nozzle to be completely functional.

Keywords : Additive manufacturing; computer aided design; finite element analysis; irrigation; nozzle; topologic optimization.

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