While many 3D printed structures are rigid and stationary, the potential for complex geometries offers a chance for creative and useful motion. Printing structures larger than the print bed, reducing the need for support materials, maintaining multiple states without actuation, and mimicking origami folding are some of the opportunities offered by 3D printed hinges. Current efforts frequently employ advanced materials and equipment that are not available to all users. The purpose of this project was to develop a parametric, print-in-place, self-locking hinge that could be printed using very basic materials and equipment. Six main designs were developed, printed, and tested for their strength in maintaining a locked position. Two general design types were used: 1) sliding hinges and 2) removable pin hinges. The test results were analyzed to identify and explain the causes of observed trends. The amount of interference between the pin vertex and knuckle hole edge was identified as the main factor in hinge strength. After initial testing, the designs were modified and applied to several structures, with successful results for a collapsible hexagon and a folding table. While the initial goal was to have one CAD model as a final product, the need to evaluate tradeoffs depending on the exact application made this impossible. Instead, a set of design guidelines was created to help users make strategic decisions and create their own design. Future work could explore additional scaling effects, printing factors, or other design types.

This thesis project has been conducted in accordance with The Founder’s Lab initiative which is sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business. This program groups three students together and tasks them with creating a business idea, conducting the necessary research to bring the concept to life, and exploring different aspects of business, with the end goal of gaining traction. The product we were given to work through this process with was Hot Head, an engineering capstone project concept. The Hot Head product is a sustainable and innovative solution to the water waste issue we find is very prominent in the United States. In order to bring the Hot Head idea to life, we were tasked with doing research on topics ranging from the Hot Head life cycle to finding plausible personas who may have an interest in the Hot Head product. This paper outlines the journey to gaining traction via a marketing campaign and exposure of our brand on several platforms, with a specific interest in website traffic. Our research scope comes from mainly primary sources like gathering opinions of potential buyers by sending out surveys and hosting focus groups. The paper concludes with some possible future steps that could be taken if this project were to be continued.

Currently, recycling is a major issue found throughout the world; however, one of the main issues, small format recycling, is still yet to be solved. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the issues surrounding recycling in general and more specifically small format recycling in order to develop a solution that can solve the problem. Working with InnovationSpace and people in industry, interviews were conducted in order to determine the best course of action to address the need of the sponsor, The Sustainability Consortium. After extensive research and interviews, it was determined that implementing a new MRF attachment to circulate small format back to the main residual stream would be the best course of action. This attachment would be modular for a MRF and could be implemented in order to gather more material while also producing higher quality recycled goods. This has major implications for the recycling industry and could help in making recycling profitable once again.

Titanium has been and continues to be a popular metal across any form of manufacturing and production because of its extremely favorable properties. In important circumstances, it finds itself outclassing many metals by being lighter and less dense than comparably strong metals like steel. Relative to other metals it has a noteworthy corrosion resistance as it is stable when it oxidizes, and due to the inert nature of the metal, it is famously hypoallergenic and as a result used in a great deal of aviation and medical fields, including being used to produce replacement joints, with the notable limitation of the material being its cost of manufacturing. Among the variants of the metal and alloys used, Ti6Al4V alloy is famous for being the most reliable and popular combination for electron beam manufacturing(EBM) as a method of additive manufacturing. <br/>Developed by the Swedish Arcam, AB, EBM is one of the more recent methods of additive manufacturing, and is notable for its lack of waste by combining most of the material into the intended product due to its precision. This method, much like the titanium it is used to print in this case, is limited mostly by time and value of production. <br/>For this thesis, nine different simulations of a dogbone model were generated and analyzed in Ansys APDL using finite element analysis at various temperature and print conditions to create a theoretical model based on experimentally produced values.