SBIR Phase I: Novel Dynamic Elastomer System for Additive Manufacturing

这个SBIR一期项目将为增材制造技术创造一套新的材料。增材制造或3D打印是一个快速增长的50亿美元产业，它使中小型企业能够有竞争力地制造新的创新产品。这是加强美国制造业经济的关键。3D打印行业的持续增长和健康，特别是成品功能部件的制造，将取决于可用材料库的扩展。目前，3D打印材料仅限于普通工业用塑料的一小部分。该项目将通过开发具有广泛灵活性的可打印聚氨酯弹性体来扩展材料库。这些材料将特别适用于需要个性化和定制的市场，例如针对患者的医疗设备、体育用品和鞋类。用于工业和汽车产品的柔性、耐用聚氨酯产品的制造商也将受益于由性能与其产品规格相匹配的材料制成的零件的低成本小规模生产。该打印系统将能够生产具有用户指定几何形状和灵活性的部件，并且还将能够为新产品设计提供多材料打印。这个SBIR一期项目将生产一套反应性聚氨酯前驱体配方，这些配方可以组合成可打印的、柔性的、具有广泛硬度范围的聚氨酯。材料将使用挤压3D打印技术打印，并定制处理液体，反应性原料。研究方法将包括确定起始材料以控制反应速率、流变学发展和部分凝固。反应动力学控制将是至关重要的，以开发一个强大的印刷过程，并克服印刷方向强度的问题，是常见的挤出印刷过程。原料的反应性、催化剂的选择和配方成分的相对浓度将是关键的实验参数。获得一系列的灵活性将需要建立不同分子量的配方，这些配方的变化将与树脂印刷性平衡。这种3D打印技术将克服部件耐用性和打印速度方面的挑战，这些挑战是光固化方法生产柔性部件的常见问题，并将大大延长挤出3D打印的部件耐用性和灵活性。

This SBIR Phase I project will create a novel set of materials for additive manufacturing technologies. Additive manufacturing, or 3D Printing, is a rapidly growing $5bn industry, which enables small and medium enterprises to competitively manufacture new and innovative products. It is a key to strengthening the US manufacturing economy. Continued growth and health of the 3D printing industry, particularly for manufacture of functional parts for finished goods, will depend upon an expansion of the available material library. 3D printing materials are limited to a small segment of the plastics in common industrial use today. This project will expand that material library with development of printable polyurethane elastomers with a broad range of flexibilities. These materials will be particularly relevant for markets that demand personalization and customization, such as patient-specific medical devices, sporting goods, and footwear. Manufacturers of flexible, durable polyurethane goods for industrial and automotive products will also benefit from low cost small-scale production of parts made from materials with performance that match their product specifications. The printing system will enable production of parts with user-specified geometry and flexibility, and will also enable multi-material printing for novel product designs.This SBIR Phase I project will produce a set of reactive polyurethane precursor formulas which can be combined to form printable, flexible polyurethanes with a broad hardness range. The materials will be printed using extrusion 3D printing techniques, and customized to handle liquid, reactive feeds. The research approach will include determination of the starting materials to control reaction rates, rheology development, and part solidification. Reaction kinetics control will be critical to develop a robust printing process and to overcome issues with print-direction strength that are common in extrusion printing processes. Raw material reactivity, catalyst selection, and relative concentrations of formulation components will be key experimental parameters. Accessing a range of flexibility will require building formulas with varied molecular weights, and these formula variations will be balanced with resin printability. This 3D printing technology will overcome challenges in part durability and printing speeds that are common to photo-cure approaches to produce flexible parts, and will greatly extend the part durability and flexibility available to extrusion 3D printing.