MICHIGAN SOUTHEASTERN Designing and 3D Printing PLA Based Universal Charging Adapters for Use in Charging Electric Vehicles

Overview

Electric vehicles are vehicles that run using batteries and electricity rather than gas. Due to the production of electric vehicles showing an increase for years to come I wanted to create a charging adapter for electric vehicles. The purpose of this adapter was so that people could use it for situations in which they need to charge their electric vehicle, but the only charging stations around are ones that are different from your brand of EV. The filaments I used were PLA (Polylactic Acid) and TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane). I began to conduct a series of drop tests on the prototypes to evaluate the impact force that each prototype could handle. I tested it from a constant height and used different outside surfaces as my variables. I tested it on grass, asphalt, and concrete which are surfaces that the adapter would most likely be used on. After conducting the tests, I found that the TPU adapter was able to absorb the drop impact well enough on each surface so that it was able to maintain its shape without any damage being acted on it. Overall, TPU is the filament I have found to work the best so far with my adapter and its variety of properties such as its elasticity and heat resistance help it become a useful filament for machine parts in general.

Competition history

• JSHS 2022 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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