Materials Science and Engineering Commons^™

Multimaterial, Core-Shell Direct Ink Writing Of Flexible Strain Sensors For Pneumatically-Actuated Soft Robotic Hinge Joints, John Michael Burke

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Direct ink writing (DIW) provides for an expansive material library and the ability to print multiple materials with tailored functionalities in a controllable and single-step process. Particularly beneficial is the net shape printing under ambient conditions of a wide range of materials normally incompatible with one another. Coaxial DIW is a 3D printing technique that allows for two dissimilar inks to be extruded simultaneously in a co-flow manner. In this work, custom-designed coaxial nozzles were 3D-printed using a stereolithography printer. Composite inks comprised of thermoplastic polyurethane and silver were developed and studied. The coaxial nozzles were then used to co-extrude …