Recent Work

 

Recent work has focused on reducing the deformations during post-processing by locally reinforcing the body.  A suspension of nanoparticles is deposited in the porous skeleton and dried under controlled conditions to concentrate the nanoparticles in high stress regions of the component.

 

The nanoparticles sinter at moderate temperatures (<700 C) to form a strong reinforcing structure in the skeletons.   Our analysis shows that substantial carbon is deposited with the nanoparticles that plays a critical role in reducing the creep rates.

The suspensions of 10 nm iron nanoparticles form superlattice structures after drying.

Integration Laboratory

Schematic of Basic 3D Printing Process

Overview

3D printing is a manufacturing process in which powder is built up layer by layer to form a 3D part.  The geometry in each layer is held together by ink jet printing a binder into the powder.  After printing, the part is removed from the powder and post-processed to achieve final material properties.

 

Nanoparticle treatments reduced the deformation of the top bar more than 95% relative to the untreated bar (bottom).

3D Printing