I-Corps: Improved Approach to Polymer Sintering

I-Corps：改进的聚合物烧结方法

• 批准号: 1744591
• 负责人: Nathan Crane
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of South Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1744591&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Improved; Approach; Polymer; Sintering

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will increase American manufacturing competitiveness and open new product opportunities. The technology has the potential to expand the application space for 3D printing by removing current limitations on materials, achievable properties, and processing speed. This will allow users to customize parts to user needs and reduce lead times for industries from medical devices to aerospace, to consumer products. There are many opportunities in the 3D printing industry because it is rapidly growing (15-20% per year). The new approaches to manufacturing are transforming a wide variety of industries despite many pressing technical issues that remain. The technology behind this project can open new markets/industries for these technologies by addressing some of the critical limitations.This I-Corps project will evaluate a modified process for additive manufacturing (3D Printing) with polymers from a powder feedstock. This is typically done by scanning the powder bed with a laser to locally fuse the powder particles together. An alternative method is developed here that allows for economical fusing of the powder over longer time periods. Current laser-based methods are constrained to utilizing a few specialized material types due to the process constraints. While these work for many applications, there are many applications that require specialized materials that cannot be used in the current additive manufacturing methods. This technology has the potential to expand the range of materials that can be successfully processed. Additionally, the material properties produced by current methods are reduced relative to those obtained using traditional approaches such as injection molding.

该I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将增加美国制造业的竞争力并开放新产品机会。 该技术有可能通过消除当前对材料，可实现属性和处理速度的限制来扩大3D打印的应用空间。 这将使用户可以根据用户需求自定义零件，并减少从医疗设备到航空航天到消费产品的行业的交货时间。 3D印刷行业有很多机会，因为它正在迅速增长（每年15-20％）。 尽管存在许多紧迫的技术问题，但新的制造方法正在改变各种各样的行业。 该项目背后的技术可以通过解决一些关键限制来为这些技术开放新的市场/行业。此I-Corps项目将与粉末原料中的聚合物一起评估添加剂制造（3D打印）的修改过程。这通常是通过用激光扫描粉末床以将粉末颗粒局部融合在一起的。 这里开发了一种替代方法，可以在更长的时间内经济地融合粉末。 由于过程限制，当前基于激光的方法限制了使用一些专用材料类型。 尽管这些适用于许多应用程序，但许多应用程序需要专门的材料，这些材料在当前的添加剂制造方法中无法使用。 该技术有可能扩大可以成功处理的材料范围。 此外，相对于使用传统方法（例如注射成型）获得的材料特性降低了。