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The Design, Fabrication, and Applications of 3D Printed Capacitors

Phillips, Brandon Andrew

Abstract Details

2021, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, University of Dayton, Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Over the past decade, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has advanced as a novel manufacturing technique used to develop rapid prototypes for custom and complex geometries and multilayer devices in many different industries. Recent advances in emerging technologies such as dual-extrusion FDM 3D printing, along with newly introduced conductive polymer filament materials, have created the potential to use low-cost, readily available 3D printing methods to fabricate electronic devices on-the-fly in remote environments. This study explores the use of Protopasta conductive filament and various common thermoplastic filament materials (PLA, PP, PC) and an Ultimaker s5 Pro dual-extrusion FDM printer with high-resolution 0.25 mm diameter print nozzles to fabricate a fully-fused 50 mm x 50 mm plate capacitor. A maximum capacitance of 328 pF was measured with a 0.25 mm thick dielectric layer of extruded PLA. This demonstrates a 215% increase in capacitance when compared to measurements for a similar plate capacitor constructed with wrought sheet aluminum (104 pF) using the same dielectric material and thickness. An EVAL-AD5940 impedance analyzer was used to measure the capacitance with PLA, PP, and PC dielectric layers at 1 kHz, 5 kHz, 7.5 kHz, and 10 kHz. From these measurements, the dielectric constant of each material was calculated for a dielectric thickness of 1 mm, as follows: 1 kHz (PLA: 3.00, PP: 2.96, PC: 3.00); 5 kHz (PLA: 2.83, PP: 2.74, PC: 2.83); 7.5 kHz (PLA: 2.82, PP: 2.76, PC: 2.910; and 10 kHz (PLA: 2.39, PP: 2.63, PC: is 2.99).
Amy Neidhard-Doll, Ph.D., P.E. (Committee Chair)
Carrie Bartsch, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Guru Subramanyam, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Vamsy Chodavarapu, Ph.D., P.E. (Committee Member)
136 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Phillips, B. A. (2021). The Design, Fabrication, and Applications of 3D Printed Capacitors [Master's thesis, University of Dayton]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1639580306784627

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Phillips, Brandon. The Design, Fabrication, and Applications of 3D Printed Capacitors. 2021. University of Dayton, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1639580306784627.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Phillips, Brandon. "The Design, Fabrication, and Applications of 3D Printed Capacitors." Master's thesis, University of Dayton, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1639580306784627

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)