We’re kicking things off with education in today’s briefs on 3D Printing, following a recent “Girl Meets AM” program for high school students. Moving on to business, ExLattice received a National Science Foundation SBIR Phase I award for accelerating engineering simulation for AM. On the materials side, Desktop Metal has qualified two Loctite materials for use with the Xtreme 8K, and researchers are 3D printing porous carbon materials from a dehydrated whey byproduct. Speaking of research, a team from NYU did a study on in situ monitoring of AM defects. Finally, a smart 3D-printed vent gives homeowners full control of their HVAC system.

A girl meets an additive manufacturing camp for high school students

Recently, Intrepid Automation, which develops technology solutions for industrial manufacturing, partnered with 501(c)3 nonprofit Greater Than Tech (GTT) and Collins Aerospace to offer a free four-day summer camp on additive manufacturing at the University of San Diego. GTT strives to immerse girls and underserved youth in business and STEM opportunities, and the Girl Meets AM camp, which was open to high school students in San Diego, focused on topics such as 3D printing, CAD modeling, cost-benefit analysis, DfAM and engineering. bases of industrial production. Engineering mentors were on hand and the girls had the opportunity to design, print and test their own parts, and on the last day of camp they presented their designs. The camp also provided food, goodie bags and travel vouchers.

“What’s important to me is being intentional with opportunities to open doors for young women of color into STEM and entrepreneurship. Collins Aerospace looks forward to continuing to create journeys like this to introduce and develop our future workforce,” said Stan Kottke, vice president and general manager of aerostructures for Collins Aerospace.

ExLattice Receives $250,000 SBIR Award from NSF

AI manufacturing company ExLattice, a software company founded in 2018 in North Carolina, announced that it had received a Phase I award from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue developing its accelerated simulation engine for additive manufacturing. ExLattice will use the grant to develop and validate ultra-fast manufacturing simulation solutions, in collaboration with several university partners. The overall goal is to reduce long computational steps and provide real-time engineering solutions so users can better understand, control, and improve AM systems and outcomes. America’s Seed Fund, powered by NSF and its $8.8 billion budget, awards $200 million a year to small businesses and startups; the grant received by ExLattice is valued at over $250,000.

“Receiving the NSF SBIR award is further proof of our vision for engineering software for digital manufacturing. The NSF SBIR grant not only provides us with the resources, but also a platform to collaborate with leading academic experts and great business partners to bring AI to manufacturing,” said Dr. Runze Huang, CEO of ExLattice.

Desktop Metal qualifies 2 Henkel Loctite materials on Xtreme 8K

The current partnership between Desktop Metal, Inc. (NYSE: DM) and Henkel, focused on the development of photopolymer materials, is expanding, beginning with the qualification of Henkel’s popular Loctite 3D IND405 Black and Loctite 3D 3843 for use on the ETEC Xtreme 8K. The materials are both strong, rigid and durable, with an excellent surface finish, while parts printed in IND405 also exhibit exceptional impact resistance. They are both already offered in the ETEC Envision One desktop DLP printer, but now they can be printed on the Xtreme 8K, which is the world’s largest DLP system for high-volume production of end-use parts, with a build area of ​​450 x 371 x 399 mm. The ability to print these reliable materials on the large top-down DLP platform will allow users to manufacture new part sizes and throughputs without the need for expensive tooling.

“Our team is thrilled to partner with Henkel and offer their Loctite materials on our truly differentiated DLP printing systems. By printing Loctite 3D IND405 HDT50 High Elongation and Loctite 3D 3843 HDT60 High Toughness on the ETEC Xtreme 8K, manufacturers will be able to produce on-demand end-use parts in all-new sizes and at higher throughputs that contribute to reduced performance. cost of the part. Plus, they won’t have to pay or wait for tools to get the job done cheaply,” said Desktop Metal Founder and CEO Ric Fulop.

3D printing of porous carbon structures from partially dehydrated whey

3D printing has been used to produce activated carbons, but thermoplastic materials that often use printed porous carbon precursors can lose their shape after carbonization. Researchers from the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología del Carbono (INCAR-CSIC), the University of Oviedo and the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias have published a research paper demonstrating the feasibility of printing 3D Porous Carbon Structures using partially dehydrated whey, which is a natural product produced annually in large quantities by the global dairy industry. Researchers hand-mixed varying proportions of distilled water and whey powders to create 3D-printable ink and paste, which were then used to easily print porous carbon structures like cylinders and prisms with a lattice infill using robocasting.

A modified CERAMBOT Pro system, with a 20 Ga plastic nozzle, was used to print the structures at 0.6 mm layer height and a print speed of 20 mm/s, at 20-22 ^ohC. The printed whey structures were dried and hardened, then carbonized in a ceramic reactor, and several of them were demineralized to reduce their ash content. To characterize and study the properties of the 3D-printed carbon structures, the researchers performed organic elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analyses, and energy-dispersive field-emission X-ray scanning electron microscopy (FESEM-EDX) analyses. They discovered that it was possible to use partially dehydrated whey as a carbon precursor to 3D print porous carbon structures using robocasting.

In situ monitoring examination of underground and internal AM faults

A pair of researchers from New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering published a paper that was a review of in situ monitoring of subsurface and internal defects in AF. 3D printing processes rely on a set of optimized, user-defined parameters to create components, and real-time monitoring and control of these processes can create a closed-loop process capable of achieving repeatability. and process stability by detecting and correcting faults. By integrating machine learning and monitoring methods into the AM process, users can continuously assess the quality of material deposition and offer more intervention methods to correct defects in situ. In this review, researchers review imaging and acoustic monitoring techniques that can track, analyze, and limit internal and subsurface defects that occur during printing, such as the simultaneous use of different printing methods. imagery.

“The imaging methods consist of visual and thermal monitoring techniques, such as optical cameras, infrared (IR) cameras and X-ray imaging. Many studies have been conducted that prove the reliability of the imaging methods. imaging in the monitoring of the printing process and the construction area, as well as in the detection of defects. Acoustic methods rely on acoustic sensing technologies and signal processing methods to acquire and analyze acoustic signals, respectively. Raw acoustic emission signals can be correlated to particular defect mechanisms using feature extraction methods. In this review, the representation and analysis of data acquired in situ from imaging and acoustic methods are discussed, as well as means of data processing. Ex-situ testing techniques are introduced as methods for verifying results obtained from in-situ monitoring data,” the abstract reads.

3D printed smart vents to control your home HVAC system

Finally, manufacturer Tony Brobston used 3D printing to design and develop a smart vent that dramatically improved his home heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The vent, which is available on Brobston’s GitHub repository under the reciprocal GNU Affero General Public License 3, is driven by a Wemos D1 Mini with Espressif ESP8266 microcontroller, DC Power Shield add-on, and Batan B2122 servo motor. The vent can be powered by battery, mains power via individual power supply or centralized 24V power supply, then connects to the local network. Depending on the MQTT messages the vent sends and receives, it will open or close to provide per-vent control over airflow. Brobston has 3D printed and tested vents in 2×10, 4×10, and 6×10 sizes, with plans to test 2×12, 4×12, and 6×12 versions in the future. The system has been designed to fit easily into existing smart homes, although this smart ventilation brain has some advice on that.

“It is recommended to install a static pressure control damper between the main return and the main plenum. This will equalize the static pressure that increases or decreases by opening or closing the vents,” Brobston said.

“If the previous recommendation is not possible, it may be possible to partially mitigate the static pressure issue by only closing the vents (which are in a closed state) to 80% closed when the number of closed vents is greater at 75%. This will be a feature implemented in mqtt-hvac-vent-control in the future.”