Abstract:

The academic year 2010-2011 saw the initiation of the adapted engineering degrees to comply with the European Higher Education Area (EES). Since the implementation of these degrees, it was recognized that students had difficulties to understand the concepts related to three-dimensional aspects and spatial orientation. To address this problem, lecturers proposed to adopt specific classroom educational material, fabricated using fused deposition modelling (FDM ®). This additive manufacturing (AM) technology is a relatively new and upcoming technology in the educational sector.

Within the framework of Education 4.0, FDM® technology is an information and communication technologies (ICTs) tool, which allows to design and manufacture geometries in a fast and economical way, which with other more conventional methods would be more expensive and complicated. Since the academic year 2017-2018 and up to date, these materials have been implemented in the engineering courses “Mechanics of Materials” and “Machine Design”, corresponding to the third year of the Mechanical Engineering Degree.

This educational material supports and facilitates the understanding of common engineering concepts in the degree, such as determining internal reaction forces for structural components subjected to static or dynamic loads to be designed and calculated.

In conclusion, a high degree of lecturer’s satisfaction is perceived, observing an increase in interest and motivation, as well as a positive student development in assimilating concepts that require a high degree of abstraction. In addition, the use of this technology is proposed as a strategy and methodological procedure to be included in the teaching guides of the aforementioned subjects.

Keywords:

Additive manufacturing (AM), Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM ®), Stress and Strain tensor, Engineering education, Spatial orientation.