Abstract

Additive manufacturing or 3D-Printing revolutionized the manufacturing process, but with this new technology come its own challenges. Objects larger than the print volume of a printer have to be decomposed into smaller, more manageable parts and are later reassembled. The joints for those parts have to be chosen based on the object's application. For fast assembly and disassembly, a fasteningless joint design is most fitting, and Japanese carpentry has developed the most highly regarded and most intricate form of fastenerless joinery. This thesis covers Japanese joinery and other works relating to fastenerless joints and additive manufacturing, with the goal of developing structural joints for 3D-Printing of thermoplastics. Additionally, these developed joints are then fitted with electrical connectors, to allow the passing of information across the joining surfaces. A small augmented reality app was also developed to visualize Japanese joinery and the developed joints. Through a simple bending test, all the developed joints were proven to be statically viable as well as offer a stable data-transferring connection between the modules.

Results/Implementation/Project Description

Conclusion

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