Reliability Testing of 3D-Printed Polyamide Actuators

• Published in: IEEE transactions on device and materials reliability 2020-03, Vol.20 (1), p.152-156
• Main Authors: Kasap, Gokce, Gokdel, Yigit Daghan, Yelten, Mustafa Berke, Ferhanoglu, Onur
• Format: Magazinearticle
• Language: English
• Subjects: Actuators; biomedical optical imaging; Fatigue; Laser applications; Laser beam heating; Lasers; lifetime estimation; Low cost; magnetic actuators; Materials reliability; Medical imaging; Polyamide resins; Printing; Room temperature; Scanning; Testing; Thermal cycling; Three dimensional printing
• ISSN: 1530-4388; 1558-2574
• DOI: 10.1109/TDMR.2020.2966043

3D printing is a rapidly emerging low-cost, highyield, and high-speed manufacturing technique that has already been utilized in fabricating sensor and actuator devices. Here we investigate the cyclic fatigue and the effect of heating on 10 × 10 mm2-sized, 3D-printed polyamide-based laser scanning electromagnetic actuators, which are intended for integration with miniaturized laser-scanning imagers to yield a wide variety of optical imaging modalities. The tested actuators offer compact sizes and high-scan angles, comparable to their MEMS counterparts. We have tested N = 15 devices, at 5 different total optical scan angles between 40° - 80°, and observed their lifetimes (up to 108 cycles ≈ 10 days each), as well as the variability in their scan angle and mechanical resonance. A selected scanner was also tested under increased temperature conditions up to 60 °C for 10 hours, showing no sign of fatigue when returned to room temperature. Overall, it is concluded that 3D printed polymeric actuators are promising low-cost alternatives for short-term use in disposable opto-medical imaging units.