scholarly journals Optimized Zirconia 3D Printing Using Digital Light Processing with Continuous Film Supply and Recyclable Slurry System

Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3446
Author(s):  
Waqas Ahmed Sarwar ◽  
Jin-Ho Kang ◽  
Hyung-In Yoon

Stereolithography (SL) can fabricate complex ceramic parts layer by layer using computer-aided design (CAD) models. The traditional SL system utilizes a vat filled with ceramic slurry with a high solid content, which for ceramics contributes to several limitations and operational difficulties, and further renders it nonrecyclable mainly due to the presence of printed residue and its high viscosity. In this study, we utilized a continuous film supply (CFS) system integrated with a tape-casting type digital light processing (DLP) printer to fabricate zirconia prototypes with a solid content of 45 volume percent (vol.%). Various printing and postprocessing parameters were studied for optimization, to achieve a relative density of 99.02% ± 0.08% with a microhardness of 12.59 ± 0.47 GPa. Slurry reusability was also demonstrated by printing with recycled slurry to produce consistent relative density values in the range of 98.86% ± 0.02% to 98.94% ± 0.03%. This method provides new opportunities for material recycling and the fabrication of dense complex ceramic products, reducing the consumption of the material.

Author(s):  
Waqas Ahmed Sarwar ◽  
Jin-Ho Kang ◽  
Hyung-In Yoon

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes, including stereolithography (SL), can fabricate complex ceramic parts layer by layer using computer-aided design (CAD) models. A ceramic slurry with high solid loading is usually used in SL to fabricate the desired shape, which is further sintered to produce the final part. The traditional SL system utilizes a tank filled with printable material, known as a vat, which for ceramic slurry contributes several limitations and operational difficulties, and further renders it non-recyclable mainly due to its high viscosity and the fragility of the green state. In this study, we utilized a continuous film supply (CFS) printer integrated with a tape casting system using in-house-designed ceramic slurry to print standard prototype specimens. Various printing parameters, including viscosity, layer thickness control, and slurry recycling efficiency, were studied. In addition, post-processing optimizations of the prototype, characterizations, and the microhardness of sintered samples were studied to determine their properties and compare them with traditional methods. The effectiveness of slurry reusability was demonstrated by printing with original and recycled slurry to produce consistent densification of final parts. Post-processing was optimized to achieve a relative sinter density of 99.02% and microhardness of 12.59 GPa. This method provides new opportunities to realize dense complex ceramic features with final properties comparable to those produced by subtractive machining and traditional SL. Furthermore, slurry recycling helps to reduce the overall cost and material consumption.


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.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 2239
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rodriguez ◽  
Samantha Ruelas ◽  
Jean-Baptiste Forien ◽  
Nikola Dudukovic ◽  
Josh DeOtte ◽  
...  

Recent advances in additive manufacturing, specifically direct ink writing (DIW) and ink-jetting, have enabled the production of elastomeric silicone parts with deterministic control over the structure, shape, and mechanical properties. These new technologies offer rapid prototyping advantages and find applications in various fields, including biomedical devices, prosthetics, metamaterials, and soft robotics. Stereolithography (SLA) is a complementary approach with the ability to print with finer features and potentially higher throughput. However, all high-performance silicone elastomers are composites of polysiloxane networks reinforced with particulate filler, and consequently, silicone resins tend to have high viscosities (gel- or paste-like), which complicates or completely inhibits the layer-by-layer recoating process central to most SLA technologies. Herein, the design and build of a digital light projection SLA printer suitable for handling high-viscosity resins is demonstrated. Further, a series of UV-curable silicone resins with thiol-ene crosslinking and reinforced by a combination of fumed silica and MQ resins are also described. The resulting silicone elastomers are shown to have tunable mechanical properties, with 100–350% elongation and ultimate tensile strength from 1 to 2.5 MPa. Three-dimensional printed features of 0.4 mm were achieved, and complexity is demonstrated by octet-truss lattices that display negative stiffness.


Author(s):  
Andreas Apostolatos ◽  
Altuğ Emiroğlu ◽  
Shahrokh Shayegan ◽  
Fabien Péan ◽  
Kai-Uwe Bletzinger ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this study the isogeometric B-Rep mortar-based mapping method for geometry models stemming directly from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is systematically augmented and applied to partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) simulations. Thus, the newly proposed methodology is applied to geometries described by their Boundary Representation (B-Rep) in terms of trimmed multipatch Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) discretizations as standard in modern CAD. The proposed isogeometric B-Rep mortar-based mapping method is herein extended for the transformation of fields between a B-Rep model and a low order discrete surface representation of the geometry which typically results when the Finite Volume Method (FVM) or the Finite Element Method (FEM) are employed. This enables the transformation of such fields as tractions and displacements along the FSI interface when Isogeometric B-Rep Analysis (IBRA) is used for the structural discretization and the FVM is used for the fluid discretization. The latter allows for diverse discretization schemes between the structural and the fluid Boundary Value Problem (BVP), taking into consideration the special properties of each BVP separately while the constraints along the FSI interface are satisfied in an iterative manner within partitioned FSI. The proposed methodology can be exploited in FSI problems with an IBRA structural discretization or to FSI problems with a standard FEM structural discretization in the frame of the Exact Coupling Layer (ECL) where the interface fields are smoothed using the underlying B-Rep parametrization, thus taking advantage of the smoothness that the NURBS basis functions offer. All new developments are systematically investigated and demonstrated by FSI problems with lightweight structures whereby the underlying geometric parametrizations are directly taken from real-world CAD models, thus extending IBRA into coupled problems of the FSI type.


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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 168781402110027
Author(s):  
Byung Chul Kim ◽  
Ilhwan Song ◽  
Duhwan Mun

Manufacturers of machine parts operate computerized numerical control (CNC) machine tools to produce parts precisely and accurately. They build computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) models using CAM software to generate code to control these machines from computer-aided design (CAD) models. However, creating a CAM model from CAD models is time-consuming, and is prone to errors because machining operations and their sequences are defined manually. To generate CAM models automatically, feature recognition methods have been studied for a long time. However, since the recognition range is limited, it is challenging to apply the feature recognition methods to parts having a complicated shape such as jet engine parts. Alternatively, this study proposes a practical method for the fast generation of a CAM model from CAD models using shape search. In the proposed method, when an operator selects one machining operation as a source machining operation, shapes having the same machining features are searched in the part, and the source machining operation is copied to the locations of the searched shapes. This is a semi-automatic method, but it can generate CAM models quickly and accurately when there are many identical shapes to be machined. In this study, we demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method through experiments on an engine block and a jet engine compressor case.


Author(s):  
K. R. Mrinal ◽  
Md. Hamid Siddique ◽  
Abdus Samad

A progressive cavity pump (PCP) is a positive displacement pump and has been used as an artificial lift method in the oil and gas industry for pumping fluid with solid content and high viscosity. In a PCP, a single-lobe rotor rotates inside a double-lobe stator. Articles on computational works for flows through a PCP are limited because of transient behavior of flow, complex geometry and moving boundaries. In this paper, a 3D CFD model has been developed to predict the flow variables at different operating conditions. The flow is considered as incompressible, single phase, transient, and turbulent. The dynamic mesh model in Ansys-Fluent for the rotor mesh movement is used, and a user defined function (UDF) written in C language defines the rotor’s hypocycloid path. The mesh deformation is done with spring based smoothing and local remeshing technique. The computational results are compared with the experiment results available in the literature. Thepump gives maximum flowrate at zero differential pressure.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Norberto Pires ◽  
Amin S. Azar ◽  
Filipe Nogueira ◽  
Carlos Ye Zhu ◽  
Ricardo Branco ◽  
...  

Purpose Additive manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly evolving manufacturing process, which refers to a set of technologies that add materials layer-by-layer to create functional components. AM technologies have received an enormous attention from both academia and industry, and they are being successfully used in various applications, such as rapid prototyping, tooling, direct manufacturing and repair, among others. AM does not necessarily imply building parts, as it also refers to innovation in materials, system and part designs, novel combination of properties and interplay between systems and materials. The most exciting features of AM are related to the development of radically new systems and materials that can be used in advanced products with the aim of reducing costs, manufacturing difficulties, weight, waste and energy consumption. It is essential to develop an advanced production system that assists the user through the process, from the computer-aided design model to functional components. The challenges faced in the research and development and operational phase of producing those parts include requiring the capacity to simulate and observe the building process and, more importantly, being able to introduce the production changes in a real-time fashion. This paper aims to review the role of robotics in various AM technologies to underline its importance, followed by an introduction of a novel and intelligent system for directed energy deposition (DED) technology. Design/methodology/approach AM presents intrinsic advantages when compared to the conventional processes. Nevertheless, its industrial integration remains as a challenge due to equipment and process complexities. DED technologies are among the most sophisticated concepts that have the potential of transforming the current material processing practices. Findings The objective of this paper is identifying the fundamental features of an intelligent DED platform, capable of handling the science and operational aspects of the advanced AM applications. Consequently, we introduce and discuss a novel robotic AM system, designed for processing metals and alloys such as aluminium alloys, high-strength steels, stainless steels, titanium alloys, magnesium alloys, nickel-based superalloys and other metallic alloys for various applications. A few demonstrators are presented and briefly discussed, to present the usefulness of the introduced system and underlying concept. The main design objective of the presented intelligent robotic AM system is to implement a design-and-produce strategy. This means that the system should allow the user to focus on the knowledge-based tasks, e.g. the tasks of designing the part, material selection, simulating the deposition process and anticipating the metallurgical properties of the final part, as the rest would be handled automatically. Research limitations/implications This paper reviews a few AM technologies, where robotics is a central part of the process, such as vat photopolymerization, material jetting, binder jetting, material extrusion, powder bed fusion, DED and sheet lamination. This paper aims to influence the development of robot-based AM systems for industrial applications such as part production, automotive, medical, aerospace and defence sectors. Originality/value The presented intelligent system is an original development that is designed and built by the co-authors J. Norberto Pires, Amin S. Azar and Trayana Tankova.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chien-Ho Ko

Purpose Additive manufacturing of concrete (AMoC) is an emerging technology for constructing buildings. However, due to the nature of the concrete property and constructing buildings in layers, constraints and limitations are encountered while applying AMoC in architecture. This paper aims to analyze the constraints and limitations that may be encountered while using AMoC in architecture. Design/methodology/approach A descriptive research approach is used to conduct this study. First, basic notions of AMoC are introduced. Then, challenges of AMoC, including hardware, material property, control and design, are addressed. Finally, strategies that may be used to overcome the challenges are discussed. Findings Factors influencing the success of AMoC include hardware, material, control methods, manufacturing process and design. Considering these issues in the early design phase is crucial to achieving a successful computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) integration to bring CAD and CAM benefits into the architecture industry. Originality/value In three-dimensional (3D) printing, objects are constructed layer by layer. Printing results are thus affected by the additive method (such as toolpath) and material properties (such as tensile strength and slump). Although previous studies attempt to improve AMoC, most of them focus on the manufacturing process. However, a successful application of AMoC in architecture needs to consider the possible constraints and limitations of concrete 3D printing. So far, research on the potential challenges of applying AMoC in architecture from a building lifecycle perspective is still limited. The study results of this study could be used to improve design and construction while applying AMoC in architecture.


Author(s):  
Haichao Wang ◽  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Xiaolong Zhang ◽  
Changwei Ren ◽  
Xiaoxi Wang ◽  
...  

Feature recognition is an important technology of computer-aided design/computer-aided engineering/computer-aided process planning/computer-aided manufacturing integration in cast-then-machined part manufacturing. Graph-based approach is one of the most popular feature recognition methods; however, it cannot still solve concave-convex mixed interacting feature recognition problem, which is a common problem in feature recognition of cast-then-machined parts. In this study, an oriented feature extraction and recognition approach is proposed for concave-convex mixed interacting features. The method first extracts predefined features directionally according to the rules generated from attributed adjacency graphs–based feature library and peels off them from part model layer by layer. Sub-features in an interacting feature are associated via hints and organized as a feature tree. The time cost is reduced to less than [Formula: see text] by eliminating subgraph isomorphism and matching operations. Oriented feature extraction and recognition approach recognizes non-freeform-surface features directionally regardless of the part structure. Hence, its application scope can be extended to multiple kinds of non-freeform-surface parts by customizing. Based on our findings, implementations on prismatic, plate, fork, axlebox, linkage, and cast-then-machined parts prove that the proposed approach is applicable on non-freeform-surface parts and effectively recognize concave-convex mixed interacting feature in various mechanical parts.


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