SBIR Phase I: High thermal conductivity continuous fiber reinforced 3D printing materials

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发用于冷却高性能电子设备的导热3D打印材料。 随着电子设备变得更加紧凑和能量密集，过热的挑战越来越大，导致性能差和设备故障。这一问题与日益依赖高性能电子部件（如电动机、电池组、电力电子设备和高性能处理器）的运输和能源相关技术尤其相关。 该项目将开发一种新的增材制造复合材料，其热导率比标准塑料高1000倍，实现轻质，耐腐蚀和高性能的传热技术。此外，这些材料可以在低成本的桌面熔融沉积成型打印机上进行3D打印，而无需进行重大的硬件修改，从而大大降低了打印高性能组件的复杂性和成本。通过创建用于广泛接受的增材制造技术平台的转换材料，该项目将有助于为先进的传热技术创造一个新的市场，这些技术可以显著提高电子设备的性能。第一阶段的项目将导致塑料复合材料的发展，具有比铝更高的有效导热性和能力，低成本的3D打印机。导热塑料复合材料传统上由基础聚合物和高含量的导热填料颗粒组成，导致机械性能差，粘度高，成本高和加工困难（包括无法可靠地3D打印），最大导热率约为30 W/m-K（比铝低近一个数量级）。金属导热良好，但是重，制造成复杂形状昂贵，并且在与流体相互作用时容易受到腐蚀和结垢。该项目提出了一种新的复合材料系统，该系统由具有连续高导热性连续纤维的芯和复合导热基质的壳的芯-壳结构组成。利用3D打印，这种材料可以被打印成复杂的形状，以生产新型传热部件，如散热器，热交换器，液体冷板和其他热性能超过金属的技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop thermally conductive 3D printing materials for cooling of high-performance electronic devices. As electronic devices become more compact and energy-dense, there is a growing challenge of overheating, resulting in poor performance and device failure. This problem is particularly relevant to transportation and energy-related technologies increasingly reliant on high-performance electronic components, such as electric motors, battery packs, power electronics, and high-performance processors. This project will develop a new additive manufacturing composite material with thermal conductivity 1000x higher than standard plastics, enabling lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and high-performance heat transfer technologies. Moreover, the materials enable 3D printing on low-cost desktop Fused Deposition Modeling printers without significant hardware modifications, drastically reducing the complexity and cost of printing high performance components. By creating a transformational material for use on a broadly accepted additive manufacturing technology platforms, this project will help create a new market for advanced heat transfer technologies that can significantly increase the performance of electronic devices.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will result in the development of plastic composite materials with higher effective thermal conductivity than aluminum and the ability to be printed on low cost 3D printers. Thermally conductive plastic composites are traditionally composed of base polymer and a high content of thermally conductive filler particles, resulting in poor mechanical properties, high viscosity, high cost and processing difficulties (including inability to 3D print reliably), and a maximum thermal conductivity of ~30 W/m-K (nearly an order of magnitude lower than aluminum). Metals conduct heat well, but are heavy, expensive to manufacture into complex shapes, and can be susceptible to corrosion and fouling when interacting with fluids. This project is proposing a new composite system consisting of a core-shell structure with a core of continuous high thermal conductivity continuous fiber and a shell of a composite thermally conductive matrix. Utilizing 3D printing, this material can be printed into complex shapes to produce new heat transfer parts such as heat sinks, heat exchangers, liquid coldplates and other technologies with thermal performance exceeding metals.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.