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3D Printing News Briefs: September 27, 2018

We’re starting with some news from the ongoing TCT Show in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and then moving on to webcasts and YouTube videos, finishing with an update on the upcoming Viaggio a Shamballa event by WASP. At the TCT Show, AMFG has unveiled its new Supplier Integration Network. An applications engineer from Fisher Unitech conducted a webcast about using Lean Six Sigma Manufacturing to optimize additive manufacturing, a Technical University of Denmark professor talked about the possibilities of topology optimization for 3D printing, and a Boeing engineer discussed 3D printing in the aeronautics industry. Finally,  we’re getting ever closer to the date that WASP will publicly present its Crane construction 3D printer, and the village it’s building, in Massa Lombarda, Italy.

AMFG Introducing Supplier Integration Network at TCT Show

At the TCT Show, which continues in Birmingham through this Thursday, AM automation software provider AMFG is unveiling the newest feature in its software platform: the Supplier Integration Network, which lets manufacturers coordinate their AM supply chain network and automate production. With the Supplier Integration Network, manufacturers can outsource production or post-processing to their suppliers, and suppliers and service bureaus can use it to give OEMs easier access to their services. The company believes that this latest feature will make its portfolio more attractive to manufacturers looking to invest in 3D printing.

“Manufacturers are looking to scale their additive production effectively and we’re committed to giving them the software infrastructure to do so. Facilitating greater connectivity between all players along the supply chain, through automation, is a large part of this,” said Keyvan Karimi, CEO of AMFG. “Our vision with the Supplier Integration Network is also to help companies achieve truly distributed manufacturing by providing a greater level of connectivity along the supply chain through our platform. Of course, the Supplier Integration Network feature is designed to be used in conjunction with our other AM solutions, from project management to production planning and more.”

To see this new automation platform for yourself, visit AMFG at Stand J42 at the TCT Show.

Fisher Unitech Webcast: Optimizing Additive with Lean Six Sigma Manufacturing

3D printer and 3D product development software provider Fisher Unitech, a distributor of MakerBot and Nano Dimension 3D printers, is on a mission to advance manufacturing in America by supporting, delivering, and training customers on the best software and manufacturing solutions. Recently, Gerald Matarazzo, a 3D Printing Application Engineer with the company, as well as a Certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, recorded a webcast all about using the Lean Six Sigma methodology to optimize additive manufacturing. During the webcast, Matarazzo introduces viewers to some Lean Six Sigma best practices, tips, tools, and tricks to help 3D printing companies stop getting hung up on costly delays.

“I want to be very clear – this presentation is meant for managers, not analysts,” Matarazzo explains in the webcast. “What that basically means is, once again, we’re going to be going over management tools, optimization, and tips and tricks on how to better manage a team or better manage a fleet of machines.”

Watch the 30-minute webcast below to learn more:

Topology Optimization Possibilities for 3D Printing

In a new YouTube video posted by Simuleon, a reseller of Dassault Systèmes SIMULIA products, you can see an interview with Ole Sigmund, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the keynote speaker at Dassault’s Additive Manufacturing Symposium, which opened this year’s popular Science in the Age of Experience event. Sigmund is one of the inventors of topology optimization, a mathematical approach that optimizes material layout within a given design space. It allows designers to take advantage of the geometrical freedoms possible through 3D printing. In the video, Sigmund discusses the possibilities of topology optimization, and infill technologies, for additive manufacturing.

“So essentially additive manufacturing offers ultimate freedom for manufacturing but they don’t know how to come up with these optimal parts. And on the other hand, topology optimization uses this ultimate freedom to come up with parts that are optimized for specific load cases and extreme situations. And so topology optimization provides the designs to additive manufacturing and additive manufacturing makes it possible to realize the designs coming from topology optimization, so that is an ideal marriage.”

3D Printing in the Aeronautics Industry

At this summer’s EAA Oshkosh AirVenture aviation event in Wisconsin, Boeing structures researcher Bernardo Malfitano delivered an hour-long talk about the use of 3D printing in the aeronautics industry. Understanding Airplanes recently published the YouTube video of the talk, along with the presentation slides. The Boeing researcher’s talk discussed the history of aviation companies using common 3D printing methods like SLA and FFF, how the the technology is currently used in the aerospace industry, and the ongoing research that will introduce even more applications in the future, such as surface smoothing and fatigue testing. The presentation also shows dozens of 3D printed parts that are currently in use on aircraft by companies and organizations like Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and NASA.

“I should probably specify that this isn’t really 3D printing for home builders, because I’m mostly gonna talk about more advanced technologies and more expensive 3D printers,” Malfitano said at the beginning of his talk. “I’m gonna talk about 3D printers that can print metal parts that cost millions of dollars.”

You can watch the whole presentation in the video below:

Viaggio a Shamballa Event by WASP Coming Soon

The versatile Italian company WASP, or the World’s Advanced Saving Project, has spent the last two years developing a new large-scale construction 3D printer called the Crane, a modular system consisting of multiple print bodies that’s evolved from the BigDelta 12M. In less than two weeks, WASP will be presenting the Crane to the public in Massa Lombarda, which is where the village of Shamballa is being 3D printed. On October 6th and 7th, a program will be held surrounding the introduction of the WASP Crane 3D printer and the Gaia Module 3D printed earth house. The conference “A call to save the world” will open the event, focusing on future 3D printing construction developments and proposing themes for reflection on both design strategy and the technology’s potential in architecture.

“Knowledge applied to common good. If we use digital manufacturing techniques to respond to the basic human needs, we start up a real hope and this will be the guiding thread of “A call to save the world”. A home is undoubtedly a primary need and WASP’s mission has always been to develop processes and tools to allow men, wherever they are, to build 3D printed houses with material found on site and at a cost that tends to zero,” WASP wrote in a press release.

“The WASP call is addressed to all those who want to collaborate and spread the new construction techniques, with the final aim to create a better world. Representatives of international organizations involved in architectural research, such as IaaC (Institute Advanced Architecture Catalunya, ES), XtreeE (FR), D-Shape (IT), Emerging Objects (USA), will take part in the meeting.”

Check out the complete program here.

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Bally Ribbon Mills Develops Film Infusion Capability for 3D Woven Joints

3D weaving. Gao et al. ©2017 American Chemical Society

I remember a long-term elementary school art project I participated in once that involved students weaving small bits of fabric together on a loom in order to make brightly colored textile objects that could only be described as ugly rugs for guinea pigs – that’s how little they were. I hated the tedious project, and hoped I would never have to hear about weaving ever again. I didn’t really, as it wasn’t a topic that came up often, until I first heard the term 3D weaving.

A weave is a pattern of intersecting warp and filling yarn; weaving, then, is the process of interlacing two kinds of of similar materials so they cross each other at right angles to produce woven fabric. 3D weaving works kind of like traditional 3D printing, and interlaces the material in layers to build a 3D textile object. One interesting method of 3D weaving, developed by Eindhoven Design Academy graduate Fransje Grimbere, coats a woven textile structure with resin to make a solid structure.

Pennsylvania-based company Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM) designs, develops, and manufactures specialized engineered woven fabrics, tapes, webbing, preforms, and both 2D and 3D structural fabrics. The company has nearly 100 years of experience in textile manufacturing, and works with applications in multiple fields, including aerospace, automotive, commercial, defense, industrial, medical, and safety.

Over the years, BRM has earned itself a well-deserved reputation for meeting difficult design challenges, including 3D continuous weaving. The company’s Advanced Products Group has developed the necessary technologies to fabricate complex 3D woven structures, like “Pi – π,” double “T,” “H,” and other net shapes.

“We make it a regular practice to take what was previously unattainable and make it a reality,” BRM says on its website. “If you’re looking for a new structure, or new ways to lower weight and cost without sacrificing integrity and performance, look no further than 3-D woven joints from Bally Ribbon Mills.”

This week, BRM has announced its new, unique film infusion capabilities for 3D woven joints, which can help its customers save processing steps. These complex 3D structures are mainly used in the aerospace field, and are custom made to fit the application – typically in airframe structural components and subassemblies, like joints and stiffeners.

BRM’s new film infusion process works like this: the company infuses a frozen film or sheet of resin onto one of its custom 3D woven joints. It can do this with a variety of different resins, and the capability allows the company to ensure consistent quality control for its products, as it can control more of the steps of the 3D woven joint assembly manufacturing process.

By developing this unique process, BRM’s customers won’t have to infuse the resin onto the 3D woven joints themselves once they’re delivered. By using film infusion, the company can actually ship its 3D woven joints as pre-made assemblies. By saving on processing steps that require specialized machinery, extra time, and work, customers can also enjoy extra cost savings as well.

One of BRM’s other capabilities is its 3D quasi-isotropical (0°, 90°, ±45°) near-net-shapes, which can be automatically woven using its computerized 3D Bias Loom.

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3D Printing News Briefs: September 8, 2018

We’re starting out with a lot of business news in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and then finishing up with something cool (pun intended) to get you through the weekend. Link3D launched its new Production Planning System for AM workflows, Carbon has a new medical-grade material, and there’s new 3D printed footwear on Kickstarter. Several US sleep experts have joined the Oventus medical advisory board, HP’s MJF technology is being used to make assemblies, and GKN Aerospace is improving its production times with Stratasys technology. Bradley Systems has suggested using its Yellow Magic 7 to clean your SLA 3D printers. Finally, a mechanical engineer and 3D printing blogger has created a retro air cooler.

Link3D Launches Production Planning System

New York City-based Link3D, which offers a centralized software platform for the industrial 3D printing workflow over external or internal additive manufacturing, has just announced the availability of its Production Planning System (PPS) and Advanced Build Simulation. PPS, an AM scheduling solution meant to enhance the company’s software for shop managers and application engineers, can further optimize AM workflows, helping 3D printers to run more efficiently and automate various tasks, like tracing and tracking a build’s genealogy, planning out each step of a build, managing scheduling, facility capacity, and production dispatching, and forecasting accurate production lead times.

“Our comprehensive predictive models are made to forecast AM production and costing outputs by accounting for labor, hardware model, AM technology, post-processing and including material science variables like specific gravity and viscosity. Link3D PPS utilizes machine learning algorithms to make recommendations for placing work orders on the correct machines based on machine availability to achieve real-time distributed manufacturing,” said Shane Fox, the CEO and Co-Founder of Link3D.

Link3D PPS will use blockchain technology to trace and track all of the data logged and generated, so organizations can validate and certify their production processes.

Carbon Introduces New Medical-Grade Material

This week, Carbon announced the launch of its first medical-grade 3D printing material, a two-part, white polymer resin called Medical Polyurethane 100 (MPU 100). The material is made for drug- and skin-contact devices, medical system components, single-use medical device, and surgical instrument applications. The material is sterilizable, biocompatible and has good mechanical strength. MPU 100 has good abrasion resistance, is compatible with common disinfectants, and works with the company’s Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) technology to produce rigid, isotropic plastic parts.

“The life sciences and medical device industries show enormous promise for using 3D printing for production at scale, and we will continue to prioritize the development of next-generation materials in this segment,” said Jason Rolland, Vice President of Materials at Carbon.

Carbon is offering MPU 100 in 800 ML cartridges to its customers in Europe, the US, and Canada. You can learn more about the new medical-grade material at Carbon’s booth #431505 in the West Hall at IMTS 2018 next week.

Unis Brands Starts 3D Printed Footwear Kickstarter

Earlier this week, Unis Brands began a Kickstarter campaign for its line of user-customizable, 3D printed footwear. The line includes two different styles of sandals: the U-Straps and the U-Slides, both of which will be available, in limited quantities, to early campaign backers for just $75 and $100, as opposed to the regular retail price of $140. The 3D printed U-Straps and U-Slides offer custom sizing, as customers provide the exact length and width measurements of each foot. The sandals are made with flexible 3D printing filament for a comfortable fit, and each one has five components, including the logo, buttons, cushion, upper, and midsole, that can be customized with different patterns and colors.

Unis said, “After getting my start in footwear by taking popular sneakers apart, customizing them, putting them back together and then selling them on eBay, I’m excited to announce my first line of sandals on Kickstarter. With five different user-customizable areas, and with individually 3D-printed shoes based on each customer’s exact foot measurements, we are creating footwear that is truly one-of-a-kind.”

All of the company’s recyclable shoes are made in the US on 3D printers designed and built by CEO and founder Nicholas Unis.

US Sleep Experts Join Oventus Medical Advisory Board

Brisbane medical device company Oventus, known for its FDA-approved, 3D printed sleep apnea device, recently announced that it had appointed a Medical Technology Advisory Board (MTAB) of international sleep experts. The board will assist and guide the company on the development and commercialization of its Sleep Treatment Platform. The MTAB, a US-based consultative advisory body, will report to Oventus CEO Dr. Chris Hart, and provide guidance and input into the company’s clinical, developmental, and commercial strategy, which is currently focused on introducing its products to the US.

The following top sleep physicians and advisors in the US have been appointed to the Oventus MTAB for a three year term, which is renewable by mutual agreement:

  • Lee A. Surkin, MD, FAASM
  • Richard K. Bogan, MD, FCCP, FAASM
  • Jerry Kram, MD, FAASM
  • Mark Hickey, MD, FAASM
  • Mark A. Rasmus, MD, FAASM
  • Daniel B. Brown, Esq
  • Myra G. Brown

Aerosport Modeling & Design Making Assemblies with HP’s MJF Technology

HP MJF PA12 Nylon Butterfly Valve Assembly

Ohio-based 3D printing service bureau Aerosport Modeling and Design, which has been producing high-quality prototypes, working models, machined parts, and appearance models since 1996, adopted HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology nearly a year ago.

The company uses MJF 3D printing to fabricate assemblies, such as a Butterfly Valve one made of PA 12 Nylon. The original assembly came in 30 pieces and took half an hour to assemble. But by using HP’s 3D printing technology to make it, the total number of pieces was reduced to just four, with only three minutes of assembly. This helped Aerosport lower its production costs by 70%, and its production time by an astonishing 90%.

GKN Aerospace Improving Production Times with Stratasys 3D Printing

3D printed tooling made on the Stratasys F900 Production 3D Printer.

This week, Stratasys announced that GKN Aerospace, which serves over 90% of the world’s aircraft and engine manufacturers, is removing design constraints and improving production times for many tooling applications after integrating 3D printing at its Filton manufacturing site. In an effort to lower lead times for production-line tools and create complex parts that can’t be completed with traditional manufacturing, GKN Aerospace invested in a Stratasys F900 Production 3D printer. This decision helped the company achieve “unprecedented levels of design freedom,” as well as a 40% decrease in material waste; production has also gone from several weeks to only a few hours.

Tim Hope, Additive Manufacturing Center Manager at GKN Aerospace, said, “Since integrating the F900, we have dramatically reduced production-line downtime for certain teams and are enjoying a newfound freedom to design complex tools.

“We can now cost-effectively produce tools for our operators within three hours. This saves critical production time, and by printing in engineering-grade thermoplastics, we can produce 3D printed tools with repeatable, predictable quality every time. All while matching the quality of a traditionally-produced tool, and reducing the costs and concessions compared to equivalent metallic tooling.”

Bradley Systems Wants You to Clean Your SLA 3D Printer with Yellow Magic 7

If you’ve got an SLA 3D printer that needs a good cleaning, Bradley Systems, Inc. wants you to consider using its Yellow Magic 7 (YM7) cleaner, as opposed to Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA), which is also called isopropanol and dimethyl carbinol. The company first heard about people using its cleaner, which was originally formulated as a flexo UV ink and varnish cleaner for printing human and pet food packaging, to clean parts for SLA 3D printers on a Formlabs forum, and has since started offering 1 gallon jugs of YM7 on Amazon…and this decision is garnering it some pretty positive reviews.

“Until now, IPA has been the go-to cleaner for this application because it gets the job done. The downside is that IPA is a flammable chemical compound with a strong odor. This means you’ve got to make sure you’re wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and storing it properly so you don’t accidentally blow yourself up. As for the smell… well there’s not much you can do there,” the company wrote in a blog post.

YM7, unlike IPA, is biodegradable, non-toxic, and has little odor. It’s not a fire hazard, as it’s water based, and it also performs well in an ultrasonic cleaner. It’s also versatile enough to clean a multitude of different 3D printer parts and accessories, like rollers and rubber pads.

“So, what we’re seeing so far is that you can still get the job done using Yellow Magic 7 without the stink or the potential of blowing up your co-workers or family. Which is nice.”

Mechanical Engineer Builds 3D Printed Retro Air Conditioner

While 3D printing is a relatively modern technology, it can be fun to use it to recreate your favorite retro items from the past, like arcade games, original Apple computers, FM radios, and television sets…even scuba helmets! A mechanical engineer named Juan, who owns a YouTube channel and blog titled Govaju 3D Printing, has worked in the 3D printing world for eight years, 3D printing is not only his work, but also his hobby and passion. Recently, Juan decided to get back to the past by creating a 3D printed retro item of his own.

“I recently created this video of a project that I’ve been working on for a few months, it’s a retro air conditioner,” Juan told 3DPrint.com. “It is printed 100% in 3D with the lulzbot taz 6 and with wood filament and PLA.”

Take a look at the video to see the project come together!

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3D Printing News Briefs: August 28, 2018

We’re talking about business, cool products, and events in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, followed by a how-to video on smoothing your 3D prints and a student competition project. Nano Dimension has sold two of its DragonFly Pro 3D printers to separate branches of the US military, while AIO Robotics has introduced its new silicone drawing mat for 3D printing pens. A 3D printing and design company offered a sneak peek of a new 3D printed golf product, and Rize plans to demonstrate its technology at the upcoming IMTS show. A YouTube video explains how to smooth your 3D prints using automotive primer, and Ogle Models helped a university team complete its prototype for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Challenge.

Nano Dimension Sells Two More DragonFly Pro 3D Printers

Israeli additive electronics provider Nano Dimension announced this week that it sold two of its industrial DragonFly 2020 Pro PCB 3D printers to two different branches of the United States Armed Forces. The 3D printer sales were closed by Fathom and TriMech Solutions, two of the company’s top US value added-resellers. This news comes just two months after the company became a certified vendor for the DoD with its Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) code, which means it can pursue and conduct business directly with the US Federal Government and its agencies.

“Nano Dimension continues to strengthen its position in the U.S. market, particularly in the U.S. defense sector. These sales to tier one customers demonstrate the attractiveness of our additive manufacturing solution,” said Simon Fried, President of Nano Dimension USA. “The ability to create functional circuit prototypes quickly and securely in-house is a key factor in the increasing adoption of our solution in the multi-billion-dollar U.S. defense sector. Nano Dimension’s DragonFly Pro 3D Printer makes it possible to 3D print radically new designs and improve workflows by leveraging the agility of additive manufacturing. The defense sector is highly motivated to enable additive manufacturing in the field by bypassing traditional manufacturing processes.”

AIO Robotics Introduces Silicone Drawing Mat

High-tech startup AIO Robotics, creator of the ZEUS All-In-One 3D Printer, is introducing its latest innovation – a silicone mat perfect for drawing on with your favorite 3D printing pen. The mat, made out of premium, heat-resistant silicone material, is available on Amazon for just $12.99, though you can save 10% on the mat when you also purchase one AIO Pen or an AIO Pen Filament.

The Silicone Mat for 3D Pen Drawing is perfect for many materials, including PLA, ABS, and PETG, and can be used for simplified but high-precision 3D drawing of grids, circles, and rectangular shapes. When you purchase the mat, you will also receive two free silicone finger protectors, which allow you to safely and easily remove filament from a hot 3D pen tip.

3D Printed Golf Ball Accessory

3D printing and design company Two Brothers 3D Printing Solutions, based in Massachusetts, offers consulting, 3D printing, and CAD services, and also works hard to, as its website states, “showcase the incredible and affordable technology that is 3D printing.”

“Over the past 4 years, brothers Ryan and Tyler Stacy have spent countless hours learning the ins and outs of 3D printing. Over that time, the two have been able to use 3D printing to create solutions for many different areas; from power tools to prosthetics, replacement parts, birthday gifts, and quite literally, anything in between.”

Earlier this week, the company posted its latest unique 3D printed solution on Twitter – a moveable contraption, called a TeeMate, used to pick up golf balls so golfers do not have to bend down to do it themselves. Fore!

Rize to Showcase Its Technology at IMTS

At the upcoming IMTS 2018 show, 3D printing company Rize will be showcasing its technology at the booth belonging to Fuji Machine America Corporation. Rize makes industrial 3D printing safe and easy with its Rize One hybrid 3D printer, and can produce parts that have best-in-class strength in all axes. Additionally, thanks to its unique ink marking capability, the company also provides what it calls “the industry’s only Digitally Augmented Part capability for traceability and compliance.”

At IMTS 2018, representatives from Rize and its authorized reseller, Dynamic Machine, will demonstrate the technology’s quick and clean support removal, and explain how the company’s industrial 3D printing can be combined with Fuji’s comprehensive automated manufacturing solutions in order to provide significant cost and time advantages. Come see the Rize One for yourself, and get all your questions answered, at Fuji’s booth #339059 at the IMTS 2018 show, September 10-15 at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Smooth 3D Prints with Automotive Primer

We’ve seen people smooth their 3D prints with epoxy and with acetone, but this is a new one – automotive primer. Youtuber gordontarpley recently published a video about how well it works to smooth your 3D prints with 2k automotive primer, saying that it’s been his “main method for the last few months.”

“I get asked all the time, ‘How do you clean up your 3D prints?’ and the method always varies. So I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to make a video about that,” Tarpley said.

“Most of the time I go straight from a 3D print…and I will just start with primer. Primer paint and then I’ll paint a layer, sand it, paint, sand, over and over until it looks smooth.”

Tarpley said that’s he learned some valuable information about the primers in this way. To learn more about smoothing your 3D prints with automotive primer, check out the video below:

3D Printed Prototype for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Challenge

Prototyping company Ogle Models and Prototypes has a history of helping student university teams with their competition projects. Recently, the company worked with a team from University College London (UCL) to create an unmanned aircraft prototype for their entry in the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Challenge, which is held by the Institutions of Mechanical Engineers and designed to develop and inspire the next generation of engineers.

The student team had to design, manufacture, and operate an unmanned aircraft that could complete several tasks simulating a humanitarian mission. The team ran into some issues – in order to endure wind tunnel testing, their prototype would need pressure taps in order to sample air distribution across it. So they called on Ogle for assistance, which recommended SLA 3D printing for the job so they could lower costs by building the taps within the model.

“The accuracy of industrial SLA ensured that the complex geometry of the scaled-down aerodynamic surfaces was replicated with precision. For clarity reasons, the team chose ClearVue resin, which allowed the pressure tapping pathways to be seen on the finished model,” explained Matt White, Senior Sales Engineer at Ogle.

“UCL is regarded as one of the best institutions in the country when it comes to training tomorrow’s mechanical engineers and we were only too happy to help when the team approached us.”

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3D Printed Container Holds Student Experiments Ready to Go to Space

Enterprise In Space (EIS) is an educational program run by the nonprofit National Space Society. Last year, it ran a competition called Print the Future, in which university student teams were given the chance to 3D print experiments on the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) aboard the International Space Station. Now EIS is sending more student experiments into space, and you can watch the launch when it happens this Saturday at 1:00 PM ET. The livestream will be available on the EXOS YouTube channel.

EXOS conducts a hover test of the SARGE rocket in March. [Image: EXOS Aerospace]

The student experiments, as well as additional research experiments, will fly into space aboard a reusable rocket, an EXOS Aerospace SARGE test flight.

“Reusable rocket technology makes it possible to cut the launch waiting period for a payload dramatically, while also reducing costs,” said EXOS Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer John Quinn. “This lowers the barriers for the types of NewSpace education experiments made possible by Enterprise In Space (EIS).”

The EIS experiments were created at the Grand Center Arts Academy (GCAA) in St. Louis, Missouri. EIS worked with GCAA’s Andrew Goodinn and 24 students from his “Building Creative Confidence” class. Experiments include using the heat of space to melt crayons into space art, as well as determining the effects of the space environment on maple tree seeds that will be planted on Earth when they return from space. The class 3D printed a container to house the experiments. In less than two months, they 3D printed a cube housing and drop tested it to make sure that it would survive its trip on the rocket.

Several other experiments will be onboard the rocket as well. The Center for Applied Space Technology (CAST)-sponsored Biological Research in Canister (BRIC) experiment includes nine Petri dishes containing biological material, which are expected to have both terrestrial and long-duration space flight applications. BRIC supports two proof-of-concept projects in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic of Florida Space Medicine program. These include a passive flight crew monitoring system and an organ on a chip experiment.

EXOS is hosting the Enterprise In Space and CAST payloads as an in-kind contribution.

“This is the first of many anticipated suborbital research space flights,” said Shawn Case, EIS Founder and Chairman of the EIS Board. “Our goal is to inspire the next generation of future astronauts and space explorers by doing valuable scientific experiments in space. The experiments going up with the SARGE rocket look at some really cutting-edge science, and we’re thrilled to be able to launch the educational payload for Goodin’s class.”

EIS plans to work with EXOS in the future to develop an educational K-12 curriculum for the EIS Academy. The two institutions are building a long-term partnership involving space education.

The rocket is scheduled to launch on Saturday from New Mexico’s Spaceport America. The live stream will become active on the day of the flight, and you can tune in if you’d like to see the rocket begin its journey to carry the student and professional experiments into outer space. This will be the Pathfinder flight for the SARGE rocket.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

 

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3D Printing News Briefs: August 21, 2018

We’ve got plenty of business news for you in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and a little scientific research as well. Kelyniam Global has acquired new 3D printing technology, while Rostec makes an investment in technology. One of the earliest SpaceX employees is now an advisor for another aerospace company, the Youngstown Business Incubator has received a federal grant, and SAE International recently hosted a 3D printing webinar. Auburn University has been chosen as the site of a new National Center of Additive Manufacturing Excellence, and a new study discusses 4D printed elastic ceramics.

Kelyniam Global Adds New 3D Printing Capabilities

Using medical models for surgical pre-planning is almost a clinical standard these days. In an effort to increase its current medical modeling skills, custom 3D printed cranial implant manufacturer Kelyniam Global, which works with health systems and surgeons to improve cost-of-care and clinical outcomes, announced that it has expanded its 3D printing capabilities with the acquisition of new technology. This new technology aligns with the company’s reputation as a premium supplier of cranial implants requiring excellence in design and quick turnaround times.

“This state-of-the-art equipment will enable Kelyniam to produce certain medical models on the same 24-hour turnaround schedule we offer for cranial implants. The ability to rapidly print ultrahigh resolution models with high accuracy across our entire platform is a significant differentiator in our industry,” said Kelyniam COO Chris Breault.

Rostec Investing in Industrial 3D Printing Development

Russia’s state technologies corporation Rostec (also Rostek and Rostekh), which develops products for high-tech and communication systems, has invested nearly 3 billion rubles to create a specialized center for industrial 3D printing. The Center for Additive Technologies (CAC), with a goal of reducing the amount of time and money it takes to launch new products, will offer customers a full range of services and advanced 3D printers. The CAC’s main task will be introducing industrial 3D printing to high-tech industries that could really use it.

“Industrial 3D printing is becoming one of the indispensable attributes of modern industry. We see the high potential of this technology and introduce it into our production practice,” said Anatoly Serdyukov, the Industrial Director of the aviation cluster at Rostekh State Corporation. “For example, in the JDC today, about three tons of parts per year are produced by the additive technology method. The holding plans to widely use them in the serial production of promising Russian gas turbine engines, which will be certified in 2025 – 2030. The creation of a specialized center will expand the scope of this technology and produce parts for such industries as aircraft building, space, high technology medicine, automotive industry.”

Project participants calculate that the CAC’s first pilot batch of parts will be manufactured there sometime in 2019.

Former SpaceX Employee Becomes Advisor to Relativity Space

Aerospace company Relativity Space hopes to one day 3D print an entire rocket in an effort to lower the cost of space travel, and has been working hard to achieve this goal over the last few years. The company has fired up its 3D printed engine over 100 times so far, and just a few months ago received $35 million in Series B Funding. Now, Relativity Space has announced that Tim Buzza, one of the very first employees at SpaceX – another company working to 3D print rockets – is one of its official advisors.

Jordan Noone, Relativity Space Co-Founder, said “When I was at SpaceX, Tim’s stellar reputation for breadth and depth of engineering and operations was legendary in the industry.”

Buzza spent 12 years helping to develop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft and will advise Relativity Space on organizing the company structure, launch site selection and trades, rocket architecture, structures and avionics, and more.

Federal Grant Awarded to Youngstown Business Incubator

The Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI) is about to receive some new 3D printing software and hardware, thanks to a federal grant. Recently, the Appalachian Regional Commission awarded $185,000 in federal funding to YBI. The new 3D printers and 3D printing software that the grant will fund, in addition to being a boon for YBI, will also help to strengthen its frequent area partners Youngstown State University (YSU) and America Makes.

“Each additional piece of equipment further strengthen us as a national and international leader in additive manufacturing technology and this is a key part of that process,” said Michael Hripko, YSU’s Associative Vice President for Research.

SAE International Recently Held Additive Manufacturing Webinar

Last week, global engineering organization SAE International hosted an hour-long additive manufacturing webinar, called “Considerations When Integrating Additive Manufacturing into Aerospace and Ground Vehicle Development and Production Environment,” for members of the mobility engineering community. The discussion, moderated by the organization’s Senior Global Product Manager Audra Ziegenfuss, was led by four guest speakers: Dr. John Hart, the Director of MIT’s Center for Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies (ADAPT); Bill Harris, a Technical Fellow with Lockheed Martin; and Adam Rivard, the Additive Manufacturing Director for LAI International, Inc.

Topics covered during SAE International’s webinar last week included novel AM methods that translate to automotive and aerospace applications, the risks involved in introducing 3D printed, flight-critical parts, and the anticipated timeline for general acceptance of 3D printed parts by aerospace customers.

Auburn University Site of New National Center of AM Excellence

Recently, Auburn University in Alabama, ASTM International, and NASA launched two new centers of excellence in additive manufacturing with the shared goal of speeding up research and development, standardization and innovation in 3D printing. Researchers at Auburn’s National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME), will conduct interdisciplinary research, while also striving to grow effective collaboration between industry, government, academia, and not-for-profit.

“The Center of Excellence is going to facilitate us bringing together the best technical experts in industry, government, and academia, and that’s going to help us develop the very best standards for this emerging technology,” said Katharine Morgan, the President of ASTM International.

New Study On 4D Printed Elastic Ceramics

3D printing EDCs. (A) 3D printed large-scale elastomeric honeycomb. (B) 3D printed microlattices and (C) honeycombs of PDMS NCs and first EDCs and second EDCs.

Shape-morphing assembly is a great technology for applications in 4D printing, biomaterials, life sciences, and robotics, and multiple materials like ceramics, silicone, and polymers are used. But, we’ve not yet seen much in the way of ceramic structures derived from soft precursors that allow for elastic deformation. Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) have some excellent properties, such as high thermal stability and chemical resistance to oxidation and corrosion, and their microstructures can be fine-tuned through tailored polymer systems.

While we’re seeing a lot in the way of 3D printing soft materials, current ceramic precursors are not flexible and stretchable. Guo Liu, Yan Zhao, Ge Wu, and Jian Lu with the City University of Hong Kong published a paper, titled “Origami and 4D printing of elastomer-derived ceramic structures,” that explains how they developed silicone rubber matrix nanocomposites (NCs) that can be 3D printed and deformed into elastomer structures with complex shapes and transformed into mechanically strong EDCs.

The abstract reads, “Four-dimensional (4D) printing involves conventional 3D printing followed by a shape-morphing step. It enables more complex shapes to be created than is possible with conventional 3D printing. However, 3D-printed ceramic precursors are usually difficult to be deformed, hindering the development of 4D printing for ceramics. To overcome this limitation, we developed elastomeric poly(dimethylsiloxane) matrix nanocomposites (NCs) that can be printed, deformed, and then transformed into silicon oxycarbide matrix NCs, making the growth of complex ceramic origami and 4D-printed ceramic structures possible. In addition, the printed ceramic precursors are soft and can be stretched beyond three times their initial length. Hierarchical elastomer-derived ceramics (EDCs) could be achieved with programmable architectures spanning three orders of magnitude, from 200 μm to 10 cm. A compressive strength of 547 MPa is achieved on the microlattice at 1.6 g cm−3. This work starts a new chapter of printing high-resolution complex and mechanically robust ceramics, and this origami and 4D printing of ceramics is cost-efficient in terms of time due to geometrical flexibility of precursors. With the versatile shape-morphing capability of elastomers, this work on origami and 4D printing of EDCs could lead to structural applications of autonomous morphing structures, aerospace propulsion components, space exploration, electronic devices, and high-temperature microelectromechanical systems.”

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Research Tests 3D Printed Electronic Components for Space Flight

3D printed satellite

In a three-year experiment, the COSMIAC Research Center at the University of New Mexico has been researching and testing electronics that have been embedded into 3D printed systems. With funding of $450,000, the research team completed three goals: to design and print simple prototypes with hybrid materials, embedded chips and wiring; to test the designed circuits using COSMIAC’s in-house testing capabilities; and to publish the results for dissemination.

The team 3D printed, among other things, a circuit board with embedded electronics and subjected it to several experiments, which you can read about in a paper entitled “Environment Testing 3D Electronics Research Program.” The goal of the project was to 3D print a wide variety of different materials and test them in space conditions to determine changes in mass, along with other factors that would help determine which parts have the most potential to survive flight in the future.

“An example of this type of experiment could be a soldier’s helmet where the electronics that monitor health and location are embedded into the material from which the helmet is created,” the researchers state. “The designer could reduce or eliminate much of the traditional spider web of wiring. In traditional satellite design, if any of the wires are crimped or broken, the satellite is rendered inoperative. There is no redundancy in flight. A much more reliable solution would be a satellite where all the wiring is embedded into the structural walls where it cannot be accessed or damaged. It should be possible to plug in the modules to an embedded backplane.”

Experiments were developed to measure the 3D printed objects’ electromagnetic properties among other factors. Three different 3D printers were used: a MakerBot, a Stratasys uPrint, and a 3D Systems ProJet 3500 3D printer. To test the various 3D printers’ capabilities, a CubeSat with entirely 3D printed components was produced.

“This process was an excellent opportunity for the students to see how to print a satellite body and then be able to use the components for performing fit checks on the modules and their associated hole and thread spacing,” the researchers continue. “The satellite shown was then used to make measurements for determining how long to make cables for the real satellite.”

3D printed test piece

Printed circuit boards were 3D printed from 16 different materials and subject to multiple tests. The FDM materials showed a great deal of moisture change where the SLA 3D printed items didn’t, making them more ideal for space applications.

“The team achieved the original objectives as well as going into other areas of investigation that were of interest to the space community as more and more spacecraft activities are looking to use 3D printing for satellite development,” the researchers state. “The outcome is that excellent advances have been made in the areas of 3D printing for space but that the ability to print space qualified and repeatable systems for future nanosatellite applications is still probably a decade in the future.”

In conclusion, the researchers indicate that 3D printing is not quite ready for use in government missions for actual flight. It has great benefit for prototyping, however, and in the future it may play a much larger role in the actual fabrication of spaceflight components.

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3D Printing News Briefs: August 14, 2018

We’re taking care of business first in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, followed by a story about 3D printed glasses and then moving on into the aerospace sector. 3YOURMIND is sharing a preview of its upcoming virtual AM Summit, and Rize published a new case study. TriPro 3D Technology introduced a new 3D printer, and a doctor at the Beijing Tongren Hospital is hoping to correct patients’ vision with 3D printed glasses. Launcher completed another test for its 3D printed rocket engine, a 3D modeler put a lot of work into creating a 3D printed NASA helmet, and engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center created a 3D printable model of its flying telescope.

3YOURMIND Presenting Virtual AM Summit

German startup 3YOURMIND, which provides industrial 3D printing software solutions, is presenting a free virtual conference called the AM Summit later this month for people who want to learn more about industrial 3D printing. Beginning at 10 am Central European Time on August 28, the AM Summit will feature five speakers from multiple industries, who will be discussing topics like how to make data 3D printable, the future of 3D printing materials, and how to identify great AM business cases.

The AM Summit’s website states, “Learn how to get started with 3D design, identify your first successful business cases, and how to optimize workflows like leading companies around the world do. Participate in the digital conference online from your desk and chat in real time with the audience and the experts”

Rize Presents Customer Case Study

Boston-based 3D printing company Rize just released a new customer case study about New Hudson Facades (NHF), which designs, engineers, manufactures, and installs custom glass and aluminum façades on skyscrapers, that explains how the company adopted 3D printing in its Pennsylvania office, which already contained automated assembly lines, material handling and inspection equipment, and robotic glazing equipment. NHF’s engineering manager Andrew Black was already familiar with 3D printing and thought that the company could increase product quality and production and decrease costs by incorporating the technology into its daily operations. When asking Cimquest, a Rize reseller, for a recommendation, Black specified that the AM solution the company needed had to be safe, fast, easy to learn and use, and able to fabricate strong functional parts, like clamping fixtures and check gauges. Cimquest then suggested the Rize One.

“I put Rize One right next to my desk, so I can use it all the time. It’s so easy, anyone can use it,” Black said.

“We’re finding creative new uses every day for our Rize 3D printer.”

NHF is now enjoying a 15% increase in production speed and $200,000 cost savings per year on fixtures.

TriPro Introduces Industrial 3D Printer

China-based TriPro Technology Co., Ltd. specializes in lasers and CNC machines but has also made the leap to 3D printing. Now, the company is introducing its latest 3D printer, the ProMaker 700, for industrial applications. It’s easy to print with materials like ABS, PLA, PETG, and nylon on the ProMaker 700, which features a 460 x 430 x 740 mm build volume. The 3D printer can maintain a constant temperature of about 60°C, thanks to its full enclosure; this is necessary when working with materials like ABS so they don’t warp at the edges due to rapid cooling. With a 50 micron resolution on X and Y and a 100 micron on Z, the ProMaker 700 is also perfect for batch manufacturing.

“We highly recommend this machine for designing, for manufacturing, prototyping, importance of functional and parts manufacturing,” said Achilles from TriPro.

3D Printed Glasses for Correcting Vision

Dr. Song Hongxin with a pair of 3D printed glasses at Beijing Tongren Hospital. [Image: Beijing News]

At the Beijing Tongren Hospital in China, Dr. Song Hongxin is working to create customized 3D printed glasses with a free-form surface to help people with deformed corneas correct their vision. Free-form surface lenses, which can fit differently shaped corneas, can help with the symptoms of an eye disorder called keratoconus, which can result in symptoms like astigmatism, blurred vision, and nearsightedness.

Dr. Song, who was inspired by the adaptive optical system of NASA, explained, “Normal corneas have a smooth and convex surface, while their (keratoconus patients’) corneas are bumpy with many irregular concaves.”

While traditionally made glasses aren’t always customizable, and can be expensive when they are, 3D printing allows physicians to customize glasses more accurately to fit a patient’s cornea.

Launcher Completes Hot-Fire Test

Launcher, a space startup, is making metal 3D printed components for rocket engines, like a combustion chamber made using nickel-chromium alloy Inconel 718. The startup relies on EOS technology for its 3D printing needs, and recently completed another hot-fire test of its E-1 3D printed chamber rocket engine, which is being used to help Launcher validate the design of the 3D printed combustion chamber and internal cooling channels before the technology is applied to its much larger E-2.

During the 30 second test, Launcher achieved its highest “performance and temperature mix ratio for LOX/RP-1” and reached a combustion temperature of about 6,000°F, which is over twice the melting point temperature of its 3D printed Inconel 718 combustion chamber.

3D Printed NASA Helmet

Designer, animator, special effects creator, and maker Adam Savage, formerly of Mythbusters and currently of Tested, was excited to introduce a video on the site recently about a new member of the Tested family – 3D modeler and prop maker Darrell Maloney, also known as The Broken Nerd.

“Darrell came to my attention last year because he’s ludicrously prolific and incredibly facile at 3D printing and model making and ambitious in his scope,” Savage said in the new video.

“In our ongoing collaboration, Darrell will continue to deliver some videos for Tested.com, including this one, in which I commissioned Darrell to make a space helmet for me.”

It’s not just any space helmet either – Savage is working to replicate the orange Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES), also called a pumpkin suit. This full pressure suit was worn by Space Shuttle crews after STS-65, and Darrell adapted a high-fidelity model that Savage purchased in order to make the helmet 3D printable. It took over 100 hours of 3D printing to create the helmet – you can check out the full process in the video below.

3D Printable SOFIA Flying Telescope Model

A 3D printed model of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is displayed beneath a photo of the real thing.
[Image: NASA/SOFIA]

Engineers at the Ames Research Center have made a 3D printable eight-piece model of NASA’s flying telescope SOFIA, which stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. The SOFIA telescope was built into a modified Boeing 747 wide-body jetliner, and flies at altitudes of up to 45,000 feet in order to observe the objects that fill our universe, like black holes, comets, and stars, from the stratosphere. The 3D printable SOFIA model, which includes a mini version of the real SOFIA’s 106″ reflecting telescope, was built to a scale of 1/200, making it just under a foot long.

The digital files to 3D print your own SOFIA model are free to download.

“SOFIA flies higher than commercial jetliners to get above 99 percent of the water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere, which blocks infrared light from reaching the ground. This is why SOFIA is capable of making observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest ground-based telescopes,” NASA officials said.

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Archinaut Enables Production of More Powerful Small Satellites

A 3-meter mockup of the Archinaut-built solar array

Made In Space started building its Archinaut system a couple of years ago – essentially a 3D printer with a robotic arm capable of building in the vacuum of space. The purpose of the machine was to be able to build and repair satellites in space, creating larger and more complex systems than could be launched from Earth. But it’s small satellites that Archinaut’s technology is enabling currently – small satellites with the power of large ones.

Currently, small satellites are restricted to one kilowatt of power or less, but Made In Space is developing a power system that can provide up to five kilowatts of solar power, enabling the small satellites to provide large satellite capability.

“These systems enable power intensive payloads to be deployed to space at a fraction of the cost of larger satellites, with no sacrifice in power provisioning,” said Andrew Rush, CEO of Made In Space.

Archinaut-based solar array systems use space-manufactured structures and robotically assembled solar cell blankets to provide up to 20 square meters of solar array for small satellites that launch from ESPA rings or small launch vehicles.

“Despite advances in avionics and payload packaging, small satellites provide less capability per kilogram than their larger brethren because small satellites are power constrained. This often prevents power intensive science, remote sensing, communications, and defense payloads which otherwise fit,” Rush said. “Deploying these power intensive payloads on small satellites is game changing because these platforms costs an order of magnitude less to build and launch and can be fielded much more rapidly than 1,000+ kilogram satellites.

“The technology risk is very low. The core additive manufacturing technology currently operating in space and the extended structure manufacturing and robotic system hardware demonstrated in thermal vacuum chambers simulating the LEO environment.”

The longest 3D printed part

Made In Space’s extended additive manufacturing technology (ESAMM) is capable of manufacturing structures much longer than the machine itself, and last year the company set a Guinness World Record for the longest 3D printed part, which was 37.7 meters long. ESAMM was also successfully operated in a thermal vacuum chamber that simulated a Low Earth Orbit environment.

“We continue to develop these technologies, planning more complex thermal vacuum and laboratory tests focusing on more complex and autonomous manufacturing and assembly operations,” said Rush.

Archinaut’s power system is capable of providing up to five times the power of state of the art systems for small satellites by launching the system with raw material and tightly packed solar arrays rather than folded up booms and complex deployment mechanisms. On orbit, Archinaut manufactures the core array lattice structures and integrates solar array blankets robotically, physically and electrically, completing the solar array wing.

“Due to the volume and mass efficiencies of manufacturing the structure, a small satellite such as a 150 kg ESPA-class satellite could be deployed with 5 kW of power,” said Rush. “Today, that kind of power is only available on 1,000+ kg satellite buses launching on rockets costing tens of millions of dollars.”

Archinaut’s power system will enable many large satellite applications on small satellites. It can also operate as a standalone system integrated into larger satellite buses, making larger systems more efficient. Preliminary studies indicated that a 500-kW Archinaut power system using modern solar cell blankets requires 2,000 m² of solar array surface area and has a system mass of 1,000 kg – more than an order of magnitude less mass than systems currently on orbit. The International Space Station’s eight solar array wings, in contrast, have an area of about 2,500 m² with a system mass of 65,000 kg.

“Because the Archinaut system uses in space manufacturing and robotics, the same core technology will be useful for a range of spacecraft missions,” said Rush. “It can also be used for a range of impactful applications beyond power systems, such as creating large apertures or spacing out sensors from one another.”

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[Images: Made In Space]

 

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Fabrisonic’s Whitepaper on Metal 3D Printed Heat Exchangers for NASA JPL

Founded in 2011, Ohio-based Fabrisonic uses its hybrid metal 3D printing process, called Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM), to merge layers of metal foil together in a solid-state thanks to high frequency ultrasonic vibrations. Fabrisonic mounts its patented hybrid 3D printing process on traditional CNC equipment – first, an object is built up with 3D printing, and then smoothed down with CNC machining by milling to the required size and surface. No melting is required, as Fabrisonic’s 6′ x 6′ x 3′ UAM 3D printer can “scrub” metal foil and build it up into the final net shape, and then machines down whatever else is needed at the end of the process.

Last year, Fabrisonic’s president and CEO Mark Norfolk told 3DPrint.com at RAPID 2017 that about 30% of the company’s business was in heat exchangers, as the manufacturing process is a lot smoother thanks to its low-temperature metal 3D printing technology – no higher than 250°F. UAM makes it possible to join metal alloys that are notoriously difficult to weld, such as 1000, 2000, 6000, and 7000 series copper, aluminum, stainless steel, and exotic refractory metals…all of which are used in the heat management systems at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

[Image: Sarah Saunders]

Justin Wenning, a production engineer at Fabrisonic I spoke with at RAPID 2018 this spring, recently published a whitepaper, titled “Space-grade 3D Metal Printed Heat Exchangers,” that takes a deep dive into the work he’s been doing with Fabrisonic’s 3D printed metal heat exchangers for aerospace applications. The company participated in a two-year program at JPL, and 3D printed a new class of metal heat exchanger that passed JPL’s intense testing.

“For every interplanetary mission that JPL oversees, numerous critical heat exchanger devices are required to regulate the sensitive, on-board electronic systems from temperature extremes experienced in space. These devices can be small (3 in. x 3 in.) or large (3 ft. x 3 ft.),” Wenning wrote in his whitepaper.

For many years, NASA glued bent metal tubes along, and fastened them to, the exterior of a space vehicle’s structure, which weigh a lot and do not perform well thermally. These devices were also assembled and quality-checked by hand, so production could take up to nine months. At the end of its partnership with NASA JPL, Fabrisonic showed that 3D printing can be used to improve upon all of these issues.

Evolution of UAM 3D printed heat exchanger with NASA JPL. Samples began small to
evaluate benchmark burst and helium leak performance in 2014. The team then began focusing on technology scale-up and system integration. The culmination is a full-size, functioning heat exchanger.

The UAM system does not use any controlled atmospheres, so the part size and design range greatly. NASA JPL first started working with Fabrisonic in 2014, thanks to a JPL Spontaneous R&TD grant, to look into small, simple UAM heat exchangers, before moving up to larger structures in 2015 through NASA’s SBIR/STTR program. The result was a full-size, functioning heat exchanger prototype for the Mars 2020 rover mission that was fabricated in far less time, with a 30% lighter mass.

The 3D printed heat exchangers that Fabrisonic creates involve building pumped-fluid loop tubing right into the structure for additional efficiency and robustness, as the company’s UAM process can also be used to mix and match materials, like copper and aluminum.

UAM starts with a metal substrate, and material is then added to and removed from the structure to make the device’s internal passageways. To help with material deposition, a proprietary water-soluble support structure is added, before adding strength and features, respectively, with optional heat-treating and final CNC machining. Fabrisonic then added SS tubing, which helps with fitting attachments, to the aluminum structure with friction welding for NASA JPL’s development parts.

NASA JPL also needed to raise its technology readiness level (TRL) from 3 to near 6. During the program, Fabrisonic and its EWI affiliate 3D printed and tested dozens of different heat exchangers, in order to develop a final prototype for ground-based qualification standards based off of NASA JPL’s existing heat exchangers.

UAM process steps for fabricating NASA JPL heat exchangers.

The NASA JPL TRL 6 qualification included several tests, including proof pressure testing to 330 PSI, two-day controlled thermal cycling from -184°F to 248°F in an environmental chamber, and vibration testing on an electrodynamic shaker, which simulated a common day rocket launch (1-10 G) in all orientations while attached to a dummy mass at the same time for imitating a normal hosted electronics package. Other tests included:

  • Burst testing greater that 2500 PSI with a 0.030-in. wall thickness
  • Helium leak testing to less than 1×10-8 cc/s GHe between thermal and vibration testing
  • Full 3D CT scans of each specimen before and after mechanical testing, in order to evaluate void density and any accumulated testing damage

JPL project with copper embedded. [Image: Sarah Saunders]

Each of the three UAM 3D printed heat exchanger components passed the qualifications, which raised the technology to its goal of near TRL 6. To corroborate the results, NASA JPL scientists completed more helium leak and burst testing, along with thermal shock testing on certain devices; this involved submerging certain heat exchangers in liquid nitrogen (-320°F) to test their bi-metallic friction welded stainless steel aluminum joints. According to the whitepaper, the joints were “robust and helium leak tight” post-submersion.

Fabrisonic’s new class of 3D printed metal heat exchanger, developed under NASA JPL, has uses in other commercial production applications, which the company is currently exploring.

“For instance, the lack of melting in UAM enables the integration of multiple metals into one build since high temperature chemistry is avoided,” Wenning wrote. “Thus, copper may be integrated as a heat spreader in critical locations improving thermal performance with a small weight penalty.”

Because of its low temperatures, UAM can also be used to embed sensors into solid metal. In 3D printed heat exchangers, sensors could help monitor system health and improve control by being integrated in important locations.

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[Images: Fabrisonic unless otherwise noted]