Design and Additive Manufacturing of Pump Impeller using 3D Printing Technology

Abstract

Pump impellers play a significant role in the manufacturing of machinery for several purpose at present era of for different applications. They also play an important role in the domestic products such as bore pumps, refrigeration units, and air conditioners etc. Great advancements took place in the manufacturing of the pump impellers such as 3D printing and metallurgy techniques like sand casting, investments casting, die casting, CNC machining, etc. The major drawback of the pump impellers manufactured using traditional methods known as metallurgical techniques is that they consume much time and need more workforce for production which is not a cost-effective technique. To provide a cost-effective production and replacement technique and to reduce the maintenance of the pump impellers, this project aims at developing a pump impeller using CAD software. The pump impeller so designed is printed using additive manufacturing or rapid prototyping techniques. These are quick fabrication techniques and less expensive. The design of pump impeller is carried out in Solidworks Part Design. The designed pump impeller is manufactured using inkjet desktop 3D Printer from MakerBot company 3D printers and printer model MakerBot Replicator 2.