Additive Manufacturing of Multi-Material and Composite Parts

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology can be employed to produce multimaterial parts. In this approach, multiple types of materials are used for the fabrication of a single part. Custom-built functionally graded, heterogeneous, or porous structures and composite materials can be fabricated thorough this process. In this method, metals, plastics, and ceramics have been used with suitable AM methods to obtain multi-material products depending on functional requirements. The process of making composite materials by AM can either be performed during the material deposition process or by a hybrid process in which the combination of different materials can be performed before or after AM as a previous or subsequent stage of production of a component. Composite processes can be employed to produce functionally graded materials (FGM).

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Ceramic-Based 4D Components: Additive Manufacturing (AM) of Ceramic-Based Functionally Graded Materials (FGM) by Thermoplastic 3D Printing (T3DP)

Materials ◽

10.3390/ma10121368 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 1368 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Uwe Scheithauer ◽

Steven Weingarten ◽

Robert Johne ◽

Eric Schwarzer ◽

Johannes Abel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Additive Manufacturing ◽

3D Printing ◽

Functionally Graded Materials ◽

Functionally Graded ◽

Graded Materials

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Approximate Functionally Graded Materials for Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing

Volume 1A: 38th Computers and Information in Engineering Conference ◽

10.1115/detc2018-86391 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yuen-Shan Leung ◽

Huachao Mao ◽

Yong Chen

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Properties ◽

Additive Manufacturing ◽

Functionally Graded Materials ◽

Functionally Graded ◽

Gradual Transition ◽

Material Distribution ◽

Graded Materials ◽

Base Materials ◽

Multiple Materials ◽

Am Processes

Functionally graded materials (FGM) possess superior properties of multiple materials due to the continuous transitions of these materials. Recent progresses in multi-material additive manufacturing (AM) processes enable the creation of arbitrary material composition, which significantly enlarges the manufacturing capability of FGMs. At the same time, the fabrication capability also introduces new challenges for the design of FGMs. A critical issue is to create the continuous material distribution under the fabrication constraints of multi-material AM processes. Using voxels to approximate gradient material distribution could be one plausible way for additive manufacturing. However, current FGM design methods are non-additive-manufacturing-oriented and unpredictable. For instance, some designs require a vast number of materials to achieve continuous transitions; however, the material choices that are available in a multi-material AM machine are rather limited. Other designs control the volume fraction of two materials to achieve gradual transition; however, such transition cannot be functionally guaranteed. To address these issues, we present a design and fabrication framework for FGMs that can efficiently and effectively generate printable and predictable FGM structures. We adopt a data-driven approach to approximate the behavior of FGM using two base materials. A digital material library is constructed with different combinations of the base materials, and their mechanical properties are extracted by Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The mechanical properties are then used for the conversion process between the FGM and the dual material structure such that similar behavior is guaranteed. An error diffusion algorithm is further developed to minimize the approximation error. Simulation results on four test cases show that our approach is robust and accurate, and the framework can successfully design and fabricate such FGM structures.

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