Development of Freeze-Form Extrusion Fabrication With Use of Sacrificial Material

Author(s):  
Ming C. Leu ◽  
Diego A. Garcia

The development of freeze-form extrusion fabrication (FEF) process to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) ceramic parts with use of sacrificial material to build support sections during the fabrication process is presented in this paper. FEF is an environmentally friendly, additive manufacturing (AM) process that builds 3D parts in a freezing environment layer-by-layer by computer controlled extrusion and deposition of aqueous colloidal pastes based on computer-aided design (CAD) models. Methyl cellulose was identified as the support material, and alumina was used as the main material in this study. After characterizing the dynamics of extruding alumina and methyl cellulose pastes, a general tracking controller (GTC) was developed and applied to control the extrusion force in depositing both alumina and methyl cellulose pastes. The controller was able to reduce the time constant of the closed-loop system by more than 65% in comparison to the open-loop control system. Freeze-drying was used to remove the water content after the part has been built. The support material was then removed in the binder burnout process. Finally, sintering was done to densify the ceramic part. The fabrication of a cube-shaped part with a square hole in each side that requires depositing the sacrificial material during the FEF process was demonstrated.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Nenad Bojcetic ◽  
Filip Valjak ◽  
Dragan Zezelj ◽  
Tomislav Martinec

The article describes an attempt to address the automatized evaluation of student three-dimensional (3D) computer-aided design (CAD) models. The driving idea was conceptualized under the restraints of the COVID pandemic, driven by the problem of evaluating a large number of student 3D CAD models. The described computer solution can be implemented using any CAD computer application that supports customization. Test cases showed that the proposed solution was valid and could be used to evaluate many students’ 3D CAD models. The computer solution can also be used to help students to better understand how to create a 3D CAD model, thereby complying with the requirements of particular teachers.


2018 ◽  
Vol Vol.18 (No.1) ◽  
pp. 96-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lam NGUYEN ◽  
Johannes BUHL ◽  
Markus BAMBACH

Three-axis machines are limited in the production of geometrical features in powder-bed additive manufacturing processes. In case of overhangs, support material has to be added due to the nature of the process, which causes some disadvantages. Robot-based wire-arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is able to fabricate overhangs without adding support material. Hence, build time, waste of material, and post-processing might be reduced considerably. In order to make full use of multi-axis advantages, slicing strategies are needed. To this end, the CAD (computer-aided design) model of the part to be built is first partitioned into sub-parts, and for each sub-part, an individual build direction is identified. Path planning for these sub-parts by slicing then enables to produce the parts. This study presents a heuristic method to deal with the decomposition of CAD models and build direction identification for sub-entities. The geometric data of two adjacent slices are analyzed to construct centroidal axes. These centroidal axes are used to navigate the slicing and building processes. A case study and experiments are presented to exemplify the algorithm.


Author(s):  
Neeraj Panhalkar ◽  
Ratnadeep Paul ◽  
Sam Anand

Additive manufacturing (AM) is widely used in aerospace, automobile, and medical industries for building highly accurate parts using a layer by layer approach. The stereolithography (STL) file is the standard file format used in AM machines and approximates the three-dimensional (3D) model of parts using planar triangles. However, as the STL file is an approximation of the actual computer aided design (CAD) surface, the geometric errors in the final manufactured parts are pronounced, particularly in those parts with highly curved surfaces. If the part is built with the minimum uniform layer thickness allowed by the AM machine, the manufactured part will typically have the best quality, but this will also result in a considerable increase in build time. Therefore, as a compromise, the part can be built with variable layer thicknesses, i.e., using an adaptive layering technique, which will reduce the part build time while still reducing the part errors and satisfying the geometric tolerance callouts on the part. This paper describes a new approach of determining the variable slices using a 3D k-d tree method. The paper validates the proposed k-d tree based adaptive layering approach for three test parts and documents the results by comparing the volumetric, cylindricity, sphericity, and profile errors obtained from this approach with those obtained using a uniform slicing method. Since current AM machines are incapable of handling adaptive slicing approach directly, a “pseudo” grouped adaptive layering approach is also proposed here. This “clustered slicing” technique will enable the fabrication of a part in bands of varying slice thicknesses with each band having clusters of uniform slice thicknesses. The proposed k-d tree based adaptive slicing approach along with clustered slicing has been validated with simulations of the test parts of different shapes.


2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (10) ◽  
pp. 869-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel B. Dadi ◽  
Timothy R.B. Taylor ◽  
Paul M. Goodrum ◽  
William F. Maloney

Engineering information delivery can be a source of inefficient communication of design, leading to construction rework and lower worker morale. Due to errors, omissions, and misinterpretations, there remains a great opportunity to improve the traditional documentation of engineering information that craft professionals use to complete their work. Historically, physical three dimensional (3D) models built by hand provided 3D physical representations of the project to assist in sequencing, visualization, and planning of critical construction activities. This practice has greatly diminished since the adoption of 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and building information modeling technologies. Recently, additive manufacturing (a.k.a. 3D printing) technologies have allowed for three dimensional printing of 3D CAD models. A cognitive experiment was established to measure the effectiveness of 2D drawings, a 3D computer model, and a 3D printed model in delivering engineering information to an end-user are scientifically measured. The 3D printed model outperformed the 2D drawings and 3D computer interface in productivity measures. This paper’s primary contribution to the body of knowledge is identification of how different mediums of engineering information influence the performance of a simple task execution.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Li ◽  
Y. F. Zhang ◽  
J. Y. H. Fuh ◽  
Z. M. Qiu

In product design, a large proportion of three-dimensional (3D) computer-aided design (CAD) models can be reused to facilitate future product development due to their similarities in function and shape. This paper presents a novel method that incorporates modeling knowledge into CAD model similarity assessment to improve the effectiveness of reuse-oriented retrieval. First, knowledge extraction is performed on archived feature-based CAD models to construct feature dependency directed acyclic graph (FDAG). Second, based on the FDAG subgraph decomposition, two useful component partitioning approaches are developed to extract simplified essential shapes and meaningful subparts from CAD models. Third, the extracted shapes and their FDAG subgraphs are indexed. Finally, the indexed shapes that are similar to user-sketched queries are retrieved to reuse, and FDAG information of the retrieved shapes is provided as redesign suggestions. Experimental results suggest that the incorporation of modeling knowledge greatly facilitates CAD model retrieval and reuse. Algorithm evaluations also show the presented method outperforms other 3D retrieval methods.


Author(s):  
Murali M. Sundaram ◽  
Abishek B. Kamaraj ◽  
Varun S. Kumar

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic structures by laser based layered manufacturing processes involve thermal damages. In this work, the feasibility of mask-less electrochemical deposition as a nonthermal metallic AM process has been studied. Layer by layer localized electrochemical deposition using a microtool tip has been performed to manufacture nickel microstructures. Three-dimensional free hanging structures with about 600 μm height and 600 μm overhang are manufactured to establish the process capability. An inhouse built CNC system was integrated in this study with an electrochemical cell to achieve 30 layers thick microparts in about 5 h by AM directly from STL files generated from corresponding CAD models. The layer thickness achieved in this process was about 10 μm and the minimum feature size depends on the tool width. Simulation studies of electrochemical deposition performed to understand the pulse wave characteristics and their effects on the localization of the deposits.


Author(s):  
H J Rea ◽  
R Sung ◽  
J R Corney ◽  
D E R Clark ◽  
N K Taylor

Effective content-based shape retrieval systems would allow engineers to search databases of three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) models for objects with specific geometries or features. Much of the academic work in this area has focused on the development of indexing schemes based on different types of three-dimensional to two-dimensional ‘shape functions’. Ideally, the shape function used to generate a distribution should be easy to compute and permit the discrimination of both large and small features. The work reported in this paper describes the properties of three new shape distributions based on computationally simple shape functions. The first shape function calculates the arithmetic difference between distributions derived (using the original D2 distance shape function) from both a three-dimensional model and its convex hull. The second shape function is obtained by sampling the angle between random pairs of facets on the object. The third shape function uses the surface orientation to filter the results of a distance distribution. The results reported in this paper suggest that these novel shape functions improve significantly the ability of shape distributions to discriminate between complex engineering parts.


Author(s):  
Shaw C. Feng ◽  
Yan Lu ◽  
Albert T. Jones

Abstract The number and types of measurement devices used for monitoring and controlling Laser-Based Powder Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB/M) processes and inspecting the resulting AM metal parts have increased rapidly in recent years. The variety of the data collected by such devices has increased, and the veracity of the data has decreased simultaneously. Each measurement device generates data in a unique coordinate system and in a unique data type. Data alignment, however, is required before 1) monitoring and controlling PBF-LB/M processes, 2) predicting the material properties of the final part, and 3) qualifying the resulting AM parts can be done. Aligned means all data must be transformed into a single coordinate system. In this paper, we describe a new, general data-alignment procedure and an example based on PBF-LB/M processes. The specific data objects used in this example include in-situ photogrammetry, thermography, ex-situ X-ray computed tomography (XCT), coordinate metrology, and computer-aided design (CAD) models. We propose a data-alignment procedure to align the data from melt pool images, scan paths, layer images, XCT three-dimensional (3D) model, coordinate measurements, and the 3D CAD model.


Author(s):  
B. Li ◽  
T. Dutta Roy ◽  
C. M. Smith ◽  
P. A. Clark ◽  
K. H. Church

Numerous solid freeform fabrication (SFF) or rapid prototyping (RP) techniques have been employed in the field of tissue engineering to fabricate specially organized three-dimensional (3-D) structures such as scaffolds. Some such technologies include, but are not limited to, laminated object manufacturing (LOM), three-dimensional printing (3-DP) or ink-jet printing, selective laser sintering (SLS), and fused deposition modeling (FDM). These techniques are capable of rapidly producing highly complex 3-D scaffolds or other biomedical structures with the aid of a computer-aided design (CAD) system. However, they suffer from lack of consistency and repeatability, since most of these processes are not fully controlled and cannot reproduce the previous work with accuracy. Also, these techniques (excluding FDM) are not truly direct-print processes. Certain material removing steps are involved, which in turn increases the complexity and the cost of fabrication. The FDM process has good repeatability; however, the materials that can be used are limited due to the high temperature needed to melt the feedstock. Some researchers also reported that the scaffolds fabricated by FDM lack consistency in the z-direction. In this paper, we will present a true direct-print technology for repeatedly producing scaffolds and other biomedical structures for tissue engineering with the aid of our Computer Aided Biological (CAB) tool. Unlike other SFF techniques mentioned above, our direct-print process fabricates scaffolds or other complex 3-D structures by extruding (dispensing) a liquid material onto the substrate with a prescribed pattern generated by a CAD program. This can be a layer-by-layer 2.5 dimension build or a true 3-D build. The dispensed liquid material then polymerizes or solidifies, to form a solid structure. The flexibility in the types of materials that can be extruded ranges from polymers to living cells, encapsulated in the proper material. True 3-D structures are now possible on a wide range of substrates, including even in vivo. Some of the advantages of the process are a) researchers have full control over the patterns to be created; b) it is a true direct-print process with no material removing steps involved; c) it is highly consistent and repeatable; and d) it is highly efficient and cost-effective. This paper will first give a detailed description of the CAB tool. Then, it will present a detailed process for printing polycaprolactone (PCL) into a defined 3-D architecture, where the primary focus for these constructs is for use in tissue engineering applications. Finally, mechanical characterization results of the printed scaffolds will be included in the paper.


Author(s):  
Antonio Piratelli-Filho ◽  
Alberto José Alvares ◽  
Rosenda Valdés Arencibia

This work presents a systematization method for digitization of mechanical parts with three-dimensional (3D) laser scanner using the process mapping method. The application involves the use of the IDEFØ methodology of process mapping to address the sequence of steps required to obtain the computer-aided design (CAD) model of the measured part. The variables involved in the setup and measurement with 3D laser scanner were investigated and applied to regular and free-form parts, and the parameter geometry, texture, light reflection and procedure of data acquisition were considered in the analysis. The software commands used to create the CAD models were also included and the ones related to mesh and surface creation were detailed. The systematized measurement planning was graphi graphically presented, and it proved useful to operators during the digitization process.


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