Engineering Commons^™

3d Printing Of Composites With Controlled Architecture, Brett Compton

Composites at Lake Louise (CALL 2015)

Additive manufacturing (AM) methods have greatly increased our ability to fabricate complex shapes and multi-material, hybrid architectures. However, better materials are needed which compete with conventional engineering materials and fully leverage the unique capabilities of 3D printing. Specifically, lightweight 3D-printable polymer composite materials are of considerable interest, as are new composites which incorporate hierarchical design aspects observed in natural materials, for example, bone, nacre, and wood.

This talk will focus on recent efforts in the development and characterization of epoxy-based 3D-printable composites for use with direct-write additive manufacturing. In this process, visco-elastic inks are deposited via extrusion through small nozzles …

Additive Manufacturing Of Cellular Materials With Tailored Properties, Eric Duoss, Todd Weisgraber, Christopher Spadaccini, Thomas Wilson

Composites at Lake Louise (CALL 2015)

The ability to pattern complex materials with high-speed and low-cost three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques is highly desirable. Here, we present progress on developing siloxane-based feedstock formulations, known as “inks,” for a unique 3D printing approach called Direct Ink Writing (DIW). DIW is a low-cost, mask-less printing route that enables rapid design and patterning of planar and three-dimensional (3D) microstructures. In this filamentary printing approach, a concentrated ink with tailored viscoelastic properties is deposited through a micro-nozzle that is translated using a multi-axis positioning stage. The ink rapidly solidifies as it is extruded so that 3D structures with fine features may …

Design Of Multifunctional Composites And Their Use For The 3-D Printing Of Microsystems, Daniel Therriault

Composites at Lake Louise (CALL 2015)

Many of today's high-tech products are approaching their technological limits. For example, the microelectronics community is faced with overheating devices with a demand for compact three-dimensional (3D) architectures and lower power consumption, whereas the aerospace industry is seeking lighter, stiffer and more electrically conductive materials for the creation of more energy efficient aircraft. A promising solution is to capitalize on the amazing electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of some nanoscopic materials (one billionth of a meter). However, several challenges in material processing and manufacturing must be resolved, namely exploiting these properties at the industrial scale and overcoming the current planar …