A Fused Filament Additive Fabrication Procedure for Smart Components with Embedded Electronics

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a technology, which permits to separate the product geometrical complexity from the associated manufacturing cost. Thus, the use of AM can lead to new design strategies and possibilities previously not feasible with traditional manufacturing processes such as the possibility to easily embed electronic within structural elements. The possibility to build mechanical components with embedded electronics and integrated sensors using the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology without the intervention of any other manufacturing machine is studied. Specifically, the capacitive and resistive capabilities of a conductive thermoplastic filament are studied and implemented as sensor, while a methodology for the inclusion of electronic components in the manufacturing process is presented and discussed.