Experimental investigation of stereolithography and digital light processing additive manufactured pallets

Abstract

Pallets are a tertiary form of packaging used for stacking, storing, protecting, or transporting goods in supply chains. They are utilized as a base for the unitization of goods for logistics and warehousing. Moreover, pallets can be manufactured using wood, plastic, metal, and corrugated paper, which can be used as material-handling equipment. With several products being transported worldwide and with year-on-year growth, it would be beneficial to make lightweight pallets. Such pallets are recyclable, easy to clean, cheap, and durable to maintain and store. Though most of the pallets are widely available for basic purposes, applications involving high-end bio-packings and transportation of special chemicals require specialized pallets to be manufactured like polymers to ensure a negligible chemical reaction, light in weight, and attenuation in freight capacity, thereby widespread reduction in wastage. With advancements, job to job and immediate requirements, additive manufacturing has the potential to close the gap for jobs with short lead times. If the design process of new pallets has limits the creation of specific codes, the transitions will be smoother in rapid prototyping. This work describes the development of polymer pallets by taking advantage of stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) technology for 3D printing pallets in correlation to injection moulding. After the pallets are designed and manufactured, AM technologies can be applied to specified standards, and the pallets then undergo tensile strength, elongation, and hardness tests. The analysis was carried out for configurable geometries adapting to fork lifting, conveyor, racking, and stacking conditions. Analytical and numerical solutions were carried out to understand the stress and deflections for each geometry and its wide range of applications for pallets.