Active-mixing printhead for on-the-fly composition adjustment of multi component materials in Direct Ink Writing

authored by

Simon Teves, Tobias Biermann, Arved Ziebehl, Gerrit Eckert, Björn Ole Hill, Panpan Xia, Merve Wollweber, Tammo Ripken, Nadja-Carola Bigall, Roland Johann Lachmayer

Abstract

Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing (MMAM) enables the grading of material properties and the integration of functions within printed parts. While most MMAM methods are limited to process single-component or pre-mixed multi-component materials, the in-process mixing and extrusion of multi-component materials enables innovative material properties and use cases. When processing liquid multi-component materials, the individual component streams need to be homogenized in-process, but the required volume in conventional passive mixing hinders rapid transitions in material composition. In this paper, a two component printhead is presented which combines an active mixing approach with a continuous composition adjustment for a third additive. The approach to control the mixing composition is to influence the hydrodynamic equilibrium of individual material streams before merging them near the point of extrusion. The printhead's functionality is verified in terms of mixing homogeneity and transition speed between material compositions.

Organisation(s)

PhoenixD: Photonics, Optics, and Engineering - Innovation Across Disciplines
Institute of Motion Engineering and Mechanism Design
School for Additive Manufacturing
Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry

External Organisation(s)

Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH)

Type

Article

Journal

Additive Manufacturing Letters

Volume

10

Publication date

07.2024

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addlet.2024.100217 (Access: Open)