Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
A student engineering team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign won a design competition for the cab, and was on-hand to watched it being printed using carbon fibre-reinforced ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene).
The cab is part of US Project AME (additive manufactured excavator), a demonstration of facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Also to be printed are the excavator’s boom, using newly-developed large-scale free-form steel additive manufacturing technique, and a heat exchanger for its engine.
Alongside the University of Illinois, academic partners include:
- Georgia Tech – Designs for 3D printable steel boom, stick and bucket
- University of Minnesota Design for aluminium-powder bed 3D-printed oil cooler
The excavator is a collaboration between:
- Association of Equipment Manufacturers
- National Fluid Power Association
- Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- National Science Foundation
Support came from the US Government’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Photo credit: Rachel Brooks ORNL
