I-Corps: Improved Approach to Polymer Sintering

I-Corps：改进的聚合物烧结方法

• 批准号: 1744591
• 负责人: Nathan Crane
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of South Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1744591&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Improved; Approach; Polymer; Sintering

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will increase American manufacturing competitiveness and open new product opportunities. The technology has the potential to expand the application space for 3D printing by removing current limitations on materials, achievable properties, and processing speed. This will allow users to customize parts to user needs and reduce lead times for industries from medical devices to aerospace, to consumer products. There are many opportunities in the 3D printing industry because it is rapidly growing (15-20% per year). The new approaches to manufacturing are transforming a wide variety of industries despite many pressing technical issues that remain. The technology behind this project can open new markets/industries for these technologies by addressing some of the critical limitations.This I-Corps project will evaluate a modified process for additive manufacturing (3D Printing) with polymers from a powder feedstock. This is typically done by scanning the powder bed with a laser to locally fuse the powder particles together. An alternative method is developed here that allows for economical fusing of the powder over longer time periods. Current laser-based methods are constrained to utilizing a few specialized material types due to the process constraints. While these work for many applications, there are many applications that require specialized materials that cannot be used in the current additive manufacturing methods. This technology has the potential to expand the range of materials that can be successfully processed. Additionally, the material properties produced by current methods are reduced relative to those obtained using traditional approaches such as injection molding.

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将提高美国制造业的竞争力，并开辟新的产品机会。 该技术有可能通过消除当前对材料，可实现的性能和加工速度的限制来扩展3D打印的应用空间。 这将使用户能够根据用户需求定制零件，并缩短从医疗器械到航空航天再到消费品等行业的交货时间。 3D打印行业有很多机会，因为它正在快速增长（每年15-20%）。 制造业的新方法正在改变各种各样的行业，尽管仍然存在许多紧迫的技术问题。 该项目背后的技术可以通过解决一些关键限制为这些技术开辟新的市场/行业。该I-Corps项目将评估使用粉末原料聚合物进行增材制造（3D打印）的改进工艺。这通常通过用激光扫描粉末床以将粉末颗粒局部熔合在一起来完成。 这里开发了一种替代方法，该方法允许在更长的时间内经济地熔化粉末。 由于工艺限制，目前基于激光的方法被限制为利用几种专门的材料类型。 虽然这些适用于许多应用，但有许多应用需要无法用于当前增材制造方法的专用材料。 这项技术有可能扩大可以成功加工的材料范围。 此外，通过当前方法生产的材料性能相对于使用传统方法（例如注塑成型）获得的材料性能降低。