SBIR Phase I: Novel Ultra-Rapid, High Definition, Additive Manufacturing System

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This SBIR Phase I project will examine a new ultra-rapid 3D printing technology designed to break down important barriers to the future of Additive Manufacturing. The subject is a machine and materials set that can provide exponentially faster object generation at high resolution. This system leverages several familiar technologies in a new way to provide a path for 3D printing, generally considered reserved for the high-tech sectors, to become accessible to everyone. Because the new method is so rapid, detailed, and the materials are so diverse, it is poised to enhance plastics manufacturing profit margins by eliminating mold costs in many cases. In this way, many American business forced to outsource overseas will be able to maintain domestic production and increase the return of manufacturing jobs to the US. In addition, the manufacturing of the consumables will also enhance job creation. When this new method is fully adopted, its use in the medical field will make lifesaving and life enhancing prosthetic, implantable, and pharmaceutical testing applications much more cost effective, fundable by Medicare, benefiting all our citizens. By servicing a higher percentage of the general plastics manufacturing $600B industry, as well as professional designers, engineers, technical professionals, and the medical and scientific community, the new system in its many forms will eventually be of benefit to nearly every industry in the US, increasing the growth and practical value of the 3D market sector.The subject invention is unique in its use of multiple disciplines simultaneously. As a solid-state system, pressure-biased build material presses up against a glass screen, which is micro-porous, and is laced with the same kind of electronics as are found in flat screen displays. The discrete addressing normally reserved for video images, known as row-and-column refresh rates, is instead used to activate resistive material generating micro-heat spots in this open weave configuration. The heat stimulates the build material to transit the glass and solidify topside, at 1000 dpi resolution, or 1 million droplets per square inch. These high-resolution droplets conjoin and cool, as an entire layer is created at once at 30-120 times a second with no mechanical heads tracking back and forth. The objects should seem to simply appear on the glass at about one to seven vertical inches per minute, depending on the refresh rate, at virtually any planar size, and can be used right away, since no post-curing treatment is needed. Integrating an activated video matrix to build entire cross sections at once, increases speed exponentially. The pores in the glass rely on the known science of Microfluidics, a highly refined means of moving an entire 2D matrix of liquid, to eliminate costly and slow mechanization, and will be studied in this application. Robust and diverse materials have been developed for many embodiments and will be tested. Optimizing first in Multiphysics simulation, and then fabricating a simplified Proof of Concept in Phase I, should provide compelling evidence for continued work on this novel method in Phase II.