Empowering Mobile, Energy-Efficient and Sustainable 3D Printing Systems for Emergencies and Rural Communities

Abstract Natural disasters and emergencies create pain, diseases, and death. Resources at the affected sites might be sparse, yet the availability of simple parts can be crucial to ease suffering and restore critical infrastructure. Additive manufacturing, also commonly called 3D printing, can provide a fast and flexible way to produce items locally and help provide customized components in rural areas, support Do-It-Yourself users, and address product shortages. This study therefore addresses an urgent and important need in today’s world by designing mobile, energy-efficient, and sustainable 3D printing systems that can be used in emergencies and in rural communities to print essential medical and mechanical parts. To the best of our knowledge, prior literature on mobile 3D printing systems does not consider critical conditions imposed by solar radiation availability based on both, location and season, days of autonomy, and how the combination of these critical factors affects the sizing and hence mobility of the system. In this study, we aim to bridge this knowledge gap by a literature study and synthesize relevant information into graphs and a step-by-step guide with equations, to design a solar-powered 3D printing system from commercially available solutions. This paper shows a first approach for setting up such a system that can work under critical conditions while still being reasonably sized and walks through a case study.