DURIP-22: A ROBOTIC ASSISTED 3D PRINTING SYSTEM FOR MULTIMATERIAL COMPOSITES USING ENGINEERING POLYMERS
Abstract
This proposed DURIP project will purchase a robotic assisted 3D printing system that includes a multi-jet fusion (MJF) 3D printer and two six-axis robotic arms. This new system will enable to fabricate multifunctional structures using engineering plastics at high speed. The recent advance of multiple-material printers empowers fabrication of materials with well-designed microstructures, promising materials with unprecedented properties and behaviors. In 4D printing, the printed material can change its shape after printing, thus employs time as its fourth dimension. Such a shape changing material provides an exciting design and fabricate platform to integrate other devices. It is thus highly desirable to print functional devices into these 4D printed platform to permit greater functionality. Through the support an AFOSR DURIP program (FA9550-16-1-0169) in 2016, we developed a state-of-the-art multi-material multi- method (m4) 3D printer, which integrates four printed methods and robotic placement into one platform. However, most of our previous works use photopolymers. Whilst the photopolymers have advantages of great variety of resin ink choices for tunable properties, they are not widely used as engineering polymers under harsh environment, especially for critical Air Force and DoD application. The proposed robotic assisted 3D printing system will include a multi-jet fusion (MJF) 3D printer and two six-axis robotic arms. The MJF printer can print Nylon-based structures at high resolution and high speed. For the two robotic arms, one will be used for extrusion-based printing methods such as direct-ink-write or fused deposition model for printing functional materials and one will be used for machine vision to in-situ monitor the printing process. The proposed new system will be integrated with the m4 3D printer to further enhance the capability to create functional devices. Since Nylon has excellent mechanical properties as compared to existing photocurable systems, the proposed new system, after integration with the m4 3D printer, will greatly enable 4D multimaterial printing for demanding Air Force and DoD applications. This new system will be used by a large group of researchers at Georgia Tech for a wide range of ongoing AFOSR and DoD funded research projects, with a total funding of more than $20M, and will dramatically expand AFOSR and DoD related research on multifunctional materials and structures research.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 20, 2023
- Source ID
- FA95502210503
Entities
People
- Hang Qi
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Georgia Tech Research Corporation
- United States Air Force