SBIR Phase I: High-speed, precision wire plotting for electromechanical sensors and actuators

这个SBIR一期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是提高性能和简化电动机的开发。该项目开发了用于商用航空等新型高性能电机所需的电磁和电子元件的增材制造技术。2017年全球电机市场估计为1000亿美元。提出的技术允许更有效地利用稀土材料，并且可以消除电机效率和成本之间的传统权衡，通过成本驱动的应用（如供暖，通风和空调（HVAC））来降低能源强度，从而显着降低其能源强度。拟议的SBIR第一期项目将探索一种新的制造工艺的翻译，允许高密度电线绕组的印刷，具有与当今印刷电路板相同的设计自由度和流线型制造。由于上游的电线制造和涂覆过程具有如此严格的公差，因此一台相对普通的绘图机可以以每秒几米的速度生产电磁器件。此外，通过将电子器件直接集成到绘制的绕组中，传统上需要集成多个制造过程的设备可以在一个步骤中制造出来。在这个项目中，我们将推进端到端工作流程的开发，并将其用于新型高性能电动机设计的原型。这种方法可以实现超过20 kW/kg的重力功率密度，比目前最先进的100kW级别提高4倍，并有可能实现电动航空。在这个项目中，我们将推进和验证一个新的电机原型的性能。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 SBIR Phase I project is to increase performance and simplify the development of electric motors. This project develops additive manufacturing technology for the electromagnetic and electronic components necessary for new high-performance motors for applications such as commercial aviation. The global electric motor market was estimated at $100 B in 2017. The proposed technology allows more efficient utilization of rare earth materials, and could eliminate the conventional trade-offs between motor efficiency and cost, enabling reduced energy intensity by cost-driven applications, like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), to significantly reduce their energy intensity. The proposed SBIR Phase I project will explore translation of a novel manufacturing process allowing printing of high-density wire windings with the same design freedom and streamlined manufacturing associated with printed circuit boards today. Because the upstream wire manufacturing and coating processes have such tight tolerances, a relatively modest plotting machine can produce electromagnetic devices at speeds of several meters per second. Further, by incorporating electronics directly into the plotted windings, devices which would conventionally require integrating multiple manufacturing processes can be made in a single step. In this project, we will advance the development of an end-to-end workflow for this manufacturing process and use it to prototype a novel high-performance electric motor design. Gravimetric power densities of over 20 kW/kg may be possible with this approach, representing a 4X improvement over state-of-the-art in the 100kW class and potentially enabling electric aviation. In this project, we will advance and validate the performance of a new motor prototype.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.