Design and fabrication of a non-metallic acrylic bending machine with PID-controlled quartz heating
Abhay Singh RAJPUT, Akash Kumar TRIPATHI, Alok KUMAR, Aryan TOMAR, Pawan Kumar ARORA, Yogesh SHRIVASTAVA
Abstract. The rising usage of acrylic (PMMA) and composite sheets in prototyping and industrial use requires highly precise and energy efficient methods of bending. The orthodox system of metal bending cannot be used with thermoplastics because the material is brittle at ambient temperature and therefore needs a local thermal softening. This paper reports the design, manufacture and experimental validation of a semi-automatic non-metallic sheet bending machine that includes a nichrome wirequartz tube heating system with PID-based closed-loop temperature control. The system keeps the temperature within ±1.5 o C by the use of Schneider PID controller and PT100 RTD sensor. Experimental studies indicate the bending of PMMA (2 6 mm) and Hylem sheets (3 5 mm) with no defects with angular deviation within 2 degrees. The proposed system will save energy by about a quarter of the conventional strip heaters, and much higher repeatability. Quartz-based line heating and controlled thermal input, which has been integrated, provides improved surface quality and stability of the process, and thus the system will be suitable in small-scale fabrication and in educational laboratories.
Keywords
Acrylic Bending, Line Heating, PID Control, Quartz Tube Heater, PMMA Forming, Thermo-Mechanical Processing
Published online 8/15/2026, 5 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Abhay Singh RAJPUT, Akash Kumar TRIPATHI, Alok KUMAR, Aryan TOMAR, Pawan Kumar ARORA, Yogesh SHRIVASTAVA, Design and fabrication of a non-metallic acrylic bending machine with PID-controlled quartz heating, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 71, pp 149-153, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/97816449042312-20
The article was published as article 20 of the book AI-Driven Innovations in Mechanical, Manufacturing, and Energy Engineering
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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