I-Corps: High-temperature 3D Printer for High-Performance Polymers

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过桌面级、低成本的打印平台广泛采用高性能、高温聚合物的3d打印。现有的能够处理高性能聚合物的3D打印机具有特殊的功率要求，占地面积大，并且由于其所需的高温打印环境而成本过高。该项目新颖的打印机设计能够以桌面规模和价格打印这些高性能聚合物，从而弥合了规模、成本和材料性能之间的差距。用所开发的机器打印的零件的机械性能与商业工业规模系统打印的机械性能相当。示例用例包括部署打印机，其中大型打印机可能不可行，以及在制造中提供冗余以更快、更灵活地生产零件。该打印机将能够制造比现有桌面级3D打印机更强大的产品，并允许这些部件设计用于新环境的应用。这个I-Corps项目进一步开发了一种用于打印高性能塑料的桌面级3d打印机。高性能塑料提供在高温和/或腐蚀性环境中工作的更高强度的部件。然而，通过熔丝制造（FFF） 3d打印制造高性能塑料需要在高温环境中进行加工，以防止打印部件变形并提高部件的机械性能。该项目开发了一种FFF实施方案，其特点是倒置的结构，与特殊的加热室相结合，以保持加工高性能塑料的足够高温环境。由于该设计利用自然对流来选择性地实现建筑区域的高温，因此该FFF实施方案不需要为机电元件提供大型加热器或冷却装置，因此与目前的解决方案相比，降低了成本和功率要求。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to enable widespread adoption of 3D-printing of high-performance, high-temperature polymers via a desktop-scale, low-cost printing platform. Existing 3D printers capable of processing performance polymers have special power requirements, large footprint, and are cost prohibitive due to their required high-temperature printing environments. This project's novel printer design enables printing these performance polymers at a desktop-scale and price, therefore bridging the gap between scale, cost, and material performance. The mechanical properties of parts printed with the developed machine are equivalent to those printed with commercial industrial-scale systems. Example use cases include the deployment of printers where a large printer may be infeasible and in providing redundancy in manufacturing for faster, more agile production of parts. This printer will be able to fabricate stronger products than existing desktop scale 3D printers and allows these parts to be designed for applications in new environments.This I-Corps project further develops a desktop-scale 3D-printer designed to print high-performance plastics. Performance plastics offer higher strength parts that are functional in high-temperature or and/or corrosive environments. However, the fabrication of performance plastics via fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D-printing requires processing in a high-temperature environment to prevent deformation of printed parts and to improve parts' mechanical properties. This project develops a FFF embodiment that features an inverted architecture, in conjunction with a special heating chamber, to maintain a sufficiently high-temperature environment for processing high-performance plastics. Since the design exploits natural convection currents to selectively achieve high temperatures in the build area, this FFF embodiment does not require large heaters or cooling units for the mechatronic elements, thus reducing the cost and power requirements when compared to current solutions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.