Experimental investigation of vibration damping capabilities of 3D printed metal/polymer composite sleeve bearings

Additive Manufacturing (AM) method enables to produce products easily, cheaply and quickly with more complex geometry compared to traditional production methods. In this context; Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is a widely used for AM method that requires a large number of process parameters. In this study, it is aimed to experimentally investigate the damping capabilities of the metal/polymer composite sleeve bearings printed using FDM. A total of 54 pieces (27 pairs) were printed from composite filaments such as nine pairs for each of PLA, PLA + 20% Bronze, and PLA + 20% Copper metal/polymer with different filling structures (Octogram spiral, Archimedian chords, and 3D Honey comb) and different occupancy rates (10, 30, and 50%), respectively. The experiments were carried out using the shaft-bearing system under the same operating conditions at a rotational speed of 900 revolution per minute (rpm), and vibration data was collected from the rotating shaft with proxy probes. Rotating shaft position is very important to determine journal position in bearing for understanding deterioration in the bearing. Bode and Orbit plots are used to detect the level of deterioration in the bearing. The value of bearing to shaft clearence can vary widely depending on application. Since the bearings were heavily loaded, they were compressed by radial load caused large clearence. The results showed that compressed bearing had significant influence on the stability of rotating shaft system and significant differences in damping capabilities of composite sleeve bearings with different filling structures and occupancy rate. Increasing occupancy rate decreases the vibration amplitude values in copper-reinforced sleeve bearing but increases in bronze-reinforced sleeve bearing. From the microstructure analysis, it has been observed that the vibration absorbation capability is better due to the more homogeneous distribution of the copper reinforced bearings than the bronze reinforced bearings. Also, vibration absorption capability of sleeve bearings with 3D Honeycomb filling structureis increased significantly proportion to the occupancy rate.