High-Speed Droplet-Based Manufacturing of High-Precision Structural Components and Photonic BandGap Materials

这笔赠款用于进一步开发基于液滴的高速网络成形制造技术，用于制造高精度的三维铝和铝合金部件。成功的开发依赖于从以前的NSF和行业支持的工作中获得的知识库。在NSF支持的工作中，在定制的最先进的液滴发生器和沉积设备中，通过毛细管流的破裂可靠地产生了高度均匀的铝合金熔体液滴流，并初步制造了三维组件。在行业支持的工作中，熔化的焊料液滴以类似于喷墨打印的方式充电和偏转，并定向到精度为12.5微米的电路板上。因此，这些努力的结合形成了拟议的网络制造技术的知识库。本研究的关键是确定工艺参数、组织和性能之间的相互关系。为此，提出了一种将实验与数值模拟和材料表征相结合的研究计划，将实验和表征研究获得的信息作为建模工作的反馈，将在基于液滴的制造和研究光子带隙(PBG)材料的制造方面进行新的扩展。作为制造PBG和其他多材料组件的第一步，将确定用于PGB材料制造的工艺参数可以从铝合金结构组件制造的关系中外推到什么程度。

This grant funds research seeking to further the development of a high-speed droplet-based net-form manufacturing technology for the fabrication of high-precision three-dimensional aluminum and aluminum alloy components. Successful development relies the knowledge base acquired from previous NSF and industry supported work. In the NSFsupported work, highly uniform molten aluminum alloy droplet streams were reliably generated from capillary stream break-up in a custom fabricated state-of-the-art droplet generator and deposition facility, and preliminary three-dimensional componets were fabricated. In the industry supported work, molten solder droplets were charged and deflected in a manner similar to ink-jet printing and targeted onto a circuit board with an accuracy of 12.5 micrometer. Hence, the union of these efforts forms the knowledge base for the proposed net-form manufacturing technology. The crux of the this research is the determination of the inter-relationships between processing parameters, structure and properties. To this end, a research plan that consists of experimentation coupled with numerical modeling and materials characterization is proposed, with information gained from the experimental and characterization studies serving as feedback into the modeling effort.A novel extension will be explored in droplet-based manufacturing and to investigate the fabrication of photonic bandgap (PBG) materials. The extent to which the processing parameters for PGB materials fabrication can be extrapolated from the relationships governing aluminum alloy structural component fabrication will be ascertained as a first step towards the fabrication of PBG and other multimaterial components.