Abstract
3D printing has become commonplace for the manufacturing of objects with unusual geometries. Recent developments that enabled printing of multiple materials indicate that the technology can potentially offer a much wider design space beyond unusual shaping. Here we show that a new dimension in this design space can be exploited through the control of the orientation of anisotropic particles used as building blocks during a direct ink-writing process. Particle orientation control is demonstrated by applying low magnetic fields on deposited inks pre-loaded with magnetized stiff platelets. Multimaterial dispensers and a two-component mixing unit provide additional control over the local composition of the printed material. The five-dimensional design space covered by the proposed multimaterial magnetically assisted 3D printing platform (MM-3D printing) opens the way towards the manufacturing of functional heterogeneous materials with exquisite microstructural features thus far only accessible by biological materials grown in nature.
Highlights
The unprecedented three-dimensional (3D) shaping capabilities of additive manufacturing technologies have long been exploited for rapid prototyping[1,2] and more recently have influenced fields as diverse as medicine[3], anthropology[4] and design[5]
We highlight that the development of this new printing platform and its use to fabricate 3D self-shaping objects strongly relied on a fundamental understanding of (i) the relation between ink rheology and the shape distortion of filaments, (ii) the dynamics of the alignment of anisotropic particles under an external magnetic field and (iii) the correlation between shape changes in swelling objects and the geometry and properties of their constituent materials
MM-3D printing set-up and ink formulation. 5D programmability is achieved by utilizing inks consisting of magnetically responsive anisotropic stiff particles suspended in a light-sensitive liquid resin of tunable composition
Summary
The unprecedented three-dimensional (3D) shaping capabilities of additive manufacturing technologies have long been exploited for rapid prototyping[1,2] and more recently have influenced fields as diverse as medicine[3], anthropology[4] and design[5]. Inspired by the elaborate heterogeneous architectures found in natural materials, we propose an additive manufacturing route that enables programming and fabrication of synthetic microstructures within a five-dimensional design space. We first introduce the printing platform developed to enable 5D programmability This is followed by a description of the composition and rheology of inks formulated to allow for the fabrication of distortion-free 3D shapes. We highlight that the development of this new printing platform and its use to fabricate 3D self-shaping objects strongly relied on a fundamental understanding of (i) the relation between ink rheology and the shape distortion of filaments, (ii) the dynamics of the alignment of anisotropic particles under an external magnetic field and (iii) the correlation between shape changes in swelling objects and the geometry and properties of their constituent materials
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